{"id":423773,"date":"2024-04-24T05:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-24T12:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/?p=423773"},"modified":"2024-05-01T10:49:14","modified_gmt":"2024-05-01T17:49:14","slug":"formerly-incarcerated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/_ko\/economy\/2024\/04\/formerly-incarcerated\/","title":{"rendered":"How some programs help with post-prison life: \u2018I\u2019m signing checks. This is crazy.\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Anti-recidivism nonprofit helps formerly incarcerated people start businesses and get tech jobs.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\n

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Timothy Jackson never thought about becoming an entrepreneur until he spent 12 years in prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s where he came across, and got inspired by, other formerly incarcerated people who had started their own businesses. He then enrolled in a training program that gave him the skills and confidence to do the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI saw people come back from the program empowered \u2014 they were changed,\u201d Jackson said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now he owns and runs Quality Touch Cleaning Systems, a San Diego-area business he started mostly to keep himself employed, and has five employees plus a couple of independent contractors. He said his clients are in biotech, health care and other industries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jackson, 43, marveled at how far he\u2019s come since he got out of prison in 2017 and started his business a year later. \u201cFive, six years later and I\u2019m signing checks,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Defy Ventures is a national nonprofit organization that runs the program that helped Jackson. Its chief executive, Andrew Glazier, said Defy\u2019s six- to nine-month program teaches prisoners\u2019 employment-readiness as well as business skills, and addresses \u201cself-limiting beliefs\u2026 it\u2019s about coming to terms with past trauma and creating a new narrative for yourself that isn\u2019t based on liabilities of your past.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The organization is one of many around the nation trying to minimize recidivism rates through its in-prison and community programs. Defy\u2019s definition of recidivism aligns with the federal one: a return to prison if convicted of a crime or because of a parole violation. Defy \u2014 which is funded with public and private money \u2014 says its graduates have a 10% recidivism rate at the one-year mark and 15% at the three-year mark, compared with the U.S. rate of 20% and 39%, respectively, according to the most recent federal data<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jackson, who was among a cohort of almost 100 people who went through the program, placed second in a business-pitch competition. Defy awarded him a $7,000 grant to help start his business, and connected him with a mentor who Jackson said \u201cwas there every step of the way\u201d and has become like family to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

California an \u2018outlier\u2019<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Defy\u2019s programs are in 22 prisons in eight states, half of which are in California. Glazier said California and Wisconsin are the two states that help provide grants for its programs, and the rest of its funding comes from corporations and foundations. Last year, 18% of the organization\u2019s funding, or about $245,000, came from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the California Community Reinvestment Grants Program and federal funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Glazier said California is an outlier not just because it provides funding, but also in its openness to programs like Defy\u2019s: \u201cAccess and space are just as important as the funding.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s got to start on the inside,\u201d Glazier added, saying programs like Defy\u2019s end up saving the state \u2014 which spends more than $132,000 a year<\/a> per prisoner \u2014 money in the long run. \u201cIf you wait till people come home, by and large it\u2019s too late.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A total of 936 people took part in Defy\u2019s prison programs last year, 497 in California. The organization helped an additional 168 people nationwide with career and re-entry services after they were released from prison, 123 of whom were in the state. And 19 of its graduates launched businesses last year, 10 in California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Timothy Jackson wears a jacket with his company’s logo at Torrey Pines Science Park in San Diego on March 15, 2024. Jackson founded Quality Touch Cleaning Services after taking entrepreneurship training while he was incarcerated. Photo by Adriana Heldiz, CalMatters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Among Defy\u2019s funders is Checkr, a San Francisco-based software company that does background checks for employers. Checkr is an advocate for fair-chance hiring and says its workforce is 5% formerly incarcerated people. In California, the Fair Chance Act prohibits employers with five or more employees from asking about potential employees\u2019 conviction history before making them a job offer. And a new state law<\/a> that took effect last year allows for most people with felony convictions to ask for their records to be cleared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Checkr Foundation, the company\u2019s fledgling philanthropic arm, recently awarded Defy a $25,000 grant. The foundation\u2019s executive director is Ken Oliver, who spent more than two decades in prison<\/a> and has been advocating for formerly incarcerated people since he got out in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oliver said Checkr just launched an apprenticeship program, bringing in nine men and women at \u201call levels of the business, giving them nice salaries for being fresh out of prison, and benefits.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said that kind of support can do wonders for formerly incarcerated people, since society tends to \u201cjudge\u201d them \u2014 a sentiment echoed by several such people who spoke with CalMatters, all of whom faced challenges getting a job when they first got out of jail or prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGive people a job for $80,000, all of a sudden they\u2019re model citizens,\u201d Oliver said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Post-prison success stories<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Other Defy graduates already have jobs at Checkr. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They include Jaylene Leslie of Contra Costa County, who went through Defy\u2019s training program after she got out of Santa Rita County Jail in Dublin and had trouble finding a job because of her record. After she finished Defy\u2019s program, she won some grants to start a catering business and did that for a while. Then, she landed a job at Checkr, where she has been for the past six years, most recently on the customer-success team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leslie, who is 55, said that at one point she had lost \u201ceverything \u2014 job, house, car.\u201d But getting a job at Checkr helped her get those things back. \u201cIf I didn\u2019t have the compensation from a full-time tech position, I don\u2019t think I\u2019d be able to live in the Bay Area,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adam Garcia, who lives near Grass Valley in Northern California, has similar feelings about Defy \u2014 and Checkr. That\u2019s why, despite completing an almost 20-year prison sentence in 2019, he returns to prison to volunteer and try to inspire others. Garcia, 43, went through Defy\u2019s program, then eventually got a job at Checkr, where he is on the talent team and will soon be a recruiter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About 10 years into his sentence, Garcia said \u201cI didn\u2019t want to hurt my family anymore.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So he thought \u201cif I get a whole bunch of certificates, let me do the song and dance for the (parole) board so I can get out of prison.\u201d But after the various programs and group sessions he attended, he said his mindset genuinely began to change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of that prepared him for Defy\u2019s program. Garcia likened its \u201cvery intensive curriculum\u201d \u2014 it\u2019s 2,000 pages and has a 65% graduation rate, according to CEO Glazier \u2014 to a semester in college. The program, which Garcia entered with about a year to go in his sentence, also helped him afterward, providing him with a laptop and a gift card to Men\u2019s Wearhouse when he got out of prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, at Checkr, he is doing some of the things he was volunteering to do \u201cand getting paid for it,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cI was excited for myself, and excited that the company was investing in me and people like me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jackson, the business owner, is similarly enthusiastic about how his life has changed. He said going through the Defy program helped him \u201ctransition from hope to transformation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Financial support for this story was provided by the Smidt Foundation and The James Irvine Foundation.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\t\n\t\t

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California is clearing criminal records \u2014 including violent crimes \u2014 to offer second chances<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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California spent $600 million to house and rehab former prisoners \u2014 but can’t say whether it helped<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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