Via KXAN by Jim Swift, Friday, 17 Jun 2011, 6:46 PM CDT AUSTIN (KXAN) – Five days a week, a handful of Travis County Jail inmates rise at the crack of dawn and head out to a 3 1/2 acre garden in their own back yard. Racing to beat 100-plus temperatures, they don sunglasses and
[continue reading...]

by Jorge Antonio Renaud “Why should we let you in?” I’m at a Sonic Drive-In, speaking with a woman charged with educational/recreational programming for the Del Valle Correctional Complex, a fancy name for a county jail in Austin, Texas. A guy who recently began venturing into the jail to teach creative writing has asked me
[continue reading...]

When you turn off of Highway 71 onto Farm Road 973 it feels, for a moment, like you have finally reached the edge of Austin. The fields on your left open up into a dark green sea scattered with white and blue flowers that fade off into the hazy distance. On the right sits the Travis County Correctional Complex, an enormous, ominous-looking compound.