Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • Meet the Disruptor: Quaker City Coffee

    Christian Dennis stood up in front of his class and told them about his life: He sold drugs, went to prison three times before the age of 18, and realized he had to start over. That’s all his classmate, Bob Logue needed to hear to realize he wanted Dennis to be his business partner. Together, they started Quaker City Coffee, a business they hope can “bridge the gaps between Philly neighborhoods.” How can they do that? By hiring former inmates, and giving back money to the community.

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  • New Zealand Tries a Different Kind of Private Prison

    The privatized prison system is largely skewed against inmates, as most are funded based on the number of individuals incarcerated, creating a disincentive to invest in the rehabilitation and comprehensive treatment of inmates. But the Wiri prison in Auckland is piloting a new approach that focuses on the greater good: the government pays the prison for positive results based on recidivism rates and improved outcomes for inmates, especially the Maori minority.

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  • How a New York Police Official Targets Thoughts to Fight Crime

    A former prosecutor now works directly with offenders as a deputy police chief in a movement called Council of Thought And Action (COTA), often going directly to them in the community and bringing them together in support groups. The idea is that crime is a result of poor problem solving, and COTA is designed to restructure ways of thinking and behaving, using cognitive therapy tools to address past emotional baggage, and the power of social networks to provide a positive replacement to the destructive networks they had in the past.

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  • Conservation Meets Corrections

    There are currently 2.3 million people incarcerated in the United States. According to rainforest ecologist Nalini Nadkarni, that's a lot of brainpower and potential sitting unused. It was this thought that inspired the start of the Sustainability in Prisons Project (SPP). As a collaboration between the Washington State Department of Corrections and The Evergreen State College, SPP aims to bring science and education within the walls of confinement – all while promoting the conservation of both plant and animal species.

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  • Supporters of juvenile lifer gather for a 'community resentencing'

    The Supreme Court ruled about 2,500 life sentences handed down to juveniles were unconstitutional and resentencing hearings are taking place to decide if these men and women will receive parole. In Philadelphia, a grass roots effort called Community Resentencing is designed to give family and friends an opportunity to weigh in on options for one man in a way that satisfies the need for him to repent and seek forgiveness from those he wronged while also serving the community through community service and mentoring.

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  • Delivering Gourmet Pizza, and Jobs Training, in Cook County Jail

    Recipe for Change is a program that teaches incarcerated people Italian cuisine skills, which is meant to help them gain employment when they reenter society. An estimated 200 people have gone through the program. Similarly, other programs are focusing on helping formerly incarcerated people gain employment.

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  • Why a $10,000 Philly tax break got almost no takers

    In Philadelphia, the city enrolled out a program that offered companies a $10,000 tax credit. The catch? Hire former prisoners who have crime records. To the surprise of the city, the program tanked. Now, the city created a similar, but revised program “ the Fair Chance Hiring Initiative.”

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  • Empowering Women to Break the Jihadi Cycle

    In order to counter terrorism and reduce recidivism of incarcerated male jihadists', the Entrepreneurship and Proselytization Empowerment Program helps the wives of jailed extremists through counseling and lessons about entrepreneurship. The program can help these families stay afloat and decrease the appeal of extremism for their husbands upon release.

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  • Addicts Need Help. Jails Could Have the Answer.

    Kentucky is rethinking its penal system for dealing with drug offenders and has shown success in reducing recidivism and relapse rates. Instead of leaving addicts to languish in the typical jailhouse environment of "extortion, violence and tedium," more than two dozen of the state's county jails have created separate units devoted to full-time addiction treatment and support-services for prisoners that involve peer-policing.

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  • Furnishing A Future

    Furnishing a Future offers furniture making classes to former inmates. The program was created with the intention of giving former prisoners job skills, who often leave prison with no work experience. “If these guys are trained in how to make a resume, and how to make it outside, but have no skills, they’re just not going to get a job.”

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