The focus of this “Milk not Jails” program seems to be two-fold; firstly, to economically uplift dairy farming communities in upstate New York and secondly, to reform New York’s penal system and offer an alternative to Jail-time.
1.) My grandfather and my father each worked on a dairy farm in Idaho one point. They both cited how very much they hated waking up at 4-5am each morning to go into a smelly barn and milk cows. For that reason, as soon as my Grandfather turned 17, he joined the Navy. So, to me it seems that the obvious cause for the reduction in the number of dairy farms today as compared to 1970 (650,000-54,000) is not because the government is not doing enough for farmers, or that they need prison labor to improve business, it’s because dairy farming is hard work and it doesn’t pay well enough. If one would like to truly help dairy farmers, why not implement some sort of collective among farmers so they can work with corporations to receive larger contracts, so the money will match peoples work-investment? Instead of working against large collective farms, why not work with them?
2.) Why this solution? It seems campy. If the issue is the penal code, why not fix the penal code? If too many blacks and latinos are going to jail for crimes as mundane as marijuanna possession, why not lobby directly toward changing that body of law? In other words, why change the method of punishment, when the real problem is that these people are being punished by an unjust law in the first place?
