The Prisoner Re-entry Initiative is designed to strengthen urban communities through an employment-centered program that incorporates mentoring, job training, and other comprehensive transitional services. This program seeks to reduce recidivism by helping former inmates find work when they return to their communities, as part of an effort to build a life in the community for everyone. In the local areas served through this initiative, faith-based and community organizations (FBCOs) will provide comprehensive and coordinated services to ex-offenders in the following three areas:
Employment:
Employment is a critical stabilizing factor for ex-offenders and this initiative will stress job placement, job retention, and increasing the earnings potential of released prisoners. FBCOs will offer job training and job placement services in coordination with business, local One-Stop Career Centers, educational institutions, and other employment providers. Partnering faith-based and community organizations will provide each program participant with work-readiness, soft skills training, mentoring, job placement or referral for job placement, and post-placement support. Educational services and hard-skills training must be provided through vouchers by organizations that grant industry-recognized credentials. These vouchers should be used to supplement the limited supply of individual training accounts available through the workforce system.
Housing:
Because adequate housing for ex-offenders is an important component of successful reentry, the initiative will stress both satisfactory transitional housing and the movement from transitional to permanent housing. Funds are not currently available under this initiative to provide housing services for participants, but the grants will require that linkages be developed at each site to provide necessary housing services to participants. Subject to the availability of appropriations, Federal funds to provide housing services may be added to these grants in future years.
Mentoring:
FBCOs will provide post-release mentoring and other services essential to reintegrating ex-offenders in coordination with the corrections, parole, and probation structure. Participating adult ex-offenders will be matched with appropriate mentors who will be primarily responsible for supporting the returnee in the community and the work place. Mentors will offer support, guidance, and assistance with the many challenges faced by ex-offenders.
Target Population to be Served
Individuals 18 years old and older, who have been convicted as an adult and imprisoned pursuant to an Act of Congress or a State law, and who have never been convicted of a violent or sex-related offense can be served with these grants. Individuals should be enrolled in the program within 180 days after their release from prison or a halfway house. Up to 10 percent of individuals served can be enrolled over 180 days from their prison release. Services may be provided to individuals who have been released from prison and are residing in a halfway house.
Allowable Uses of Grant Funds
DOL grant funds can be used to provide a variety of services to returning prisoners, including workforce development services, job training, on-the-job training, work experience, basic skills remediation, counseling and case management, mentoring, and other reentry services. DOL grant funds may not be used for housing, substance abuse treatment services, and pre-release services other than recruitment, introductory meetings, orientations, and other activities necessary to establishing program connections with prisoners prior to their release. The Department of Justice (DOJ) PRI grants to state agencies will provide pre-release services.
Ready 4 Work
The Prisoner Reentry Initiative (PRI) was designed to expand the elements of an earlier prisoner reentry project called Ready4Work (R4W). Ready4Work was an ETA pilot project that also helped returning offenders by linking them to faith-based and community institutions that help them find work and avoid a relapse into a life of criminal activity. R4W was launched in 2003 and was a three-year pilot program to address the needs of ex-prisoners utilizing Faith-Based and Community Organizations (FBCO). This $25 million program was jointly funded by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), the U.S. Department of Justice, Public/Private Ventures — a Philadelphia-based research and demonstration non-profit — and a consortium of private foundations.
Ready4Work placed community organizations at the center of social service delivery to ex-offenders. It placed an emphasis on employment-focused programs that incorporate mentoring, job training, job placement, case management and other comprehensive transitional services. The following select organizations were chosen to provide services to adult ex-offenders in eleven cities:
City of Memphis Second Chance Ex-Felon Program — Memphis, Tennessee
Allen Temple Housing and Economic Development Corp — Oakland, California
East of the River Clergy Police and Community Partnership — Washington, DC
Exodus Transitional Community — East Harlem, New York
Holy Cathedral/Word of Hope Ministries — Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Operation New Hope — Jacksonville, Florida
SAFER Foundation — Chicago, Illinois
Search for Common Ground — Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Union Rescue Mission — Los Angeles, California
Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church — Houston, Texas
America Works Detroit — Detroit, MI
For further information on the R4W program, including participant demographics, outcomes and resources, please click here.
