The same thoughts keep running through his mind. That guy sitting in his cell wondering if hes going to outlive his sentence, all the amends he made or wants to makewill he get to see that through? Will he get to be like me and the numerous other people who are formerly incarcerated and are doing great things in the community right now? I think about them and that my voice has to be in advocacy for them.

B

eyond the urgency of the San Quentin COVID outbreak, Lockhearts day-to-day work at Planting Justice is about the longterm project of prison abolition, which means working with people to build healthier communities. The definition of that is manifold. It means helping formerly incarcerated people get on their feet through green jobs at Planting Justice, awakening them to a new sense of purpose by building raised flower beds for clients and tending to plants at the organizations nursery and farm. It means teaching about sustainability and food justice in public school classrooms, juvenile detention centers, jails and prisons. It means helping people who live in food deserts start urban gardens. It means handing out free kale smoothies at Castlemont High School during a time when many are going hungry because of the pandemic-induced recession.

If we go in and teach these people how to grow their own food and how to be sustainablethe Black Panther Party got it right, Lockheart says. With no food and no options, [people are] gonna go get it how they can. And unfortunately, thats crime. And crime equals prison. We wanna abolish the prisons, we wanna abolish all these systems, but we first have to plant the seeds of love, trust and sustainability.

Lockheart and his fellow reentry coordinator Diane Williams sow those seeds by helping their colleagues get acclimated to life outside of prison, sometimes in ways people whove never been incarcerated may take for granted. Planting Justice gives former residents, as formerly incarcerated people are called there, clothing and food stipends; Lockheart and Williams help them navigate bureaucratic tasks such as reinstating a drivers license after a DUI. They offer emotional support too. Meditation circles are as much a part of the workday as pulling weeds and watering strawberries and squashes.

Really its believing in them and whatever they bring to the table thats positive, encourage that, says Williams, who brings 40 years of social work and substance-abuse counseling experience to Planting Justice. So much stuff that happened to us as a little kids, we keep recycling it as adults until we process it and move on. So were just helping each other move on here.

Read more from the original source:

Planting Justice's Prison Abolition Work Starts at the Root - KQED