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& Description
News Outlet
& Journalist
Date
& Location
MEDIA TYPE
& LENGTH
4 February 2021
Iowa, United States
Text
1500-3000 Words
More than 3,000 Iowans voted in the 2020 presidential election thanks to an executive order signed by the Republican governor after a protest campaign by activists to erase Iowa's permanent ban on voting by people wit...
28 January 2021
St. Louis, Missouri, United States
Broadcast TV News
Under 3 Minutes
When people emerge from long prison sentences, they can be in a hurry to put their lives back on track. But, when enrolled in a voluntary re-entry program called the Concordance Academy of Leadership, they first must ...
24 January 2021
Charlotte, North Carolina, United States
Text
1500-3000 Words
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...
21 January 2021
St. Louis, Missouri, United States
Broadcast TV News
Under 3 Minutes
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...
14 January 2021
Zimbabwe
Text
800-1500 Words
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 initiat...
4 January 2021
Montana, United States
Text
800-1500 Words
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 st...
29 December 2020
Tucson, Arizona, United States
Text
1500-3000 Words
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 oth...
22 December 2020
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Text
1500-3000 Words
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, TerraV...
The Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia Media Network)
Samantha Melamed
2 December 2020
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Text
1500-3000 Words
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 be...
17 November 2020
Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States
Podcast
Over 15 Minutes
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 in...
2 November 2020
Toksook Bay, Alaska, United States
Podcast
Over 15 Minutes
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, ...
31 October 2020
Kentucky, United States
Text
800-1500 Words
More than 170,000 people with felony records in Kentucky won the right to vote in the 2020 election under an order by the governor. Although not as concrete as legislation, the governor's order at least temporarily re...
21 October 2020
Fresno, California, United States
Multi-Media
1500-3000 Words
Project Rebound helps formerly incarcerated students navigate and succeed in pursuing their higher education goals. The program works with potential candidates, whether they are incarcerated or have completed their se...
20 October 2020
Rochester, New York, United States
Text
1500-3000 Words
The Greyston Center for Open Hiring teaches businesses to fill entry-level positions using only a wait list, hiring whomever is next on the list without an interview, background check, or drug test. The open-hiring pr...
12 October 2020
New York, New York, United States
Text
Over 3000 Words
When jails and prisons released people early as a pandemic precaution, New York City responded to the threat of increased homelessness by temporarily housing more than 400 people in hotels while providing them with re...
21 September 2020
Chicago, Illinois, United States
Podcast
Over 15 Minutes
Chicago's Cook County Jail became the first jail in the nation in March to open a polling place behind bars, resulting in about 1,800 voters casting ballots, a sharp increase in voting by eligible voters in the jail. ...
17 September 2020
California, United States
Text
1500-3000 Words
The Fire and Forestry Recruitment Program serves as an intermediary between formerly incarcerated people trained as firefighters and the agencies they seek work from once they have been released from prison. Californi...
31 August 2020
United States
Text
1500-3000 Words
A longstanding campaign to restore voting rights to people with felony convictions led nine states since the 2016 presidential election to create or expand such rights, benefiting hundreds of thousands of potential vo...
25 August 2020
Los Angeles County, California, United States
Text
1500-3000 Words
Finding gainful employment after incarceration is hard in the best of times, but during a global pandemic it's even more challenging. A Los Angeles nonprofit, Chrysalis, has been able to place the hard-to-employ job s...
15 August 2020
Ypsilanti, Michigan, United States
Multi-Media
800-1500 Words
The Youth Justice Fund sends formerly incarcerated men and women to a lakeside summer camp as therapy for the trauma they suffered growing up and during long prison sentences that started when they were teenagers and ...
14 August 2020
San Francisco, California, United States
Text
Over 3000 Words
California, home to an unprecedented number of prison "lifers" who served decades since their teens and then were released under revised parole policies, created the Peer Reentry Navigation Network (PRNN) to have fell...
31 July 2020
Oakland, California, United States
Text
Over 3000 Words
After two failed attempts, Oakland Ceasefire retooled its approach and since 2013 has been a significant factor in lowering homicides and nonfatal shootings. The program, used in various ways in many cities, identifie...
9 July 2020
Washington, District of Columbia, United States
Text
800-1500 Words
Freed from prison after serving at least 15 years, often much longer, for crimes committed when they were teens, a group of men holds twice-monthly Zoom meetings to lend structure and peer support to their lives durin...
25 June 2020
San Quentin, California, United States
Text
Over 3000 Words
San Quentin Prison's media created by the men incarcerated there have gone beyond rehabilitation of individuals to a broader mission of promoting criminal justice policy reform by reframing the narrative about those w...
14 May 2020
District of Columbia, United States
Text
800-1500 Words
Washington, D.C. is piloting an approach called Thinking for a Change to help break the cycle of recidivism. The approach itself has been around since 1997, and it brings together individuals involved in the justice s...
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