As this article from the Sacramento Bee notes, there are cases of well-intentioned and capable employers willing to help reentering prisoners who want to change their lives by offering them employment with supportive services, and we have all probably heard many other cases where this occurs.
Unfortunately, it is not something that is replicable to scale, as the average employer remains more concerned with finding good employees to begin with than helping create them by taking on the obviously dangerous and difficult work of criminal rehabilitation alongside developing strong work habits.
The model we have developed allows the Lampstand program executive director to seek out those potential employers and working with them, take on that dangerous and difficult work and once a nucleus of reformed criminal employees takes hold within a company, the future hires from the criminal ranks can count on their mentoring impact to ensure continued success.
Most importantly, our model is replicable to scale after an initial implementation and evaluation over a three to five year period.
An excerpt from the Bee article.
“California's overcrowded, constitutionally suspect prisons aren't just incarcerating criminals. They're confining our state's ability to fix our fiscal house, better serve taxpayers and provide crucial services for law-abiding, working families and their children. To balance its books, the state has slashed funding for schools, health care and services that protect children and seniors.
“With the state cutting funding to the bone for these and other vital programs, Californians deserve a more effective, less costly corrections system.
“Three years ago, University of California, Irvine, professor of criminology Joan Petersilia pointed to the bleak statistic that of the 115,000 parolees California released each year, some 70 percent were back in jail within 24 months. Worse yet, she said about 10 percent of these prisoners will repeatedly return – six or more times over a seven-year period. This year, the release rate is up to 134,000 parolees, with little sign of any change in recidivism.
“Beyond parole practices, the principal reason for recidivism is what Petersilia calls an inexcusable failure to maximize opportunities for prisoners to adapt to life on the outside. We need to correct that failure.
“And employers can play a vital role, something I've seen firsthand.
“Take, for instance, Tri-CED Community Recycling of Union City, near my own hometown of Hayward. It was started 30 years ago by Richard Valle, a Vietnam veteran who had seen far too many of his own friends end up in the streets or in jail. Tri-CED is a business dedicated to supporting workers who need a little extra help to make it.”
Lampstand Foundation website, http://www.lampstandfoundation.org/
"The sinner is at the very heart of Christianity. Nobody is so competent as the sinner in matters of Christianity. Nobody, except the saint." Charles Peguy (1873-1914)
About
- David H. Lukenbill
- I am a California native, married, we have one daughter and live close to the American River with two cats and all the wild critters we can feed. I am a management consultant to nonprofit organizations and have an Associates of Arts degree in Administration of Justice from Sacramento City College, a Bachelor of Science degree in Organizational Behavior from the University of San Francisco and a Master of Public Administration degree, also from the University of San Francisco.