Fresh start in the kitchen: Ruthie's Cafe helps rebuild lives in South Dallas

Victims of violence that end up in the emergency room can return within two years with more injuries because of retaliation efforts. Philadelphia’s Healing Hurt People is a hospital-based violence intervention program that assists individuals who need medical care and mental health services. The hospital and social work collaboration helps reduce emergency room costs.

The Future Leaders Apprenticeship Program (FLAP) provides formerly incarcerated individuals with paid positions, benefits, and hands-on training in prison advocacy, helping them transition successfully into meaningful careers while contributing to criminal justice reform through legislative victories like Illinois's 2019 youthful parole bill.

A community violence intervention program modeled after READI is beginning in Philadelphia to connect high-risk individuals who were victims of violence or formerly incarcerated with basic needs services like therapy, employment, and housing assistance to reduce violence and recidivism. Holistic approaches like READI have already proven effective as half of participants are still working full time a year after attending the program and the program’s experimental group saw a 79% reduction in arrests for shootings and homicide.

A workforce development initiative, PowerCorpsPHL, pays participants to learn skills and gain hands-on experience for jobs that offer long-term career opportunity in the field of environmental sustainability. Participants generally have criminal records or have been in the foster care system. In addition to job training and education, PowerCorpsPHL also provides services such as mental health counseling, securing childcare, navigating SNAP and AmeriCorps tuition benefits and helping with paperwork. The program helps 92 percent of participants secure either a job or post-secondary education.

For young adults leaving prison in Atlanta, they have the opportunity to participate in Gangstas to Growers, a local nonprofit that provides job skills training and personal development. The program, created in 2016, gives participants the opportunity to learn skills like farming, gardening, and how to run a business, and supplementary knowledge like financial literacy and environmental sustainability. Even more, Gangstas to Growers pays participants working on black-owned farms $15 per hour, which is almost twice the minimum wage.

Home To Stay, a new collaborative program in Milwaukee, WI, brings together community-based organizations, government agencies, and private employers to provide outreach and services for formerly incarcerated individuals. Once a month, services like job recruiting, educational centers, and legal help come together under one roof to give those re-entering society an accessible place to receive the support they need.

In rural North Dakota where clinical treatment centers are hard to find, a program called Free Through Recovery "seeks to drive down North Dakota’s prison rates by creating networks of sobriety and support around people on probation and parole." Although local law enforcement claims the program is not an alternative to incarceration, in the short time it has been in operation, it has served over 550 people with many participants securing both housing and work opportunities.

In El Salvador a nonprofit partners with employers to find jobs for gang members who want a way out of that life. It's a key component to helping people escape gang violence, although companies must work with churches and community groups to get the former gang members job training and to negotiate their separation with the gang leaders. They must also convince their fellow companies this is a viable solution, as well as their own employees, who will work with the former gang members.

Led by peers and providing everything from group therapy to tips on how to build credit, the Timelist program works with the recently paroled as well as the presently incarcerated to reduce recidivism. Seven years after it started, Timelist’s comprehensive approach has a perfect record of it’s graduates staying out of prison.

Some local programs see youth employment as more than just a workforce development issue. They also view jobs as a way to offer stability to young people, especially those from Cleveland area communities with high violence rates. The research bears them out. These are the voices of some of the voices speaking in favor of more jobs and less violence.