Human rights activist Van Jones advocated prison system reform Thursday night in a lecture entitled “Green Jobs – Not Jail” organized by the Office of Affirmative Action and the Center for Community Partnerships.
Jones, who graduated from Yale Law School in 1993, founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, CA and recently developed “Reclaim the Future,” a green jobs campaign that encourages environmentally friendly companies to hire ex-convicts, who often have difficultly securing employment because of the social stigma attached to them.
“My fundamental commitment is to build, in the United States, a green economy that is strong enough to lift people out of poverty,” Jones said at the beginning of his lecture.
Jones’s new initiative emphasizes broad-based community support through a coalition of various community groups.
According to Jones, between 1992 and 2000, the prison populations doubled from one million to two million. The state government of California spends two billion dollars more on prisons than on college education.
Jones also noted that the system was glaringly biased, since most of the incarcerated are African Americans and Latinos, and come from low-income families. Jones cited the War on Drugs as an example.
“They [officials] never kicked the doors of fraternity houses or country clubs to fight the drug war,” he said.
Calling the jail system the “incarceration industry,” Jones argued that private economic motives influence politics and exacerbate the problem.
“We have three private prison companies that are publicly traded on the stock exchange market and the number one donator to politics in America is the prison guards’ unions,” Jones said. “Even Microsoft’s cellophane-wrapper factory is housed in a prison.”
According to Jones, the prison profits are later used to lobby the government to build more prisons and to impose tougher laws that will increase the incarceration rate.
Jones questioned the ethics of prison factories. Although the factories supposedly provide trade skills, the jobs are unpaid and often expose prisoners to dangerous working conditions. He also noted that the same companies that outsource jobs to prisons will not employ the same prisoners once released.
“We are trafficking human flesh once again,” Jones remarked.
His new philosophy, which he called “the politics of hope,” has helped him in dealing with business leaders and officials who refuse to cooperate with his initiative.
Instead of practicing “contentious politics,” Jones believes it more effective to focus on the people who agree and deal with the opposition later.
Jones came up with the green job concept when he was recuperating from a mental breakdown he had in 2000.
“It was the worst thing and the best thing that ever happened to me,” Jones confessed, referring to his depression.
He realized he was continually angered and troubled by the injustice and violence he witnessed, yet was not able to come up with solutions.
“It is indeed miserable if you are defined by the thing you are fighting against because you haven’t come up with things you are fighting for,” he said.
His activism began when he was studying law at Yale University. Coming from rural West Tennessee, Jones was startled by the prevalent use of marijuana among both college students and youth in his old neighborhood. He was struck by the disparity in treatment given to drug users in the different communities.
“When the kids in Yale got into trouble, the system responded vigorously,” Jones said. “They got help. They even went to Europe. But the kids from the neighborhood went to prison. Four years, eight, seven, or even fifteen.”
Spurred by personal experience, Jones delved deeper into the incarceration crisis in the United States.
Jones invited the students to promote the third wave of environmental conservation by investing in solutions.
“I believe that the United States can and should lead this world, but not in war, incarceration rate, or pollution,” he said. “But in creating a clean, green technology that can save the world.”
For more information on the “Reclaim the Future” green jobs campaign, visit the Ella Baker Center website at http://ellabakercenter.org.
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