Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • This rural N.C. farm helps formerly incarcerated women build back their lives, careers

    Benevolence Farm provides reentry services for women to help ease the transition after incarceration. The nonprofit provides free room and board, a guaranteed job, career counseling, health appointments, and transportation.

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  • Laughing Bear Bakery has a recipe for a fresh start out of prison

    At her non-profit business Laughing Bear Bakery, retired chaplain Kalen McAllister hires only those with a criminal record and offers them a chance at employment, gaining work experience, and rebuilding their lives.

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  • Interrupting Cycles of Harm, Inside and Outside Prison Walls

    A growing number of programs are working to interrupt cycles of trauma and harm with currently and formerly incarcerated individuals. Beyond Violence uses curriculum co-designed by women currently incarcerated and uses peer co-facilitation to address the aggression and violence women have experienced personally, as well as been perpetrators of. The curriculum, which also highlights the impact of individuals’ communities, relationships, and social structures, improves mental health and facilitates long-term healing.

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  • Online network matches inmates with services after release, similar to a dating site

    The Inside Out Network is an online service that allows people who are incarcerated to search for and connect with organizations providing re-entry support, helping them begin to create a plan before they are released. So far, at least 1,600 people incarcerated in Arizona have enrolled in the program.

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  • The Feeling Of Freedom After Prolonged "Awaiting Trial" In A Nigerian Prison

    Considering the overwhelming number of low-income inmates awaiting trial in Nigeria due to lack of legal representation, Heafort Foundation takes up such cases and provides legal services free of cost. Since 2019, the foundation has helped about 200 inmates get out of jail while also supporting them with the means to complete their education or learn new skills so they can restart their lives again.

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  • The Biggest Crop in Prison Gardens: Hope

    A gardening program for correctional facilities is introducing incarcerees to vocational gardening and landscaping, but also provides much more than a chance to get their hands dirty. Insight Garden Program provided a “safe space” for introspection and growth, reduced anxiety and depression, and then eventually helped formerly incarcerated people adjust to life after prison with services that include housing.

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  • This NGO's Strategy Helps Ex-convicts Avoid Repeating Crime

    In the nine years since its founding, Dream Again Prison and Youth Initiative has helped more than 2,000 incarcerated Nigerians prepare for success in work and life after they leave prison. Using mental health support, vocational training, and financial aid after graduates leave prison, the program works in six prisons in an effort to combat the country's rising recidivism rate. Much of the focus is on helping would-be entrepreneurs start their own businesses rather than rely on existing businesses that may not want to give the formerly incarcerated a second chance.

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  • Prison offers little to ease domestic violence trauma. This program tries to fill the gaps

    A New Way of Life gives formerly incarcerated women something that most did not get from prison: treatment for the trauma that so many incarcerated women suffered from domestic violence. As an antidote to a system geared to punishing wrongdoing without addressing its causes, New Way provides housing and supportive programs, many of which are taught by women with similar experiences. Some of the women tell their stories of lives repaired and families reunited thanks to New Way's interventions.

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  • After prison, the fight to be a firefighter

    One year after California legislators created a legal opening for formerly incarcerated firefighters to use their prison training to land firefighter jobs on the outside, the system envisioned by the law's supporters has failed to materialize. Felony criminal records serve as a barrier to employment in such jobs ordinarily. The law was intended to create a pathway through expunging those records for people trained to fight wildfires while in prison. A slow, poorly planned rollout and lack of tracking data means no one knows how many have benefited, though it appears few have thanks to a daunting process.

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  • Evidence-based reentry resources key for sicker incarcerated population, researchers say

    Community health workers with North Carolina Formerly Incarcerated Transition Program (NC FIT) counsel people recently released from jails and prisons to help them get the care they need for mental and physical health problems. The program closes some but not all of the gaps left by the state's inadequate Medicaid coverage and prison health services. Banking on the trust that comes with shared experiences, the formerly incarcerated health workers can connect people with medication-assisted treatment for substance use, covid-related treatments, and mental health care, all common ailments post-incarceration.

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