1 Summary 2 Meegan Moriarty's (2016) article, 'Prisoner co-ops boost employment, self-esteem and support re-entry into society,' discusses prisoner cooperatives concerning how they support the welfare of prisoners and society at large. The cooperatives in question are run by prisoners or for prisoners, offering services such as training, transformation, and employment. Moriarty (2016) reveals that there are prisoners' cooperatives in various countries across the world, run by incarcerated people or ex-convicts to try and promote their employment, enhance re-entry into the community, and boost their esteem (Moriarty, 2016). In addition, the cooperatives engage in a wide range of activities to improve employment among prisoners and ex-convicts; these include training and creating job are trained in various skills. The things that surprised me include the management of Cooperativa de Servicios ARIGOS in Guyana, which entirely operates within the prison. The operation of this cooperative requires the full support of the prison management and points out the self-driven efforts of inmates to better their life. I was further amazed by the cooperative's membership which included all prisoners (Moriarty, 2016). The ability of the prisoner cooperative to bring together all inmates for a good initiative without the help of external forces is plausible.
2 The inspiration I got from the reading is the determination of the 19-year-old Roberto Luis Rodriguez Rosario that led to the establishment of Cooperativa de Servicios ARIGOS in Puerto Rico. He invested a lot of time and effort in seeing his idea actualize. Although the country's laws prohibited prisoners from forming a cooperative society, he established one and pushed for legal reforms to make it legal for inmates to form a cooperative. Moreover, the success of prisoner cooperatives in securing jobs and businesses for prisoners and ex-convicts is an inspiration to make the prison system responsive to the needs of the incarcerated. The collaboration between government agencies and prisoners' cooperation is another inspiration that can be leveraged to empower prisoners and make good use of their skills and talents in building the economy. Unlike the other reading that focused on community justice systems that encourage rehabilitation and community sentencing as strategies to advance the welfare of convicts, the reading offers a new strategy that focuses on prisoners of ex-convicts running their cooperatives. The cooperatives provide members with a wide range of services that help them to lead productive lives (House & Rashid, 2022). Unlike the other strategies, the strategy of prisoners’ cooperation largely depends on the prisoners themselves to thrive. It is a self-driven initiative that fosters a sense of personal responsibility. The weakness of the article includes limited information about the adverse effects of running prisoner's cooperatives within a prison premise. In cases where all prisoners are members of a cooperative, concerns about the possible organization of inmates for a harmful cause arise. The article has also not addressed the possible challenges these prison cooperatives face and the likelihood of them contributing to the prison industry system that encourages incarceration. The highlighted cooperatives also have low numbers, raising concerns about their
3 large-scale applicability. Nevertheless, the reading provides insights into alternative strategies that can be pursued to address recidivism, re-entry into the community, and improve the economic and social welfare of prisoners.
4 References House, J., & Rashid, A. (2022). Solidarity Beyond Bars: Unionizing Prison Labour. Fernwood Publishing. Moriarty, M. (2016). Prisoner co-ops boost employment, self-esteem and support re-entry into society. Rural Cooperative 83(1), 14–18, 37