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

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  • ‘‘You Got Your High School Diploma?''

    Five Keys Charter School was the first in the U.S. to open in a jail. Now, the school operates a bus, or traveling classroom, that parks in San Francisco's most under-resourced communities to offer residents, many offenders, a second or third or seventh flexible chance at earning a high school diploma. Journalist Elizabeth Weil writes, "The school was created with the understanding that incarceration is part of life for their students." The director of the Bard Prison Initiative adds that Five Keys uses the infrastructure of jail “to do positive good rather than just mitigate harm.”

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  • Inside the Battle to Close Rikers

    New York City plans to close the eight jail complex located on Rikers Island and replace it with a series of four smaller, community-integrated facilities in the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan. While the administration has faced community pushback, the city has gleaned insights about the process, including jail reform and design and how to receive feedback from the community. The goal is for this plan could lead to further decarceration, financial savings for the city, and facilities that incorporate job-training, substance abuse treatment, and counseling into its services.

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  • How Miami-Dade's Mental Health Program Steers People To Treatment, Not Jail

    For nearly two decades, Miami-Dade's Criminal Mental Health Project has worked to decriminalize mental illness, diverting people from jail into treatment and social services with an approach that has helped cut the jail population almost by half and save taxpayers millions. Combining the services of health care providers, law enforcement, and housing agencies, the project pairs participants with peer specialists and puts them on a treatment plan that can get their criminal charges dropped or reduced. Another benefit of the project: lower recidivism rates for people with serious mental illnesses.

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  • ‘Scrap it, start fresh, and think:' What Milwaukee can learn from New York City on housing young offenders

    As Wisconsin’s Milwaukee County seeks to transform how it handles young offenders, it looks to New York City as a model for change. In New York, the city has shifted its focus from large, state-run facilities to community-based programs and secured, residential homes. Milwaukee County weighs the lessons learned from this initiative and seeks to re-evaluate the services and long-term effects of its criminal justice programming.

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  • Ypsi-based program aims to restore dignity for women giving birth while incarcerated

    The Michigan Prison Doula Initiative seeks to provide pregnant women experiencing incarceration the support and care they need to maintain physical and mental health before, during, and after giving birth. The initiative has partnered with the Michigan Department of Corrections to start work in one prison – with the hopes of expanding to others – by providing prenatal counseling, support during birth, and postpartum visits.

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  • ‘We believe that they can come home and be a positive force for change:' How one program helps people transition out of incarceration

    In Wisconsin, the Alma Brothers Smart Reentry program works to reduce the rate of recidivism by building relationships with those being released from prison and reentering society. By providing each man in the program with a guide during the last year of his sentence and first year out of prison, the program is able to offer support, resources and opportunities that the former inmates may not otherwise have.

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  • Building the Prison-to-School Pipeline in California

    Providing those experiencing incarceration with educational services has shown to reduce recidivism by 28%. While many prisons offer GED or higher education classes, the opportunities are still hard to come by consistently, so organizations like Underground Scholars help recruit individuals after prison to colleges. Looking forward, those pushing for criminal justice reform hope to overturn a 1994 legislation that banned incarcerated individuals from being eligible for Pell Grants, which could help drive more people from prison to school.

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  • How Singapore is using tech to rehabilitate prisoners

    The Digitalisation of Inmate Rehabilitation & Corrections Tool (DIRECT) project gives inmates in Singapore tablets to communicate with family members and access e-learning resources. Similar initiatives have been shown to reduce recidivism rates. “The resources in DIRECT allow for inmates to take greater ownership of their rehabilitation and prepare them for reintegration back into society upon their release,” Neo Ming Feng, the Deputy Superintendent of Prisons, said.

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  • Reentering Society: How One New Athens Initiative Aims to Help

    After teaching an Inside Out class with half college students and half incarcerated students, an assistant professor from the University of Georgia addressed a gap in services to help incarcerated folks reenter into the community once released. The Athens Reentry Collaborative now meets weekly to help former inmates find career, personal, and community support.

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  • Reformed prisoners give back, save lives by monitoring SF's public restrooms

    Reformed prisoners are finding a way to contribute their skills to society by monitoring public restrooms in high-risk areas throughout San Francisco. Thanks to a partnership between Public Works Department and Hunters Point Family, these individuals are supported in finding work that includes "providing directions to tourists, returning lost wallets or cell phones, or hailing police to report drug dealers in the area."

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