Morning Edition, a radio show on NPR [National Public Radio], had an interesting and, I think, realistic, segment this morning on "Giving Ex-Cons a Second Chance" which focused on some employment programs out of Baltimore. You can read more and listen to this radio program by going to:
http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/index.html
There are also links to other previously aired NPR shows r/t prison/prisoner topics found along with the article about employment.