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New from Rutgers University Press · November 2026

Ecologies
of Justice

Making and Unmaking Prison Worlds

Edited by

Matthew DelSesto · Daniela Jauk-Ajamie
Elizabeth Lara · Shea Zwerver

📅  Publication Date: November 10, 2026

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Ecologies of Justice: Making and Unmaking Prison Worlds — book cover, edited by Matthew DelSesto, Daniela Jauk-Ajamie, Elizabeth Lara, and Shea Zwerver
"A compelling vision for shrinking the carceral system while healing the environment."— James Forman, Jr., Yale Law "Brave, heartfelt research and results — just what our world needs now."— Jennifer Jewell, Cultivating Place "An imaginative montage of cutting-edge research, poetry, history, and timely storytelling."— Stephen Pfohl, Boston College "A remarkable tapestry from voices that raise awareness and pose solutions for two of our most urgent societal concerns."— Nalini Nadkarni, University of Utah "Opens up a dynamic space of dialogue between fields of study and practice too often treated separately."— Paul Draus, University of Michigan-Dearborn "The authorship is unique — practitioners, academics, community representatives, and the incarcerated community."— Omi Hodwitz, University of Idaho "A compelling vision for shrinking the carceral system while healing the environment."— James Forman, Jr., Yale Law "Brave, heartfelt research and results — just what our world needs now."— Jennifer Jewell, Cultivating Place "An imaginative montage of cutting-edge research, poetry, history, and timely storytelling."— Stephen Pfohl, Boston College "A remarkable tapestry from voices that raise awareness and pose solutions for two of our most urgent societal concerns."— Nalini Nadkarni, University of Utah "Opens up a dynamic space of dialogue between fields of study and practice too often treated separately."— Paul Draus, University of Michigan-Dearborn "The authorship is unique — practitioners, academics, community representatives, and the incarcerated community."— Omi Hodwitz, University of Idaho "Seeks to build bridges between reform and abolition to create broader efforts for a world beyond prisons."— Calvin John Smiley, author of Purgatory Citizenship

About the Book

What the Book Is About

What is the role of multi-species ecologies in creating spaces that counteract carceral violence?

This volume brings together, for the first time, contributions on prison and jail programs, community-based interventions, environmental justice, and sustainability. Through rigorous analysis, detailed case studies, poetry, and personal reflections, the book offers ways of thinking and acting at the intersection of environmental issues and the carceral system.

Approaches range from reform to abolition, as authors detail practical interventions and imaginative courses of action. The book uniquely highlights voices of those who are incarcerated, survivors of crime, and institutional stakeholders — describing practices that create transformative spaces of environmental education, green workforce pipelines, and reciprocal eco-social healing.

Pre-order

Order direct from the publisher using code RUP30 at checkout for 30% off. All proceeds from the book will be used to support the Ecologies of Justice Network.

You can also donate a copy to an incarcerated reader or nonprofit organization that works on decarceration or environmental justice projects. The Ecologies of Justice Book Donation Fund aims to make the book more widely accessible. Donations to the fund will collect money to purchase copies of the Ecologies of Justice book (at bulk discount price). Books will be donated to incarcerated readers, prison libraries, and nonprofits that work in prisons or on environmental justice projects.

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Praise

What Scholars Are Saying

"Inspiring and deeply thought-provoking, it offers a compelling vision for shrinking the carceral system while healing the environment."
James Forman, Jr. · Yale Law professor and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America
"For all of us who tend to plants and place, and hope to tend to people with equal care and dignity, this compilation of brave, heartfelt research and results is just what our world needs now."
Jennifer Jewell · host of the award-winning podcast Cultivating Place and author of What We Sow: On the Personal, Ecological, and Cultural Significance of Seeds
"Puts the voices of incarcerated people, survivors, horticultural educators, correctional reformers, and prison abolitionists in conversation with each other and with the wider ecology of nature to which we all belong."
Stephen Pfohl · Professor of Sociology at Boston College
"Builds bridges between reform and abolition to create broader efforts for a world beyond prisons, highlighting how environmental justice, incarceration, reentry, and multi-species ecologies are deeply interlinked."
Calvin John Smiley · author of Purgatory Citizenship: Reentry, Race, and Abolition

Inside the Book

Table of Contents

Part I

Contexts

  • The Environmental and the Carceral
  • Remembering a Leader, Continuing the Work
  • Soil Therapy
  • How Soil Acts as a Living Witness to Racial Violence
  • The Politics of Concrete
  • Temporal Misalignment
  • A Prison Tree
  • Healing Our Relationship to the Land

Part II

Inside

  • From Insight Garden Program to Land Together
  • The Sustainability in Prisons Project
  • Worm Farming in Washington State
  • Set Free Through Sustainability
  • Prison with Purpose
  • Warrior and Weaver Work
  • Sustaining Oases
  • Liberatory Spaces in Prison

Part III

Outside

  • Preparing for What's Next Through Farming
  • The Canoe Project
  • Food and Community as Disruptive Methodology
  • Growing Community Beyond the Fence
  • Therapeutic Horticulture as Intervention
  • Losing Paul and Finding Him in the Cardinal
  • Becoming Ecosystem Participants

The Editors

About the Editors

MD

Matthew DelSesto

Sociologist and author whose research spans urban sustainability, environmental justice, and prison education; founder of an Inside-Out Program at Boston College and author of Design and the Social Imagination (2022).

DJ

Daniela Jauk-Ajamie

Clinical sociologist and Assistant Professor at the University of Akron whose research bridges gender, criminal justice, and food justice; co-author of Gardening Behind Bars (2024).

EL

Elizabeth Lara

Garden educator and researcher devoted to horticulture as liberation, specializing in the history of prison gardens in California and published in The Promise of Multispecies Justice (2022).

SZ

Shea Zwerver

Practitioner who brings nature and conservation workforce training to carceral settings, having conceptualized the Correctional Conservation Collaboration at Pennsylvania state prisons.

Contributors

All Contributors

Will Anderson +
Will Anderson is a transgender/nonconforming writer, artist and musician currently incarcerated in Moose Lake, Minnesota. They are a member of Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop and their prison writers collective. Their work has appeared in Territory, Chatham Review, Stillpoint Magazine, and (with Sarah Snyder) in the forthcoming volume Entangled and Empowered: Agency in Multispecies Communities. Their work and contact information are available at linktr.ee/wma9455.
Brian Auclair +
Brian Auclair is the primary gardener and landscaper for all green, common spaces at Massachusetts Correctional Institution, Norfolk. Over the last 25 years while at MCI-Norfolk, Brian has pursued and earned his GED and a Bachelor of Arts from Boston University. He is currently training service dogs for NEADS, serves as a facilitator for the cognitive introspection program Jericho Circle, and is an accomplished Toastmaster.
Kelli Bush +
Kelli Bush co-directs the Sustainability in Prisons Project (SPP) and the Evergreen Liberation Education Network (ELEN) at The Evergreen State College. SPP is a partnership founded by Evergreen and the Washington State Department of Corrections to bring nature, science, and environmental education into prisons. Kelli supports a team of thirteen staff managing ecological conservation and environmental education initiatives including threatened and endangered species programs, peer-led education courses, nature, art, and culture workshops, and community-supported experiential learning. In 2023 she took on an additional co-directorship with ELEN, supporting a network of Evergreen education and reentry programs including a new bachelor's degree program in a Washington prison. Prior to joining SPP in 2010, Kelli had over 15 years of horticulture and restoration ecology experience and earned a B.A. in Agriculture Ecology from The Evergreen State College.
Cory Campbell +
Cory Campbell is a student at Lewis-Clark State College in Idaho. He grew up in the Treasure Valley with two loving parents and three sisters. As a juvenile, Cory was incarcerated and has continuously tried to make the most of his situation through writing and education. While incarcerated, Cory has obtained two associates degrees and is working towards his bachelor's degree in Business and Communication Arts. He spends the majority of his time in education, working on a variety of projects and being an active member in LC State's Student Council. Aside from school, Cory enjoys beadwork, running, photography, and working on an array of media projects.
Linda Cayton +
Linda Cayton is a peer support specialist and a formerly incarcerated mother in North Carolina. She works every day supporting people with substance use disorder in Alamance County where she lives. When she's not working or taking classes at Wake Technical Community College, she's spending quality time with her daughter and grandson.
Matthew DelSesto +
Matthew DelSesto is an author, gardener, and sociologist. His research and practice have focused on urban sustainability, environmental justice, community-led design and social innovation, prisons and alternatives to incarceration, and experiential learning. In addition to more than a dozen articles, book chapters, or essays on these topics, his book Design and the Social Imagination (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022) explores historical and present-day models of community-engaged research. Matthew has taught in the Sociology Department at Boston College and at Parsons School of Design at The New School. He was a postdoctoral researcher with the Transforming Narratives of Gun Violence Initiative at Emerson College. He has also trained and practiced as a horticultural therapist, and for the last 15 years he has worked in a wide range of prison education programs including an Inside-Out Program that he founded and coordinated at Boston College.
Leanna First-Arai +
Leanna First-Arai is a journalist, teacher and researcher intent on bringing awareness to the connections between climate breakdown and economic and racial injustice. Her reporting has appeared widely, including in The Guardian, Truthout, Undark, Southerly, MLK50, Yes! Magazine, The Food and Agriculture Reporting Network, and Sierra Magazine. Leanna is also the host and a co-producer of the Southern Environmental Law Center's award-winning podcast Broken Ground, and she is currently working on a PhD in Geography at University College Dublin, in Ireland.
Diane Follingstad +
Diane Follingstad, Ph.D., ABPP, is emeritus Executive Director and Women's Circle Endowed Chair of the Center for Research on Violence Against Women and emeritus Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Kentucky. She holds the diplomate in forensic psychology from the American Board of Forensic Psychology and was awarded fellow status in the Psychology and Law Division of the American Psychological Association. Her quantitative research over more than 40 years in the area of violence against women has covered issues related to intimate partner violence, physical dating violence, and factors impacting jury verdicts in cases where battered women killed a partner. Her research has led to more sophisticated measurement of psychological aggression and abuse, and she has published critiques regarding the problems of measurement in the field.
Judith Foster +
Judith Foster is Founder of H.E.R.O. Nurturing Center, a non-profit organization located in the heart of Boston, MA. She has been a community activist and organizer for over twenty years. In 2009, working with the Green Party, Judith coordinated The Re-invest in Yourself Conference at the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center in Boston. In 2022, Judy was awarded The HERO Among Us Award by the Boston Celtics and The Norfolk County Heroes Award for community building and public service. She has also been an advocate for the healing power of nature, including her support for SD.1631 'An Act Relative to Nature as a Prescription' in the Massachusetts State Legislature. She is certified by the Labor Guild and in the curriculum of ESPERE: Schools of Forgiveness and Reconciliation.
Patrick Gazeley-Romney +
Patrick Gazeley-Romney was incarcerated at Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution (EOCI) for eight years where he was the program lead for the Beekeeping, Horticulture, Mindfulness, Greenhouse Management, and Roots of Success programs. At EOCI, Patrick was a staff writer for the ECHO Newsletter and the Secretary for the EOCI Enrichment Club. He has dedicated his time in prison to developing programming and curricula to enrich the lives of his peers. Patrick has a Bachelor's Degree from Portland State University. He looks forward to his release in 2027 at which time he plans to establish an arborist business in Portland, Oregon and continue his work with the Roots of Success program.
Morgan Godvin +
Morgan Godvin is an internationally recognized expert in drug policy, harm reduction, and addiction research, driven by her lived experience. Indicted for drug delivery resulting in death for her best friend's accidental overdose, she served five years in federal prison, then dedicated her life to the intersection of substance use and the criminal-legal system. As Project Director for Drug Checking Los Angeles at UCLA, she expanded fentanyl sampling and led research that identified a new contaminant, later published in JAMA. She is currently in a Global Health PhD program at UCSD and SDSU. In 2021, she founded harm reduction nonprofit Beats Overdose, partnering with Rhymesayers Entertainment to tour with hip hop artists, training thousands of fans and venue staff in overdose response. Featured in The Washington Post and Vice, she serves on Oregon's Measure 110 Oversight and Accountability Council and as Director of the Community Council for the NIDA Clinical Trials Network.
Rima Green +
A Native American, Rima Green has experienced both foster care and incarceration. After a 30-year product development career in high-tech, Rima returned to her first love: gardening and working with individuals caught up in the correctional system. Since 2014, Rima has directed the Lettuce Grow program, which provides garden education to inmates in correctional institutions and juvenile facilities in Oregon. Since 2010, over 1,550 inmates have taken one or more Lettuce Grow classes and many have found work in the horticulture field.
Nick Hacheney +
Nick Hacheney is a longtime advocate for environmental and educational programs in carceral settings. He has been published in BioCycle, The Crime Report, The Appeal, The Economist's 1843 Magazine, and others. His 2009 TEDx Talk 'The Power of Sustainability' highlighted an environmental program he started in prison that has since been featured at two international environmental conferences. Most recently, he authored several chapters of curriculum for the Nevada State prison system. He has been incarcerated since 2001.
Elizabeth Hawes +
Elizabeth Hawes is a six-time national PEN America award winner in memoir, poetry, and drama, and the recipient of a Fielding A. Dawson award, three Minnesota Broadsides, and the National PEN L'Engle-Rahman Prize. She was awarded a 2019 journalist grant for the Solitary Confinement Reporting Project. Hawes has contributed to scholarly volumes including Teaching Literature and Writing in Prisons and Into Abolition: A Guidebook for Liberatory Theatre-making Practices, and has published in Harper's Bazaar, American Theatre Magazine, the Vera Institute of Justice, and Truthout.org. Her play Supernova was a winner at The Wild Project's 2022 New York Play Festival. She has been incarcerated since 2010.
Abiodun Henderson +
Abiodun Charlotte Henderson is a community organizer and Executive Director of The Come Up Project, which features Gangstas to Growers, an agribusiness training program for formerly incarcerated young adults, and the developing Sweet Sol, a worker-owned cooperative. She has been an organizer in Southwest Atlanta for over 10 years and under her leadership, the Westview Community Garden is now community-owned. Abiodun is a board member of the Georgia Cooperative Development Center, the Collective Courage Fund, a founding member of the MAMA (Metro Atlanta Mutual Aid) Fund, and FAAM (Free Atlanta Abolition Movement). She is a native Brooklynite who represents for the Kru Tribe of Native Liberians.
David Helps +
David Helps is a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Southern California, where he is working on a book titled American Babel: A People's History of Global Los Angeles. David's research and writing for public audiences has appeared in The Nation, the Washington Post, and In These Times, among other outlets. His essay 'In the Rubble,' about la montaña, photography, and the Los Angeles housing crisis, appears in Writing the Golden State: The New Literary Terrain of California (Angel City Press, 2024).
Juan Hernandez +
Juan Hernandez is incarcerated in Washington State. He has been the lead technician for a highly acclaimed sustainability program, has worked with the University of Washington and Evergreen State College to develop curriculum on numerous topics. His writing has been published in BioCycle Magazine, and he was a co-author for a 2022 research paper on soil health in the academic journal Urban Forestry and Urban Greening. He is scheduled to be released in 2028.
Daniela Jauk-Ajamie +
Daniela Jauk-Ajamie, PhD, is an Assistant Professor for Sociology and Criminal Justice Studies at the University of Akron, Ohio. She received a Masters in Sociology from the University of Graz in Austria and completed her Ph.D. in Sociology as a Fulbright student at the University of Akron in 2013. She is a certified clinical sociologist and serves on the board of the American Association of Applied and Clinical Sociology (AACS). Her areas of research interest and teaching are gender, inequality in the criminal legal system, and qualitative methods. She co-authored the book Gardening Behind Bars: Clinical Sociology and Food Justice in Incarcerated Settings (2024, Springer), and her work has been published in Women and Criminal Justice, Sexualities, and Societies Without Borders.
William (Bill) Jett +
William (Bill) Jett (September 21, 1962 – November 27, 2022) was a husband, brother, father, friend to many, and environmental advocate and activist. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Bill was passionate about creating sustainable communities and promoted engagement in environmental work to create safe spaces for open communication and healing. He was a devoted practitioner of meditation and mindfulness in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh. As the inaugural Fleet Manager at GrowNYC, Bill worked to develop the fleet safety program and led sustainability planning for the eventual conversion of GrowNYC's fleet to electric vehicles. From 2013 to 2020, working with the New York City Office of Recycling Outreach and Education, he helped divert over 7 million pounds of food scraps from the main waste stream into compost. Bill graduated from Bard College with a B.S. in Environmental Studies and from NYU Wagner with a Master of Urban Planning degree. He was a longtime, active supporter of the Bard Prison Initiative.
Tomas Keen +
Tomas Keen is a writer from Washington State, prioritizing issues of social justice and legal reform. His work has appeared in The Crime Report, Inquest, Open Campus, the Economist's 1843 Magazine, and others. In 2010 he started serving a 20-year prison term.
Nyki Kish +
Nyki Kish is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of Victoria and the Associate Executive Director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies. Committed to public scholarship, systemic advocacy, and community-engaged research, she holds multiple publications and is frequently called upon as an expert on incarceration in Canada. Nyki has a rich history of commitment to addressing the impacts of incarceration, from founding Books to Bars — an Ontario-based books to prisoners' non-profit — in 2008, to her many years with Emma's Acres, a transformative justice social enterprise farm in British Columbia. Her research focuses on generating insight into life sentences in Canada and aims toward legislative change to abolish them.
Elizabeth Lara +
Elizabeth Lara is devoted to plants, gardens, landscape history, and public horticulture, particularly as they intersect with matters of liberation. She currently works as a garden educator, Dodger Stadium tour guide (with a specialization on the botanic garden tour), a facilitator for a domestic violence intervention program, and a freelance gardener. Elizabeth received her Anthropology PhD from Deakin University in 2024. Her academic research focuses on gardens and horticultural history in current and former sites of incarceration in California. Her work 'Prison Gardens and Growing Abolition' has been published in the edited collection The Promise of Multispecies Justice (Duke University Press, 2022).
Caihong Li +
Caihong Li is the principal data analyst at the Performance Analytics Center of Excellence (PACE) at the University of Kentucky. Her research interests include methodology, psychometrics, and quantitative data analyses in social sciences. She has published 15 papers on research methodology, and scale development and validation in the fields of education, psychology, and sociology.
Frederick Livingston +
Frederick Livingston was born at the southern tip of the Salish Sea in Olympia, Washington. He has studied and practiced ecology, sustainable agriculture, and experiential education across the world. His work has wandered from agricultural extension in Tanzania to biointensive research in California, leading bicycle tours to international student trips, propagating native plants in prisons to building trails in national forests and beyond.
Jarid Manos +
Jarid Nidal Manos, an American writer and activist, is the author of Ghetto Plainsman (2010) and the upcoming novel Her Blue Watered Streets, and founder of the non-profit organization Great Plains Restoration Council. GPRC created the Ecological Health education and intervention model, which helps youth and young adults take care of their mental, emotional, physical and spiritual health through taking care of the Earth. Blending ecological restoration and preservation with social work, this model serves as the structure for GPRC's Restoration Not Incarceration™ and Shark Therapy™ initiatives. GPRC is based in Fort Worth, Texas, with expanded operations in West Texas, Atlanta, and South Florida.
Joe McManus +
Joe McManus is a gardener who has been part of programs sponsored by the organization Garden Time. He is currently serving a life without parole sentence at the Rhode Island Adult Correctional Institutions.
Rebekah Mende +
Rebekah Mende has a MS in Food Systems & Society, a background in prison food reform research and activism, and over 10 years combined professional experience in both private and public sectors. She is dedicated to growing and maintaining the prison food reform movement as well as rehabilitation through education and opportunity. Rebekah was a Vocational Trades Instructor at Maine State Prison (MSP) from 2018 to 2024. She is appreciative to the residents of MSP for trusting her with their time, labor, and insight and contributing to an extraordinary example of gardening as a powerful agent for personal growth and healing.
Stephanie Moniz +
Stephanie Moniz is a first generation native to Providence, Rhode Island, and a true creative with a passion for pursuing Black equity through art activism and purpose-driven vision. She is a formerly incarcerated author/illustrator, public speaker, and community building consultant. Her first published book was written and illustrated while serving a sentence at the Rhode Island Adult Correctional Institution in 2015, and self-published in 2018 under the pen name Charlotte Apricot. She participated in the internationally award-winning documentary film Tre Maison Dasan, which highlights part of her experience as a single mother in the criminal justice system. In 2019 Stephanie launched Steph Artivista Consulting, helping people develop skills of emotional intelligence to co-create inclusive and ethical institutions. She also serves as Training and Education Program Coordinator for Groundwork Rhode Island.
Sam Phillips +
Sam Phillips, MSW, LSW, is a social worker in Akron, Ohio. Sam is involved in nonprofit community gardening and mental health therapy. Sam earned a Bachelor's degree in Education from Denison University and a Master's of Social Work from the University of Akron. Sam has worked for Let's Grow Akron since 2017 providing fresh produce for food pantries, community gardening spaces for neighbors, and horticultural therapy opportunities for all who are interested.
Raquel Pinderhughes +
Dr. Raquel Pinderhughes is the Founder and Executive Director of the Roots of Success Environmental Literacy and Job Training Apprenticeship Program and a Professor of Urban Studies and Planning at San Francisco State University, where her research and teaching focus on improving quality of life for people living in underserved communities. An internationally recognized expert on green jobs and workforce development, Raquel conducted the landmark study 'Green Collar Jobs for Individuals with Barriers to Employment' and co-authored the Federal Department of Corrections' first report on 'The Greening of Corrections: Creating a Sustainable System.' Her programmatic work on preparing youth and adults who face barriers to employment for jobs in the green economy informed the Obama Administration's ARRA 'Pathways Out of Poverty' program. Her current research focuses on the impact of the Biden Administration's Justice40 Initiative.
Josie Phoenix +
Josie Phoenix is Special Projects Manager at Roots of Success. They worked in the foodservice and hospitality industry for over fifteen years working in almost every position from dishwasher to Director of Food Service. They are actively involved in activities and advocacy efforts to increase food and housing security, support mutual aid, and provide harm reduction services. They have worked with Food Not Bombs, Punks with Lunch, Rogers and Rosewater Soup Kitchen, Poverello House Shelter, and the Central Valley Community Food Bank. Josie holds a BA degree in Urban Studies and Planning from San Francisco State University.
Kristen Powers +
Kristen Powers, Executive Director of Benevolence Farm, believes that we are more than our worst mistakes. As director of a rural reentry nonprofit, Kristen is honored to work alongside formerly incarcerated women who are creating innovative reentry programs and advocating for systemic change. It is her hope that we can learn to create communities capable of addressing harm and safety together, outside of prisons and jails. Kristen also loves the fact that she grew up on a farm and now gets to work at one.
Rachel Reeves +
Rachel Reeves is a doctoral candidate and research assistant in sociology at the University of Kentucky. She is the project manager for a federally funded study evaluating a domestic violence shelter's Therapeutic Horticulture program. She holds a M.A. in sociology and a B.A. in psychology and sociology from the University of Kentucky.
Claire Renzetti +
Claire Renzetti, Ph.D., is Professor and Chair of Sociology and the Judi Conway Patton Endowed Chair for Studies of Violence Against Women at the University of Kentucky. Her research is on gender-based violence, especially the violent victimization experiences of socially and economically marginalized women and girls. In 1995, she founded and continues to edit the peer-reviewed, international and interdisciplinary journal Violence Against Women. She is also the editor of the Gender and Justice book series for University of California Press and co-editor of the Interpersonal Violence book series for Oxford University Press. She has written or edited 26 books as well as numerous book chapters and journal articles based on her research.
Genea Richardson +
Genea Richardson is a leading voice of women's re-entry. She spent 18 years incarcerated, where she facilitated healing spaces for hundreds of women inside through radical listening workshops. Less than a year after her return to her community she became a conduit for change by leading restorative justice workshops. She now heads the Gardening arm of Huma House in Los Angeles, where she is the Lead Instructor for the Huma Resilience Program, focusing on women's re-entry and reunification with their families.
Carlos Rosado +
Carlos Rosado is founder of Goshen Organics in New York, which focuses on 'cultivating goodness' through land stewardship, cooperative farming, and caregiving. He previously was a field engineer for a recycling company, and his organizing work has focused on making sustainable livelihoods accessible to all. Carlos is a graduate of Bard College in environmental studies, where his thesis focused on prison food.
Erika Rumbley +
Erika Rumbley is a Co-Founder and Director of The New Garden Society (TNGS), an organization dedicated to training incarcerated students in the art and science of plants. For over a decade, she has gardened alongside students in Greater Boston prison yards on Monday afternoons. Beyond TNGS, Erika serves as the Director of Horticulture at The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Erika is a graduate of Vassar College with an Honors BA in Environmental Studies and is the recipient of numerous fellowships including the Helen Dwight Reid Fellowship. Since her first farm apprenticeship in 2005, Erika has grown ornamentals, cut flowers, fruit and vegetables on farms in New York, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. She has also served a range of land-based non-profits as a facilitator and adult educator, including Southside Community Land Trust, Boston Natural Areas Network and The Trustees of Reservations.
Trip Finity Taylor +
Trip Finity Taylor's life is a testament to the interconnectedness of all things. From the towering strength of ancient trees to the resilient flow of rivers, nature has been his most profound teacher, instilling in him a deep respect for life's inherent value. This reverence for the natural world extends to his fellow humans, fueling a passionate commitment to justice and equity. Having experienced the transformative power of both nature and education while incarcerated, Trip now dedicates his efforts to creating opportunities for those entwined with the criminal legal system. He works tirelessly to develop and expand prison education and reentry programs, believing in the potential for rehabilitation and personal growth, mirroring the regenerative power of nature itself.
Ki'Amber Thompson +
Ki'Amber Thompson is an abolitionist environmental justice educator, healing justice practitioner, multimedia artist, and PhD candidate at the University of California Santa Cruz. They are the Founder and Co-Executive Director of the Charles Roundtree Bloom Project (@crbloomproject), an outdoor healing justice program for youth impacted by criminalization, policing, and incarceration. Their work bridges abolition, decolonial, and environmental justice movements toward imagining and creating more socially and environmentally just and sustainable worlds. Ki'Amber has done social and environmental justice research, storytelling, and organizing across the globe, including in North and South America and Southeast Asia. Their work has been recognized locally and nationally, and they have received several awards, including Grist 50 Fixers and EE 30 Under 30.
Kelsey Timler +
Kelsey Timler is a white settler activist researcher, with a PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, BC. She spent a decade as a professional cook before finding her home within academic circles that see research as a way to confront power imbalances, meet basic needs within communities, and support the visioning and dreaming of better worlds for criminalized and racialized neighbours through food, art, and community building. Kelsey lives on the unceded and occupied lands of the Halq'eméylem speaking Peoples of the Stó:lō Nations. She believes in the power of food to bring people together across differences, and the radical healing available in the mountains and rivers in her backyard.
Brendan Wilson +
Brendan Wilson is a sixth-generation Californian from a landscaping family. He studied Architecture at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, and after graduating, embarked upon a self-employed career in landscape design, installation, and maintenance, working with numerous collaborators and partners. He enhanced the beauty of many properties with features such as raised beds, brick and stonework, trellises, water features, and outdoor lighting. His specialties include xeriscaping, urban food gardens, composting, maximizing space for vegetable crops, and greywater systems.
Shea Zwerver +
Shea Zwerver drives the implementation of workforce development programs. She enjoys creating synergy and collaborating on unique and innovative projects across sectors. From 2016 to 2022, Shea served in multiple roles with Pennsylvania's Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. There, she conceptualized and coordinated a vocational and educational training program — the 'Correctional Conservation Collaboration' — at state prisons in arboriculture, forestry, and natural resource conservation. Shea hopes to continue working to bring nature to carceral settings, increase access to nature to promote prosocial behavior, and improve quality of life through equity-driven practices. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with a minor in Landscape Studies from Smith College and a Master of Environmental Studies from the University of Pennsylvania.

Events

Nov10

Book Launch

Ecologies of Justice — Official Publication Day

November 10, 2026 · Rutgers University Press

Pre-Order
TBD2026

Book Event

Author Reading & Panel Discussion

Date & Location TBD — Join the mailing list for updates

Stay Updated

More events coming soon. Join the mailing list to be notified.

2022

Ecologies of Justice Conference

June–July (Online) & July 22–23 (Evergreen State College, Olympia WA) · Full playlist →

01

2022 · Session 1

Ecological Conservation Programs in Prisons

Explores the social and environmental impacts of ecological conservation programs in prisons and communities, featuring speakers from the Sustainability in Prisons Project, Institute for Applied Ecology, and FareStart Consulting.

02

2022 · Session 2

Cultivating Reentry Success for Women — Inside Out

Staff and alumni of the Insight Garden Program introduce their gender-responsive curriculum in three women's California prisons, covering reentry support for women and gender non-binary participants.

03

2022 · Session 3

Nature as Healing

Examines the meanings of healing and justice in a holistic context, asking how healing may overlap with or differ from rehabilitation in corrections and therapeutic practices in mental health professions.

04

2022 · Session 4

Forging Career Pathways in Environmental Studies After Incarceration

Current members and alumni of the NJ Mountainview Program at Rutgers University share their paths into environmental science careers as returning citizens.

05

2022 · Session 5

Food in the Context of Incarceration and Reentry

Practitioners from Impact Justice, The Food Trust, and community organizations discuss food access and food justice as a critical dimension of reentry support.

06

2022 · Session 6

Measures and Meanings of Research and Program Evaluation

A case study of participatory research methods with currently and formerly incarcerated people to support holistic health, wellbeing, and social change, presented by Kelsey Timler (UBC).

2021

Conference on Social and Ecological Infrastructure for Recidivism Reduction

Co-convened by Yale School of the Environment & Boston College · Full playlist →

2021
Conference

2021 · Full Conference

Social and Ecological Infrastructure for Recidivism Reduction

The founding convening that launched the network. Over 500 participants from 41 states joined sessions spanning ecological conservation, therapeutic horticulture, green workforce development, STEM education in prisons, and community reintegration — bringing government, academia, and community organizations into dialogue for the first time at this scale.

Watch all sessions →

The Network

About the Network

Ecologies of Justice is a transdisciplinary network that convenes researchers, practitioners, and community leaders working at the intersection of prison and jail programs, community-based interventions, environmental justice, and ecological sustainability.

The network emerged from the 2021 Conference on Social and Ecological Infrastructure for Recidivism Reduction, co-convened by Yale School of the Environment and Boston College. More than 500 people registered from across 41 states, with presenters from government, academia, and community-based organizations.

Through that first convening, it became clear that preventing crime and advancing public safety requires renewed attention to community and interconnection — connection to career opportunities, to necessary resources, to plant ecologies and the land, and between people and communities that have been separated.

The 2022 Ecologies of Justice Conference, co-hosted by Boston College and the Sustainability in Prisons Project with support from the National Science Foundation, centered the decades-long work of community-based organizations creating safe, healthy, equitable, and sustainable communities.

Past and Present Collaborators

Amanda Berger Kelli Bush Matt DelSesto Dani Jauk-Ajamie William Jett Gunner Johnson Hilda Krus Elizabeth Lara Grady Mitchell Colleen Murphy-Dunning Robert Ortiz Stephen Pfohl Anna Pickett Raquel Pinderhughes Lashawn Taylor Shea Zwerver

Resources

Explore the Field

Research, writing, media, and organizations from contributors and allies of the Ecologies of Justice network — curated for researchers, practitioners, educators, and community members.

Book Chapter

Beyond Green Corrections: An Invitation to Socio-Ecological Initiatives in the United States Prisons, Jails, and Communities

DelSesto, M., Jauk-Ajamie, D., Lara, E., & Zwerver, S. (2024). In D. S. Rudes, G. S. Armstrong, K. R. Kras, & T. J. Carter (Eds.), Handbook on Prisons and Jails (pp. 186–205). Routledge. A chapter by the four volume editors synthesizing themes from the 2021 conference — centering relationships, negotiating access, and navigating money and measurement.

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Journal Article

Toward a World Where We Can Breathe: Abolitionist Environmental Justice Praxis

Thompson, K. (2023). Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 113(7), 1699–1710. Bridges environmental justice and prison abolition through the Charles Roundtree Bloom Project, an outdoor healing-justice program for youth affected by incarceration in San Antonio, Texas.

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Journal Article

Therapeutic Horticulture and Desistance From Crime

DelSesto, M. (2022). The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice, 61(4), 444–462. A thematic review connecting evidence-based outcomes of therapeutic horticulture — identity change, vocational training, wellness, social support — with pathways to desistance from crime.

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Journal Article

Nature-Assisted Therapy: Systematic Review of Controlled and Observational Studies

Annerstedt, M., & Währborg, P. (2011). Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, 39(4), 371–388. A systematic review finding scientific support for the health benefits of nature-assisted therapy across diverse clinical settings.

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Journal Article

Collaborative Research: Working Together to Deliver Land-Based Prison Initiatives

Brown, G., & Brady, G. (2020). Methodological Innovations, 13(2). Reflects on collaborative research methods for co-designing and delivering land-based programs with people in prison.

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Book

Gardening Behind Bars: Clinical Sociology and Food Justice in Incarcerated Settings

Everhardt, S. L., Jauk-Ajamie, D., Carmody, S. B., & Gill, B. I. (2024). Springer. A clinical-sociological study of gardening programs in carceral settings, linking food justice, program evaluation, and hands-on practice.

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Journal Article

Horticultural Therapy Program for Mental Health of Prisoners: Case Report

Lee, A.-Y., Kim, S.-Y., Kwon, H. J., & Park, S.-A. (2021). Integrative Medicine Research, 10(2). A case report documenting mental health benefits of a structured horticultural therapy program for people in prison.

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Journal Article

Designing Therapeutic Environments for Inmates and Prison Staff in the United States

Lindemuth, A. (2007). Journal of Mediterranean Ecology, 8(1), 87–97. Discusses the therapeutic potential of prison gardens and the design elements needed to plan, implement, and sustain them, drawing on historic and contemporary precedents.

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Book Chapter

Greening Injustice: Penal Reform, Carceral Expansion, and Greenwashing

Mazurek, J. E., Piché, J., & Schept, J. (2020). In N. South & A. Brisman (Eds.), Routledge International Handbook of Green Criminology (2nd ed., pp. 260–276). A critical analysis cautioning that "greening" can legitimate penal reform, carceral expansion, and greenwashing.

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Law Review Article

Abolition and Environmental Justice

McLeod, A. M. (2023). UCLA Law Review, 69(6), 1536–1575. Argues that abolitionist organizing and environmental justice are interconnected struggles against shared structures of racialized harm.

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Journal Article

Nature-Based Interventions in Institutional and Organisational Settings: A Scoping Review

Moeller, C., King, N., Burr, V., Gibbs, G. R., & Gomersall, T. (2018). International Journal of Environmental Health Research, 28(3), 293–305. A scoping review mapping the evidence on wellbeing outcomes of nature-based interventions in institutional settings, including prisons.

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Journal Article

"Green" Prisons: Rethinking the "Sustainability" of the Carceral Estate

Moran, D., & Jewkes, Y. (2014). Geographica Helvetica, 69(5), 345–353. Questions what "green" prisons actually sustain — and for whom — in debates over the carceral estate.

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Journal Article

Impacts of Conservation Activities on People Who Are Incarcerated

Nadkarni, N. M., Chen, J. M., Morris, J. S., Carriero, A. E., Kaye, T. N., Bush, K., Young, M., & George, L. (2022). Ecology and Society, 27(3). A mixed-methods case study documenting how participation in conservation programs shapes the attitudes and wellbeing of incarcerated participants.

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Journal Article

Impacts of Nature Imagery on People in Severely Nature-Deprived Environments

Nadkarni, N. M., Hasbach, P. H., Thys, T., Gaines, E., & Schnacker, L. (2017). Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 15(7), 395–403. Finds that viewing nature imagery reduced stress and violent infractions among people held in solitary confinement.

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Journal Article

Virtual Nature Experiences for Incarcerated Men Reduce Stress and Increase Interest in the Environment

Nadkarni, N. M., Thys, T. M., Ruff, J. S., Anholt, A., Treviño, J., & Yeo, S. K. (2021). Ecopsychology, 13(2), 71–83. An experimental study showing that virtual nature experiences reduce stress and increase environmental interest among incarcerated men.

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Journal Article

Struggles for Environmental Justice in US Prisons and Jails

Pellow, D. N. (2021). Antipode, 53(1), 56–73. Connects critical environmental justice and abolition ecology to document environmental hazards — and resistance — inside U.S. prisons and jails.

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Journal Article

Impact of a Nature-Based Intervention on Incarcerated Women

Toews, B., Wagenfeld, A., & Stevens, J. (2018). International Journal of Prisoner Health, 14(4), 232–243. Evaluates a nature-based intervention for incarcerated women, reporting benefits for wellbeing and the social climate of the facility.

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Thesis

The Impact of a Garden Program on the Physical Environment and Social Climate of a Prison Yard at San Quentin State Prison

Waitkus, K. E. (2004). Master's thesis, Pepperdine University. The foundational study of the Insight Garden Program, finding the garden to be one of the few racially integrated, low-conflict spaces on the prison yard.

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Book

The Environmental Psychology of Prisons and Jails: Creating Humane Spaces in Secure Settings

Wener, R. (2012). Cambridge University Press. A comprehensive environmental psychology of carceral facilities, making the case for humane, evidence-based design in secure settings.

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Journal Article

Greening Justice: Examining the Interfaces of Criminal, Social and Ecological Justice

White, R., & Graham, H. (2015). British Journal of Criminology, 55(5), 845–865. Examines how criminal, social, and ecological justice intersect, laying groundwork for a "greening justice" agenda in criminology.

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Book Chapter

Prison Gardens and Growing Abolition

Lara, E. (2022). In S. Chao, K. Bolender, & E. Kirksey (Eds.), The Promise of Multispecies Justice (pp. 103–124). Duke University Press. Volume editor Elizabeth Lara traces the entanglement of prison gardens with abolitionist possibility.

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Book

From the Ground Up: Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental Justice Movement

Cole, L., & Foster, S. (2001). NYU Press. This foundational book connects environmental racism to grassroots organizing, providing a conceptual lens for understanding prisons as sites of environmental injustice and EJ struggle.

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Book

Doing Time in the Garden: Life Lessons Through Prison Horticulture

Jiler, J. (2006). New Village Press. Drawing on his experience directing the GreenHouse Project at Rikers Island, Jiler combines a firsthand account of horticultural job training at the nation's largest jail complex with a practical guide to building prison and reentry gardening programs.

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Book

Regenerative Design for Changemakers: A Social Permaculture Guide

Dresdale, A. (2021). Culture Shift Press. A guide and curriculum applying social permaculture, ecological principles, and anti-oppression practices to help changemakers redesign their inner lives, relationships, organizations, and communities — with 45 exercises, justice-based frameworks, and a "Social Design Lab."

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Report

Reducing Recidivism Through Arboriculture Workforce Development

Zwerver, S. (2022). USDA Forest Service. This case-study report shows how arboriculture and tree-care training in correctional settings can build pathways into green jobs and support reduced recidivism.

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Report

Eating Behind Bars: Ending the Hidden Punishment of Food in Prison

Soble, L., Stroud, K., & Weinstein, M. (2020). Impact Justice. Analyzes prison food as a pervasive form of hidden punishment and offers policy and program recommendations linking nourishment, dignity, and healthier reentry.

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Report

Environmental Injustice Behind Bars: Toxic Imprisonment in America

Prison Environmental Justice Project (2018). UC Santa Barbara. Documents environmental hazards and justice struggles across U.S. prisons, making visible how carceral spaces concentrate environmental harm — and resistance.

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Report

Prisons Are a Daily Environmental Injustice

Wang, L. (2022). Prison Policy Initiative. An Earth Day briefing recapping how prisons leave both people and planet worse off — from facilities sited on toxic land and Superfund sites to contaminated water and air and inadequate responses to climate-driven disasters.

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Report Chapter

Sustainability Education in Prisons: Transforming Lives, Transforming the World

Trivett, J. R., et al. (2017). In EarthEd (State of the World), Island Press. Details how environmental education, science, and nature-based programs are brought into prisons as a social-ecological infrastructure for rehabilitation and green careers.

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Report

Environmental Justice, Health, and Carceral Facilities

WE ACT for Environmental Justice & Clean and Healthy New York (2021). Examines environmental health risks in jails and prisons and frames environmental justice advocacy as essential to improving conditions and advancing decarceration.

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Report

Green Prisons: A Guide to Creating Environmentally Sustainable Prisons

UNICRI & Penal Reform International (2025). A global guide with case studies and practical recommendations for embedding environmental sustainability in prisons while supporting rehabilitation and penal reform.

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Journalism

Doing Whatever It Takes to Create a Prison Garden

The Marshall Project (2015). A story about the persistence and improvisation it takes to establish and sustain a garden inside prison walls.

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Journalism

The Secret Garden

The Marshall Project (2017). A first-person "Life Inside" essay on the quiet, restorative presence of a garden in prison life.

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Journalism

Training Formerly Incarcerated People for Landscaping Jobs in Los Angeles

Los Angeles Times (2022). A profile of Genea Richardson and Huma House, which trains formerly incarcerated people for landscaping careers in Los Angeles.

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Journalism

Incarceration, Abolition, and a Liberating Food System

Civil Eats (2022). Explores how food justice and prison abolition intersect, asking what a liberating food system could mean for people impacted by incarceration.

Read

Documentary

Sol in the Garden

A short documentary by Débora Souza Silva & Emily Cohen Ibañez (TIME Studios / POV) following Sol Mercado — an Insight Garden Program alumna — as she rebuilds her life through community gardening with Planting Justice in East Oakland after 16 years of incarceration.

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Documentary

From Slop to Sustainable: How One Farmer Is Transforming Prison Food

Seeds of Change (GBH). This documentary follows lifelong farmer Mark McBrine and incarcerated men in Maine as they transform the prison food system through a five-acre prison garden unlike any other.

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Video

A Juvenile Lifer Finds Peace in the Prison Garden

Based on Bobby Bostic's Marshall Project essay: sentenced to 241 years for crimes committed at 16, Bostic reflects on how tending the prison garden became a form of therapy and transformation.

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Video Feature

Climbing Toward a Better Future

Chillrud, R. (2019). Chesapeake Bay Program. A feature on the arboriculture training program at SCI Rockview and its role in preparing incarcerated people for green jobs.

Watch

Podcast

Intersecting Ecological and Human Health, with Kathleen Wolf

Sustainable Futures Podcast, Living Architecture Monitor (2024). A conversation on the relationship between nature, urban green space, and human health.

Listen

Conference Videos

2022 Ecologies of Justice Conference

Full YouTube playlist featuring researchers, practitioners, and community leaders working at the intersection of correctional programs and ecological justice.

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Conference

Conference on Social and Ecological Infrastructure for Recidivism Reduction

The founding 2021 convening, co-hosted by Yale School of the Environment and Boston College, that launched the Ecologies of Justice network.

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Podcast

Gardens in Spaces of Incarceration, with Dr. Elizabeth Lara

Jewell, J. (Host). (2024). Cultivating Place, North State Public Radio. Volume editor Elizabeth Lara discusses gardens in historic and contemporary spaces of incarceration, drawing on research at Mission Santa Barbara, the Gardens of Alcatraz, Manzanar, and fieldwork with the Insight Garden Program.

Listen

TEDx Talk

The Power of Sustainability — Nick Hachney

TEDxMonroeCorrectionalComplex (2014). Speaking as a worm farmer incarcerated at Monroe Correctional Complex, Nick describes how sustainability programs in prison can unlock untold human potential.

Watch

Podcast

Looking Out — Ear Hustle

Ear Hustle (2017). An episode on "looking out" — how people at San Quentin nurture and care for animals and other living beings as an essential human impulse behind bars.

Listen

Organization

Sustainability in Prisons Project

A collaboration of The Evergreen State College and the Washington State Department of Corrections bringing science, sustainability, and environmental education to all of Washington's state prisons; released a peer-instruction curriculum in 2020. (see, chapter 6 in Ecologies of Justice book)

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Organization

Bard Prison Initiative — Urban Farming & Sustainability

Bard College maintains three organic gardens in New York correctional facilities (Fishkill, Taconic, and Woodbourne), fully integrated into the academic curriculum, with harvests donated to local food banks.

Visit

Organization

Benevolence Farm

A farm and housing enterprise for women impacted by the criminal legal system in North Carolina. (see, chapter 12 in Ecologies of Justice book)

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Organization

Garden Time

Several garden programs within Rhode Island Adult Correctional Institutions and a green reentry program; the curriculum is available free online.

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Organization

Great Plains Restoration Council

Based in Fort Worth, Texas, with expanded operations in West Texas, Atlanta, and South Florida, GPRC blends ecological restoration work with social work. (see, chapter 17 in Ecologies of Justice book)

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Organization

GreenHouse17

A shelter for survivors of intimate partner violence and their children in Lexington, Kentucky, integrating a farm and therapeutic horticulture program. (see, chapter 21 in Ecologies of Justice book)

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Organization

Therapeutic Horticulture — Horticultural Society of New York

The Hort’s therapeutic horticulture programming in New York City detention and correctional facilities, in which students build critical thinking, teamwork, and collaboration as they grow herbs, vegetables, and flowers; the curriculum "Growing with the Garden" is publicly available.

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Organization

Learn to Grow

Vocational training sponsored by Lani-Kailua Outdoor Circle at the Women's Community Correctional Center, involving a large hydroponic system, a plant nursery growing organic vegetables for the prison cafeteria, and community landscaping for college credit. Kailua, Hawaiʻi.

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Organization

Lettuce Grow Program — Growing Gardens

Coordinates horticultural education in prisons throughout Oregon, partnering with volunteers, community partners, local universities, and the DOC to offer college courses, food bank and USDA curricula, culinary courses, gardening, and greenhouse management. (see, chapter 10 in Ecologies of Justice book)

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Organization

Roots of Success

A stand-alone environmental literacy and work readiness training program, including a gardening module, led by peer instructors; 600 programs in 36 states. Curriculum for sale. (see, chapter 11 in Ecologies of Justice book)

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Organization

The New Garden Society

Gardening alongside two Massachusetts correctional facilities, focused on garden planning, installation, botany, organic land care, and pest and disease management; participants continue their work outside through Boston's Returning Citizens office. (see, chapter 10 in Ecologies of Justice book)

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Organization

Huma House

A healing-centered nonprofit in South Los Angeles using art therapy and garden-based healing to help youth ages 14–18 transform trauma into purpose, with programming designed and led largely by formerly incarcerated staff. (see, chapter 3 in Ecologies of Justice book)

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Organization

Land Together

Led by formerly incarcerated and system-impacted people, Land Together partners with individuals in prison and reentry through land-based education, offering garden programs in California prisons alongside reentry support, coalition-building, and advocacy. (see, chapter 9 in Ecologies of Justice book)

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Organization

Gangstas to Growers

An Atlanta-based social enterprise building worker-owned agricultural cooperatives to create employment, empowerment, and entrepreneurship pathways for at-risk and formerly incarcerated youth while supporting a Black-run food system. (see, chapter 23 in Ecologies of Justice book)

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Organization

Charles Roundtree Bloom Project

An outdoor healing justice program in San Antonio (Yanaguana), Texas, founded by Ki'Amber Thompson, providing culturally relevant environmental education and communal healing — hiking, camping, gardening, and healing circles — for youth impacted by incarceration. (see, chapter 8 in Ecologies of Justice book)

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Organization

H.E.R.O. Nurturing Center

A Massachusetts nonprofit, founded by Judith Foster after the loss of her son, promoting wellness through nature healing walks, arts programming, and advocacy to make nature "prescriptive" in healthcare for underserved communities. (see, chapter 22 in Ecologies of Justice book)

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Organization

Drive Change

A New York City nonprofit reimagining opportunity for justice-involved youth through careers in food and hospitality, centered on a three-month paid culinary fellowship with leadership development and mental-health support, alongside a catering social enterprise and community food relief.

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Organization

Therapeutic Landscapes Network

A nonprofit knowledge hub connecting people to information and expertise on healing gardens and restorative landscapes, with a designers directory, garden databases, plant guidance, and research references for therapeutic outdoor spaces across healthcare and community settings.

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Organization

Prison Agriculture Lab

A research collaborative documenting agricultural practices across the U.S. criminal punishment system, using mapping, satellite imagery, data visualizations, zines, and case studies to make prison agriculture and its environmental burdens visible.

Visit

Organization

Regenerate Change

A team of ecological educators and consultants applying regenerative and social-permaculture design to grow social impact, offering leadership development for individuals and strategy, facilitation, and custom education for organizations and communities.

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Organization

Institute for Applied Ecology — Sagebrush in Prisons Project

An Oregon-based conservation nonprofit whose Sagebrush in Prisons Project partners with the Bureau of Land Management and state corrections agencies to have incarcerated crews grow sagebrush from seed for replanting in wildfire-damaged Great Basin habitat, pairing native-plant restoration with ecological education and horticultural training.

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Organization

EMERGE Connecticut

A New Haven nonprofit social enterprise that employs formerly incarcerated people through its construction and grounds-work crews, pairing paid transitional work with personal and professional development to support successful reintegration into families and communities.

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Organization

Let's Grow Akron

An Akron, Ohio nonprofit supporting neighborhood community gardens, a community farm and farm store, and garden- and food-based education, providing fresh produce for food pantries, growing spaces for neighbors, and horticultural-therapy opportunities across the city.

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Initiative

INSPIRE — University of Utah

Nalini Nadkarni's Initiative to Bring Science Programs to the Incarcerated, delivering science lectures and conservation projects in Utah prisons, jails, and juvenile facilities.

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Academic Partner

Hixon Center for Urban Ecology

Co-convener of the founding 2021 Conference on Social and Ecological Infrastructure for Recidivism Reduction.

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Academic Partner

Initiative for Community Justice

Co-convener of the 2021 and 2022 conferences.

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This list grows as the network adds resources. Share a resource with us at: ecologiesofjustice@gmail.com

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