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  • Inmates are learning to be their own bosses after they leave jail behind

    January 24, 2021 |

    Mashable |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Charlotte, North Carolina

    Inmates to Entrepreneurs has graduated 1 million people from its eight-week program that teaches incarcerated people how to start their own low-capital businesses. An extension of a free online entrepreneurship course, Starter U, the program offered in-person workshops until COVID forced it to go virtual. One study shows the unemployment rate in December 2020 for formerly incarcerated people was more than 27%, more than four times higher than the general public. Inmates to Entrepreneurs was started 28 years ago in North Carolina's prison system.

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  • 'They probably saved my life' | Former inmate says nonprofit keeps him, others out of jail

    January 21, 2021 |

    KSDK-TV |

    Broadcast TV News |

    Under 3 Minutes

    Response Location: United States, St. Louis, Missouri

    St. Louis' Concordance Academy of Leadership turns the traditional approach to prison re-entry programs on its head. Rather than pushing people just released from prison to find housing and a job, the academy pays its participants a living wage while it provides them with the counseling and other support they need not to slip back into trouble. Once their lives are stable, they focus in the 18-month program on employment. The 6-year-old program improves the chances of staying out of prison by more than 40%, according to one study. Concordance is raising the money it needs to expand to other cities.

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  • Pandemic Boosts Effort to Improve Inmates' Welfare

    January 14, 2021 |

    Global Press Journal |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: Zimbabwe

    As part of the coronavirus lockdown in Zimbabwe, people were banned from visiting prisons, but a mobile app has allowed relatives to send supplies to those who are incarcerated via their cellphone. This newest initiative in the succession to reform the prison system uses mobile money to send supplemental goods from the prison’s tuck shop to relatives who are incarcerated.

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  • Revolving door in Montana corrections still turning, despite reforms

    January 04, 2021 |

    Helena Independent Record |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Montana

    A set of criminal justice reforms enacted in Montana in 2017 that were meant to reduce incarceration and reinvest some of the savings in crime prevention programs has had little effect on the prison population. The state's "justice reinvestment" program, using a model adopted in 30 other states, has failed to put plans into action, partly for a lack of public spending on programs for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people. As a result, the prison population is tracking where it would have been had nothing been done, and recidivism remains high.

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  • Pima County program getting people out of jail quicker, speeding up chances for a new life

    December 29, 2020 |

    Arizona Daily Star |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Tucson, Arizona

    An array of services in Pima County, Arizona, greets hundreds of people getting released early from jail or helps keep them out of jail in the first place. By providing drug treatment, housing, job assistance, and other help that people need instead of incarceration, the county's Criminal Justice Reform Unit and Jail Population Review Committee saved the county $2 million in jail costs over just part of 2020. Drug use also declined and officials hope to see longer-range benefits in lower recidivism.

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  • Local initiative helps folks with cannabis-related charges find jobs—while pushing to decriminalize pot

    December 22, 2020 |

    The Philadelphia Citizen |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

    When Pennsylvania's largest medical-marijuana dispensary, TerraVida Holistic Centers, struggled to find enough employees, given the state's ban on the industry's employment of people with marijuana convictions, TerraVida joined with the Urban League of Philadelphia to expand aid to the formerly incarcerated. Through Urban League's Out4Good program, the partnership helps people expunge their drug convictions. It also counsels and financially helps groups of 10 trainees at a time, dozens of whom have started careers and stayed out of trouble. The group also seeks a longer-term fix: marijuana legalization.

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  • Unique Housing Project Eases the Path to Re-Entry for Single Parents

    December 15, 2020 |

    Next City |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, King County, Washington

    Single parents readjusting to life after incarceration face numerous hurdles to re-entering society. A housing program in Seattle now provides access to transitional housing alongside services that help parents reconnect with their children, access to mental health care, and work toward permanent housing. Passage Point’s wraparound services are an effective and unique resource for a population that is commonly blocked from accessing public housing.

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  • A Philly jobs program lost six to a year of violence. Can it still help young people thrive?

    December 02, 2020 |

    The Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia Media Network) |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

    PowerCorpsPHL and Mural Arts' Guild have notched impressive results in job placements of young people with criminal records. The programs' employment training, paid apprenticeships, and art therapy classes have all been disrupted by 2020's pandemic, social unrest, and street violence. Private grants have largely made up for budget cuts from the city of Philadelphia. But the lack of face to face training and counseling has been disruptive. Both programs and their trainees are persevering despite longer odds, with workarounds that keep the programs afloat in difficult times.

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  • From prison to star employee

    November 17, 2020 |

    BBC |

    Podcast |

    Over 15 Minutes

    Response Location: United States, Grand Rapids, Michigan

    Frustrated by a tight labor market, two locally owned Grand Rapids employers discovered the virtues – economic, not just moral – of hiring formerly incarcerated people, whose gratitude for an opportunity translated into excellent performance and less risk of adding to rapid turnover. The employers helped guarantee success by paying for support services that made post-prison transitions easier. The employers then talked hundreds of other local employers into doing the same. Besides providing a business advantage, the program changes lives and is evidently contributing to much lower rates of recidivism.

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  • On Tribal Land, Banishment, Rehabilitation and Re-entry Add Up to Justice

    November 02, 2020 |

    70 Million |

    Podcast |

    Over 15 Minutes

    Response Location: United States, Toksook Bay, Alaska

    Remote Alaskan villages traditionally followed the native practice of banishing members of their communities for serious, chronic wrongdoing. Created in the absence of a functioning criminal justice system of police, courts, and jail, banishment provided safety for families and communities from people prone to violence. Though rare, the practice persists even when limited forms of law enforcement and state justice processes are available. People who are incarcerated or on parole who are also banished can be denied the rehabilitative benefits of their family and cultural home.

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