Workforce Developments

From Jails to Jobs (Part 1)

I recently had the opportunity to attend Larry Robbin's "From Jails to Jobs" training in Santa Rosa, sponsored by Goodwill Industries of the Redwood Empire. For those who don't know him, Larry is a national trainer on workforce issues, with over forty years of experience.

I found his training to be full of useful information and practical tips, which I will relay in this post and another one to follow next week. Among the take-aways:

• The biggest barrier to employment for re-entry folks is their social isolation from other working people. So one of the most important things they can do is maximize their exposure to working people who can get to know them as PEOPLE and not as ex-offenders.  This is much more effective than straight job-search, since the majority of jobs are not advertised except through word of mouth.

• Many re-entry folks have strong opinions about things - they should be encouraged to get involved in a cause related to those opinions. This serves multiple purposes - it helps them to build contacts, to perform career exploration, and to build up their "trust" account.

• For the workforce community, he points out that people are often treated differently after disclosing their ex-offender status, similar to certain disabilities and health conditions. He suggests that it is important to normalize this issue so that people are comfortable talking about it. You might begin by saying, "A lot of the clients I work with may have barriers to employment such as X, Y or Z so it would help me to help you if you let me know which of these things you are dealing with..."

According to Larry, in the San Francisco Bay Area

• 70% of businesses would avoid hiring re-entry folks at all costs,
• 22% have mixed feelings about it, and
• 8% have social values that make them sympathetic to hiring re-entry folks.

That means that re-entry folks have a fighting chance with about 30% of employers. How does he advise that they go about it? Tune in next week to find out.

Next Wednesday: the Turn Around Speech and Turn Around Packet.

image: ehow.com

One in every 100 Americans

Earlier this year the Pew Center on the States issued a report finding that right now, one out of every 100 American adults is incarcerated in prison or jail. That's the highest in U.S. history, and it presents an enormous challenge to American society and political leaders.

On the same day the Pew report hit the streets, 150 mayors and other city leaders met together at the Mayors Summit on Reentry and Employment to discuss what can be done at the municipal level to reduce recidivism. 750,000 people leave prison or jail each year. They leave with no better job skills than they arrived with, and perhaps with less. They often leave with drug and mental health problems, and many of them return to urban communities with limited job opportunities.

Mayors across the U.S. have realized they can't wait for national or even state leadership. They must take on the challenge of helping former prisoners re-enter society at the municipal level.

Inspired by the mayors summit, Public/Private Ventures (P/PV) has issued a report that summarizes some of the best practices presented there, as well as previous research: From Options to Action: A Roadmap for City Leaders to Connect Formerly Incarcerated Individuals to Work (executive summary). They make six key recommendations for how cities can begin to tackle the reentry challenge:

1. Get the lay of the land  In other words, do the research and gather data about the size and scope of prisoner reentry in your community, and the services available to them.
2. Assemble a task force of all the public and private agencies and organizations who are or could be involved in reentry.
3. Make collaboration work  All those partners have to work together in a meaningful way, not just sign off on each others' grant proposals.
4. Address city-level barriers to employment  These can include professional licensing requirements that prevent ex-prisoners from working in certain fields, but aren't related to their conviction.
5. Engage the business community  This can range from educating them about federal and state incentives for hiring ex-prisoners to creating new incentives at the local level, or just convincing local businesses to take a chance.
6. Take it to the next level  Work with state and federal officials to make policy changes there that will help local reentry efforts.

It's not rocket science. The problem is that there isn't a concerted, coordinated effort at the federal or state level to address prisoner reentry. It's viewed as risky for elected officials to take on, as they might be seen as "soft on crime." That's why local governments are going to have to lead. Passage of the Second Chance Act (HR 1593) earlier this year will make some funding available for reentry programs, but it won't be nearly enough.

The P/PV report includes examples of programs that have worked, and quotes from mayors and other leaders in the field. If you have a reentry program or are thinking about getting engaged with the problem, whether you're a nonprofit, government official or private businessperson, this report is a good place to start.

Life after lockup

The Urban Institute, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary of "nonpartisan economic and social policy research" this year, recently published "Life After Lockup: Improving ReEntry from Jail to the Community." 

According to the Bureau of Justice, there are approximately 12 million admissions and releases from local jails across the country each year. Jails are local facilities, different from state-run or federal prisons. The 9 million individuals who make up these admissions and releases are often incarcerated for very brief periods of time, with over 80% staying for less than one month.   

Although the barriers facing those who cycle in and out of jail are similar to those who end up in prison - substance abuse, housing and employment instability, mental illness and other health problems - re-entry policy has generally focused on the state prison system. Jails present some unique challenges because of the system's decentralized structure, and the quick turnaround time for inmates. Many in this group, however, are already clients of health and human service and community agencies. Thus, the authors believe that jails must partner with these agencies, faith based organizations and families to help inmates connect with the services which may help prevent them from recidivating.

Among the report's rubber-meets-the-road recommendations:

Every person walking out the door should receive a discharge pack or resource kit that tells them exactly where they can go for treatment or other services. Everyone should also have government-issued identification and a bus pass. More tips and strategies can be found in their "Jail Administrator's Toolkit for ReEntry."

In our community, one-stop staff have been meeting with the various units of adult probation to share information about the services available, and solicit input on ways we can better collaborate. What are some steps that you can take in your community to collaborate better with the jails?

Image source: static.sky.com

Who's hiring ex-offenders?

The staff of the Marin Employment Connection, the one stop in Marin County, partners  with the California Re-Entry Program at San Quentin to offer monthly job search workshops to inmates.  Topics include assessment, interviewing, applications, resumes, and effective workplace communication.

One of the most common questions we get during our workshops at San Quentin is "Where is the list of employers who are willing to hire ex-felons?"  Unfortunately, it's not that easy.

Some industries are known for being ex-offender friendly, such as the building trades and apprenticeship programs.  Some non-profits such as Goodwill Industries are also known for giving people a second chance.  The Home Builders Institute and the Colorado Department of Corrections published a guide for the workforce community, "Building Jobs, Rebuilding Lives: Placing Ex-Offenders with Employers in the Residential and Light Commercial Construction Industry."  I hear from colleagues in the building trades that they will hire ex-offenders who can show up to work on time, have adequate "soft" skills such as the ability to take direction, and test clean for drugs.

We tell workshop participants that you never know whether an employer is open to working with ex-felons, so they should not automatically rule anyone out.  Although most people experience job search as a sea of rejection before getting to a "yes," many predict that the upcoming labor shortage caused by the retirement of the Baby Boomer generation will force employers to look to more untraditional pools of labor.

Do you have particular industries that you find to be open to hiring ex-offenders?

New series to tackle prisoner re-entry

Every day this blog gets lots of hits from people searching phrases like jobs for ex offenders employers, training programs for ex offenders, or employment outcomes for recidivism. In other words, this is an issue of great interest.

No wonder. The prison population rate in the U.S. far outstrips any other country in the industrialized world. The OECD Factbook 2008 reports that 725 of every 100,000 Americans are in prison or jail. By comparison, India, Iceland, Japan, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Greece, Ireland, Belgium, France, Germany, Austria and Italy each has in its prisons fewer than 100 out of every 100,000 inhabitants.

Whatever your opinion of those numbers and their causes, one thing is certain: a high prison population translates into a large number of people living prison eventually. Some 600,000 each year in the U.S. Most of them will need significant help to re-integrate into society and find jobs where they can support themselves and their families. I think this is one of the biggest problems facing American society and our nation's workforce development system. We can't leave it to the prisons to handle this on their own.

That's why Workforce Developments is launching a new monthly column. Starting tomorrow, on the first Wednesday of each month Racy Ming will write about Prisoner Re-entry issues. Here's a brief bio:

Racy Ming has ten years experience in education and workforce evaluation and program administration. She's currently manager of the Marin Employment Connection, the one-stop in Marin County, CA. She is also chair of the board for the California Re-Entry Program at San Quentin. 

After earning her undergraduate and masters degrees at Stanford University, Racy worked in education research and program evaluation for SRI International and at Mills College in Oakland.  Her work on desegregation politics in San Francisco was published in the journal, Urban Education. At the Marin Employment Connection, she has oversight of one-stop operations, Workforce Investment Act programs, grant funded projects and the county's General Assistance employable program. She also served for a number of years as a commissioner on the Sonoma County Human Services Commission.

A native of San Francisco, she is a big fan of the Stanford men's basketball team, the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (check out this year's documentary winner, Planet B-Boy) and pug dogs. Despite her fear of being eaten by sharks, she is planning to learn to surf while in Kona next week.

Welcome aboard, Racy. You'll find all her posts under the Prisoner Re-entry link in the right column. If there are specific topics related to prisoner re-entry that you'd like to read about, please let Racy know in by commenting below.

From prisoner to dental lab tech

Preparing prisoners for employment after they're released is no easy job, and it's not cheap. But a lot of smart people in both the justice and workforce development systems are talking about finding solutions. After all, some 600,000 prisoners will be released from U.S. prisons this year. Where will they go? What will they do?

In Wisconsin, some of them will become dental lab technicians.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal reported last week about a three year-old program that is training women at Taycheedah Correctional Institution as dental lab techs. It's a joint venture between the state's Department of Corrections, Department of Workforce Development and Moraine Park Technical College. Women are being prepared for skilled jobs in high demand when they're released. Their skills are also put to use making dentures for current inmates.

Taycheedah warden Cathy Jess tells the paper, 

So that's important that they get a job skill, and we prepare them for that day that they step back out there. We all want them to be successful when they get out there because they're going to be our neighbors.

Trainee and inmate Amber Haviland sees it this way:

It breaks up the monotony and the tedium of the day because everything's the same thing every day. It helps you expand your horizons.

To read the full article in the Journal-Sentinal and see photos of the program in action, click here.