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Ready4Work In Brief |
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The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates that a staggering 12 percent of black men in their late twenties were in prison or jail in 2005. Incarceration rates for black males of all ages were five to seven times greater than those for white males of the same age. Because of skyrocketing incarceration rates, nearly 650,000 adults now return from custody to their communities each year. Many of these individuals find the transition back to society difficult, and recidivism rates are high. Indeed, an additional offense puts more than 25 percent of returnees back behind bars within three years; if probation and parole violations are included, the figure stands at more than 50 percent. Returning ex-prisoners go home to some of the nation's poorest neighborhoods, where there are few supports and services to help them reintegrate effectively and where their presence may threaten to disrupt already fragile households and social structures. Three years into the initiative, Ready4Work programs are providing returnees with employment services, case management and mentoring in 11 adult sites around the country. As researchers continue to collect and analyze data from the programs, early outcomes are beginning to emerge, and thus far they are extremely promising: Participants are finding and keeping jobs at impressive rates, and they have significantly lower levels of recidivism than the national ex-prisoner population. Program planners had hoped that more enrollees would participate in the mentoring component of Ready4Work and that they would meet with their mentors more often than they have (the initiative had an original goal of matching 90 percent of participants with a mentor).
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