Category World News

There’s an old saying in Urdu: Zaroorat ijaad ki maa hai (necessity is the mother of all inventions). I would often hear it as a child growing up in Pakistan.

I’ve always been fascinated by how some phrases leap across languages without losing their truth.

You see, survival has a universal dialect, and here, behind the castle walls of New Jersey State Prison (NJSP), necessity isn’t just a mother, it’s a warden, a foreman, and a constant whisper in your ear.

Pennies on the dollar

Like the chains and hooks once used for corporal punishment in the basement of the “Warden’s House” at NJSP, prison labour is a relic of another time. It is a system that still smells faintly of chain gangs and sweat-soaked fields.

Here at NJSP, we work because we’re told to, for pennies on the dollar.

According to the Prison Policy Initiative (PPI), a non-profit that researches mass criminalisation in the US, prisoners can earn as little as $0.86 per day, with those in skilled work – like plumbers, electricians and clerks – making barely a few dollars per day.

Meanwhile, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) research shows that many states pay between $0.15 and $0.52 per hour for cleaning and maintenance jobs, such as sanitation work, with some states paying prisoners nothing at all.

The Department of Corrections budget runs in the billions, but prisoners can work every day of the year and still only make enough to choose between soap or soup when ordering from the commissary.

According to the PPI, prisons collect approximately $2.9bn annually from sales at the commissary and prisoners’ phone calls. Meanwhile, an investigation in The Appeal, a publication focusing on the US legal system, found that commissary prices are often five times higher than prices outside prison, with markups soaring as high as 600 percent for something like a denture container.

With costs like these, prisoners have had to create a second economy just to survive inside. We call it the “hustle” – not in the Wall Street sense, but in the purest form of making something out of nothing.

The tailor

I met “Jack”, who works in a pantry, a man who prefers to keep his real name to himself for fear of reprisals. His job at the prison involves preparing meals for fellow prisoners. He works 365 days a year with no holidays, no sick time, and each month is paid a little over $100 into his prison account.

Jack doesn’t get money from his family on the outside. Most prisoners don’t. In fact, many actually support their loved ones outside through their prison hustles.

Jack stitches survival together with a needle and thread. He hems khakis, tapers shirts, and mends shoes for stamps. This prison currency is bought through the commissary or traded among prisoners as hard currency for buying and selling. One book has 10 stamps and costs about $8 in the commissary, but can cost more when traded between prisoners.

Two books of stamps get you a tailored “set” (pants and a shirt or two shirts), and it’s four stamps (about $3) to raise your pant cuffs above the ankles, a popular request among Muslim brothers here. Jack won’t say how much he earns a month, but it’s more than what he makes prepping meals.

Water is his biggest expense. “The tap water here burns my stomach,” he told me. “Tastes like metal.”

He buys a case of 24, 16oz (470ml) bottles of water for $6 (about eight stamps). Only three cases are allowed per inmate at a time, and we can only order from the commissary twice a month. He tries to ration, but when he runs out – or water isn’t available at the commissary – he needs to fork out more money to buy bottles from other prisoners who sell at higher prices.

“The funny thing,” he said, not smiling, “is that they [the prison] give the officers water filters.”

The corner store

On another tier, Josh runs what you might call a corner store without a corner. He sells and trades food for a profit – chili pouches or blocks of cheese from the commissary, peppers smuggled out of the kitchen. The commissary may run out of items or place limits on how many prisoners can buy, so the prisoners go to Josh. But they also go to him for other things – staplers for legal work, shoes, or cash. They trade prison stamps for their purchase. The exchange rate and prices fluctuate depending on supply and demand, but there’s always a profit. A pack of 24 cookies bought at the commissary for $4 may sell for anywhere between $5 and $12. It’s often more profitable to sell loose cookies.

Josh’s system is pure street business. He buys in bulk from the kitchen workers who steal small quantities from the pantries, and when a prisoner makes an order, he smuggles the item to them immediately – usually via a “unit runner”. He sells with a markup, and offers credit at higher rates.

“It’s a cat-and-mouse game,” Josh explained. “The trick is to never keep anything in your cell. Too many haters.”

The “haters” might snitch, and get Josh in trouble. Sometimes, snitching itself is a hustle where police recruit a prisoner to spy and provide them with food, which they, in turn, sell.

Josh’s hustle lets him buy gifts for his children and cancer awareness T-shirts for his recovering mother, and keeps his phone account alive so he can speak to them.

And then there’s 52-year-old Martin Robles, who can fix anything. I call him “Mr Fix It”. He can do it all: fans, electronics, clothing. In the summer, when fans burn out, he bypasses the fuse (which often breaks due to power fluctuations) for the price of two books of stamps. “You have to spend money to make money,” he said, explaining the cost of oil, glue, and sandpaper – the tools of his trade. He didn’t want to reveal how much he makes, but he is sought after in prison. He says his hustle isn’t about survival so much as keeping his hands busy and his dignity intact.

The hustles keep turning

Each of these men works in the official prison economy, and then works again in the shadow one. In both, they are underpaid, undersupplied, and overwatched. The hustle isn’t about greed. It’s about staying alive, staying connected, and, sometimes, sending a birthday gift to a goddaughter to remind her, and more importantly, yourself, that you still exist beyond these walls.

In here, we don’t have much. What we do have is time, pressure and the kind of hunger that sharpens the mind. So we make do. We turn scraps into tools, boredom into ritual. Behind these walls, necessity will keep birthing inventions. And the hustles will keep turning, one quiet transaction at a time.

This is the second story in a three-part series on how prisoners are taking on the US justice system through law, prison hustles and hard-won education.

Read the first story here: How I’m fighting the US prison system from the inside

Tariq MaQbool is a prisoner at New Jersey State Prison (NJSP), where he has been held since 2005. He is a contributor to various publications, including Al Jazeera English, where he has written about the trauma of solitary confinement (he has spent a total of more than two years in isolation) and what it means to be a Muslim prisoner inside a US prison.

Bethlehem, occupied West Bank – For the first time in two years, the Christmas tree in Bethlehem lit up the night sky, restoring a glimmer of joy to the birthplace of Jesus after seasons overshadowed by Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

Palestinians watching the lighting said the celebration carried a dual meaning: Hope in the Nativity and a yearning for freedom from the Israeli siege gripping Bethlehem and cities across the occupied territory.

At the same time, residents say the celebrations remain dimmed by the grief over mass casualties and destruction in Gaza and Bethlehem’s economic paralysis under tightening Israeli harassment.

This year’s celebrations were limited to religious rituals, attended by church leaders and local officials who stood on a stage in Manger Square for a modest tree-lighting ceremony.

Thousands gathered in the square, singing hymns and listening to choirs carolling – the only form of festivity permitted at a time many described as a mix of joy and mourning.

‘A different Christmas’

“The celebrations this year are unlike any before,” Reverend Munther Isaac, pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church, told Al Jazeera.

“Bethlehem is beautifully decorated, and the tree is lit, but there is deep sorrow inside every Palestinian.

“Through these celebrations, Palestinians send a message of resilience – to say we are still here, determined to live, to keep Bethlehem the capital of Christmas, and to continue telling its story. Palestinians love life.”

Bethlehem’s Mayor Maher N Canawati echoed the message, saying the municipality chose to restore the city’s Christmas lights after “a long period of darkness and silence”.

“We wanted to revive hope for the people of Bethlehem and all Palestinians, and to send that hope to Gaza and to the world,” he told Al Jazeera.

Canawati stressed that Bethlehem “is open and safe”, saying it is time for the world to support Palestinians’ steadfastness.

“As Bethlehem lights its Christmas tree, it … tells us that hope is a strength. But, he added, “The suffering and destruction in Gaza remain in our hearts. People remember the glimmer of light even amid devastation.”

The mayor also shared a message sent to Bethlehem by Pope Leo XIV, saying the pontiff assured residents he “carries Bethlehem in his heart and prayers and is working for an end to Palestinian suffering”, urging people in Gaza “not to give in to despair”.

Canawati called on pilgrims worldwide to visit Bethlehem, saying tourism is an act of solidarity with Palestinians “who are weary of war but have not grown weary of hope”.

Economic hardship under siege

Bethlehem’s Christmas spirit comes despite severe economic decline linked to Israeli closures and the collapse of tourism, the primary driver of the local economy.

Shopkeepers and artisans told Al Jazeera that hope, rather than income, has kept the city standing. Adrian Habibeh, a young artisan working in his family’s olivewood shop where hand-carvings are sold to religious devotees and tourists, said tourism has been “nearly frozen for more than two years”.

“This year’s Christmas celebrations are not like before,” he said. “But we hope this will be a year of joy – and that tourism will return. It’s vital for our economy.”

Residents from across the West Bank and Palestinian communities inside Israel travelled to Bethlehem despite checkpoints and road restrictions.

Yara Khalil, who came with her family from Ramallah, said she felt both joy and unease. “Gaza is suffering terribly from the war, and that pain is inside us,” she said.

“But Bethlehem, which had no celebrations for two years, looks beautiful despite everything.”

She added that she expected the trip to be difficult, “but people’s excitement and determination to celebrate pushed us to come”.

The Bethlehem Chamber of Commerce organised bus trips for Palestinians from cities inside Israel to encourage local tourism.

Samir Hazboun, head of the Bethlehem Chamber of Commerce, told Al Jazeera that the first groups began arriving on Saturday.

“The second wave of local pilgrims and visitors from Palestinians who live in Israel is expected after December 20,” he said. “We anticipate about 3,000 visitors a day until year-end, which will increase hotel occupancy – currently at just 20 percent among foreign tourists.”

A neo-Nazi march has been held in Sweden’s capital for the first time in 15 years, bringing together far-right white supremacist groups. Police gave permission for the rally to go ahead, to commemorate the killing of a 17-year-old with extremist ties, that used to be held annually in the early 2000s. Al Jazeera’s Nils Adler was there.