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Wednesday, April 22, 2015

A Better Way to Fight Recidivism

Set a man up for a modicum of success, and he might just make a better life for himself.

As many as two-thirds of the 650,000 inmates released from prisons and jails in the United States each year will be re-arrested within three years. America Works is trying to change that.

A new report from the Manhattan Institute looks at AW’s successful approach, which centers around providing more “enhanced job-readiness training and job-search assistance” to nonviolent offenders than the typical re-entry program does. If the welfare-reform successes of the ’90s taught us anything, it’s that the best welfare program is a job. By rapidly attaching such offenders to work, AW aims to minimize the chance that they’ll re-offend later.

As the report puts it:  America Works is condensed into an intense one- or two-week period. It uses a tough-love approach, stressing interpersonal communication and such “soft” skills as time and anger management. It places special attention on teaching practical skills that many former inmates never acquired, such as résumé preparation, search strategies, and interview techniques. And it uses a network of employers, who are open to hiring ex-offenders and with whom it has long-term relationships, to place clients. Its goal is not only to help former inmates find jobs but also to keep jobs, and it provides follow-up services for six months. In 2005, the program provided job-readiness classes to 1,000 ex-offenders, placing 700 in jobs.

CLICK THE LINK BELOW TO READ THE REST OF THIS VALUABLE ARTICLE BY
— Kathryn Jean Lopez - senior fellow at the National Review Institute, editor-at-large of National Review Online, and founding director of Catholic Voices USA.