Reentry programs help formerly-incarcerated students acclimate back into communities

Today, formerly incarcerated people face greater unemployment rates than those that all Americans faced during the Great Depression.
The unemployment rate then reached 25%—prompting the federal government to create Social Security and unemployment programs—but today’s unemployment rate for people reentering society after serving their time is roughly 27%. Studies have found that being employed and earning a living wage is closely linked with keeping formerly incarcerated people from ending up back in the system, as are education and reentry programs.
What’s more, reentry programs cost significantly less than incarceration: It costs the state $132,860 a year per inmate, but reentry programs, for example, cost $38,500 per person in Los Angeles County.
“They all recognized that free public education—at least affordable public education—was one of the most important things that a person coming out could access.”
Roger Chung, Laney College Faculty Member and Founder of Restoring Our Communities
Alameda County has several reentry programs designed to help formerly incarcerated people get back on their feet. Wraparound services help students deal with the trauma and disconnect incarceration brings and address a variety of needs. Supports include help finding employment, including knowing how to honestly fill out applications and resumes; what fields to pursue and avoid; financial literacy; legal assistance expunging records; peer support and mentoring. Education is a vital element, and reentry programs can provide academic support like tutoring and help navigating education systems and making connections with adult schools, like Oakland Adult and Career Education (OACE). At OACE, these students can earn a diploma or HSE Equivalency, complete job-training and certification programs and get help to go on to four-year colleges and universities.
“We want to create a situation where there’s no wrong door with us. You come to us, we make sure that you get served,” says Kim Jones, OACE director. “They’re providing a whole other wraparound service. And we’re supplementing that with the education piece.”
In 2016, Laney College educator Roger Chung founded the Restoring Our Communities (ROC) program alongside three formerly-incarcerated students. The goal was to provide students with support and the opportunity to determine the direction they wanted their lives to go. Since then, they’ve served almost a thousand students, and transferred dozens from adult schools and community colleges to the UC, CSU and private college systems.
“The three students who founded ROC with me, they all believed in the system of community college as an open access space in post-secondary education that had very few barriers to admission and enrollment. They felt that was their saving grace,” Chung says. “They all recognized that free public education—at least affordable public education—was one of the most important things that a person coming out could access.”
ROC also partners with several organizations, including the Alameda County Public Defender’s Clean Slate program for help expunging conviction records, as well as SparkPoint of Oakland, which provides financial education. But one of the first and most common obstacles Chung says formerly incarcerated students face is the lack of a high school diploma or GED, without which students are ineligible for federal financial aid.
“I believe that whether you have a high school diploma or not will really determine your path. If you do not have one, your path is limited,” says Denise Richardson, president and co-founder of another Bay Area reentry program, Open Gate. “No matter how clever or ambitious you are, there’s a limit to how far you can go.”
Ten years ago, Richardson and co-founder Mildred McKinney approached the College of Alameda with a proposal to create a college readiness program inside the Santa Rita jail. Today, they have more than 200 students on their roster and are working with students in college courses, GED classes and vocational training programs. According to McKinney, participants in their program have a mere 3% recidivism rate. Open Gate further supports students with its Open Gate Mentors Advisory Council, or OG MAC, which connects new students with formerly incarcerated mentors who can relate to what they’re going through. Mentors meet one on one with students as well as in group meetings to help them navigate the transition back into communities.
“Our pilot program was going so well over at College of Alameda, we had someone from over at Chabot College reach out to us and tell us [that] we would love for us to start a support program here as well,” says McKinney. “Now that program is the model for community colleges in California, [and] Open Gate is the only organization that’s funded by Alameda County Probation for post secondary education.”
To learn more about Laney College’s Restoring Our Communities program, visit laney.edu/restoringourcommunities/. Open Gate, Inc., maintains a Facebook page at www.facebook.com/opengateincbayarea/. For more information about Oakland Adult Career and Education’s programs for all students, go to www.ousd.org/adult-and-career-education.
Written by Anne Stokes
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Bay Area California | High School – Variety of Classes |