I am not sure if this question should be posted in this forum or not, but I wasn't quite sure where to post it. Ok, here's the deal. I got a letter from Robert the other day, and in it he was telling me about his cell mates. He said that they kind of joke around and make fun of him cuz he is excited about getting out and getting back to his career. He said that these guys really don't think much of having a career, and he feels kinda sorry for them. So, he asked me if I could find some apprenticeship(sp) program information and send it to these three guys. He gave me a number of a company, (not sure exactly what the company does) but I did find their website. I looked all over for info about apprenticeship programs, etc, and couldn't find anything. I guess my question is, do any of you know of any place that would be willing to send information to inmates regarding future programs? Maybe electrician programs, or automotive apprenticeships, that type of thing? Do you kind of know what I am trying to say cuz I know I am not saying it really well. Thanks! :)

Totally understand what you are looking for...I'll do some research and get back to ya. I know that here in Connecticut they even have tax break for those who hire ex inmates. I believe it is around $1600.00 for the first year and they will also get a tax break for the next year...

But I'll try to find out about the programs available in general and in your state!

Pamela

OH I'm the bright one here...PM me your location. I tried to do a search on Motown programs...and I don't even want to go into what I found:p


LOL

Pamela

You crack me up!!!
I'll PM ya! :)

Disclaimer: I was KIDDING about the Motown programs!!
(It was just listed under your avatar as your location...omg...LOL!)

BTW: You make me laugh more Jeni!;)

Motown-oh my lovely Motown-how do I love thee? Let me count the ways (reasons)..........
1.) ummm, errr, Eminem? Ahhh, no. Um, I'll get back to #1
2.) well, cars? Yea, yea, we have lots and lots of cars
3.) umm, Madonna? (ack!) no
4.) God, what am I doing? I can't even get past #1! lol
I WISH I was from Ohio!!! lol (jk) As bad as Detroit can be, you still gotta love it right? I mean, RIGHT? lol

I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHAT I CAN DO TO HELP MY MAN WHEN HE GETS OUT. I KNOW HE STILL HAS TIME BUT IF YOU COULD GIVE ME SOME LEADS TO WHERE TO LOOK FOR SOMETHING SO HE HAS A BETTER CHANCE OF FINDING SOMETHING LONG TERM/ CAREER POSITION. HE IS INTO CONSTRUCTION TYPE WORK.

Willie Walker (One Stop Center)
Director of Employment and Training
Detroit's Workforce Development Board
Detroit's Workplace
707 West Milwaukee Street
Detroit, MI 48202
313-961-4118

One Stop Center
Willie Walker gave an overview of DEC’s One Stop programs and services which were created
under the Governor’s executive order in 1997. The One Stop offers "JTPA services, HUD
services, offender services, legal services, court services, childcare services– all types of services
in one location." The One Stop is available to all and is staffed by former state employees. It also
works with over 30 partnering organizations, including community and faith-based
organizations, and houses contractors who have bid on proposals to offer services. Walker is
proud of the performance accountability demonstrated by service providers at the One Stop– "No
one [contractor or staff] is guaranteed a position at the One Stop. They can be put out at any
time," said Walker. "If there is a need for certain services in another part of the city, the
contractors are given 10 extra points on their proposal for agreeing to move to that location."
Students are not the only customers for the One Stop; many programs help veterans, the
homeless, entrepreneurs, non-English speakers, ex-offenders and the general public. Since it’s
opening in 1997, DEC’s One Stop Center has served over 76,000 customers, registered over
55,000 people onto a talent bank and provided over 100,000 referrals. Staff also give
presentations at high schools on job training, career exploration, Tech Prep and GED and career
counseling. Relationships have been built with community colleges and local universities to
bring interns into the One Stop Center.
-------------------------


http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/reentry/states/mi.html

Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative

Michigan Works! Agency #E
Detroit (city)

City of Detroit Employment and Training
707 W. Milwaukee Street, 5th Floor
Detroit, MI 48202
313–876–0674
313–876–0686 (fax)

---------------------------

The second successful programme is called Detroit Transition of Prisoners (TOP). Prison Fellowship Ministries facilitated Detroit
TOP’s start-up for the first four years. TOP is a church-based, non-residential aftercare programme. Its purpose is to help selected
prisoners overcome personal, economic and social barriers in order to lead productive, crime-free lives following their return to
Detroit. TOP engages and equips community churches and volunteers to encourage, assist and strengthen accountability for
ex-prisoners. TOP also works to leverage the assistance of the business community, social service agencies and other local
resources on behalf of participants and their families.
Upon admission into TOP, participants undergo a thorough assessment that identifies their risk of recidivism and their areas of
particular risk and need. Based on this information, TOP’s case manager works with each participant to establish a specific
transition plan. TOP participants ‘graduate’ from the programme once they successfully meet their programme goals - up to two
years following release into the community. Each participant is matched with a mentor who acts as a resource person and adviser,
and who also keeps the participant accountable to his or her transition plan. Each mentor-participant is rooted in a church that has
an expressed commitment to the TOP participant, offering a base of Christian love and nurturing in a community of believers to the
participant or his or her family (if possible). In its fourth year of operation, TOP has a recidivism rate of just 9 percent. This
compares favourably to an anticipated recidivism rate of 50 percent for TOP participants, based on their risk scores (using LSI-R)
when they enter the programme. According to an evaluation by the Center for Social Research, TOP participants’ risk scores drop
significantly during their time in TOP - which corresponds with the low actual recidivism rates in TOP.
--------------------------

SECOND CHANCE PROGRAM:

Earlier this year, the department teamed up with Goodwill and started its Second Chance program. Through this
plan, inmates who are within the last month of their sentencing are paired with prospective employers. The
employers then have the option of giving the inmates a job when they are released. So far, 33 inmates have gone
through the program. The Detroit News talked to Ficano about the program and his career as Wayne County Sheriff.
Q: What made you want to start a program like Second Chance?
A: "The criminal justice system sees so many repeat offenders and we often preach that they shouldn't go back to
their previous form of life. This is an opportunity to break the cycle. We also have our Juvenile Reality programs,
where we have the kids see the reality of the Wayne County jail system in one program and we go to the morgue and
circuit court also. Our other more popular programs involved giving away 60,000 trigger locks in Wayne County and
educational programs with youngsters, adults and parents."

(Not sure of a phone or address..)
----------

Good can come from anywhere, or anyone.
Ask Mary White, a 35-year-old single mother, who watched the first house she will ever own go
up last week on a Habitat for Humanity site in Saginaw.
Or ask Rob Isaac, Alex Mui, Michael Hill and Mitchell Brewer, who, behind the steel and razor
wire of Mid-Michigan Correctional Facility in St. Louis, built the walls of that house.
For 31-year-old Isaac, a former drug dealer, building walls like these gave him his first taste of
doing something good.
"You look at these walls and you know someone's going to live behind them," said Isaac, in
prison for delivery of narcotics. "I just wish I could be there to see it."
In Michigan's Prison Build program, more than 100 minimum-security inmates frame walls,
build cabinets, mill trim and grow plants for simple, low-income homes built by the nonprofit
Habitat for Humanity. They earn about $1.75 a day working at prisons in Ionia, Freeland, Lapeer,
Plymouth, Kinross and St. Louis. Most will get out in a year or two, on track to find good-paying
construction jobs.
Mui, 28, convicted of armed robbery, said he feels good about contributing something positive.
Maybe that's a con, but maybe it's true. Just because someone commits a crime doesn't mean he
can't feel something like that.
Corrections officials call it restorative justice -- an act that doesn't erase a wrong but helps
offenders make it right with the community by contributing. Corrections Director Bill Martin
said doing something concrete accomplishes more than having offenders say they're sorry. "This
is not just some feel-good thing," Martin said. "It's something they can see. They can touch. It's
something they can point out to their families."
So far, inmates have built 175 homes for low-income families. And the hands-on experience they
get means that, when they get out, Prison Build can help them find jobs that typically start at $13
an hour -- enough to give an ex-inmate a legit way to make a decent living. That's something
taxpayers, who pay more than $20,000 a year to lock someone up, should like.
Contractors benefit from the program, too, because it gives them a fresh supply of skilled
workers.
Marshall Edmison, a parolee who served two years for drinking and driving, will start a
home-building job this month. He got into Prison Build at Saginaw Correctional Facility, helping
to construct the program's first complete house. He learned how to drywall, frame walls, install
kitchen cabinets, texture paint and put on a roof.
"The job wouldn't have happened without the program," said Edmison, 42, who volunteered last
week for Habitat for Humanity's Blitz Build in Saginaw. "It not only brought up my work skills
but taught me how to handle people."
Prison Build started in late 1998. Last year, inmates built walls for 115 houses, two sets of
kitchen and bath cabinets and a complete house. Michigan National Guard soldiers move the
walls on flatbed trucks to Habitat for Humanity sites, where volunteers and the home buyers
assemble the walls and finish up. Habitat pays for the building supplies.
On Friday, mayors attending the annual U.S. Conference of Mayors in Detroit will take part in a
wall raising of a Habitat for Humanity House, with walls built at the Lapeer prison.
The work breaks up the mad monotony of prison life.
"The guys are eager," said Hill, 37, who's doing time for larceny. "When we start getting caught
up, we're looking for more."
Ken Bensen, president and founder of Habitat for Humanity of Michigan, said the inmates do
excellent work. He reports no complaints. Nor have any security problems surfaced. The walls
contain no place to hide contraband. Inmates are closely supervised. Besides, they aren't looking
to mess up this close to their release dates.
"It's a privilege to do this," Hill said. "We know one mistake could shut the program down, and
we want to keep it going."
Although Michigan's Prison Build program is too new to have a track record, it has already
received national recognition as a finalist in the Council of State Governments' Innovations
Awards Program.
And coordinator Michael Green believes it will reduce recidivism. Inmates get out with job
skills, a better attitude and assistance finding work. And they know they have already contributed
to the society to which they are returning.
If inmate Isaac's wish to be there when a family gets a home came true, he'd like what he'd see.
White, a bookkeeper who earns $18,000 a year, couldn't stop smiling last week as she watched
her three-bedroom house take shape. After 17 years of renting, she'll move in next month with
her 17-year-old son.
White knows that a few men she probably will never meet, who have done some bad things, have
answered her prayers by helping build a place she can finally call home.
She has given them something, too, more important than a job skill: a chance to show they can
still make it right.

On the lookout

Detroit job fair will help ex-cons

Finding employment can be a difficult task. For felons, the task can seem hopeless. To improve the bleak occupational outlook for ex-convicts, the Michigan Employment Security Commission, the Michigan Neighborhood Partnership, the Michigan Department of Corrections and the Detroit Employment and Training Division have organized "A Fresh Start Job Fair," scheduled for Nov. 20, to match ex-offenders with employers from up to 35 participating Metro Detroit companies. The event constitutes a positive step toward remedying recidivism and helps felons assume productive lives after release from prison.
According to a 1999 Department of Justice survey of 11 states, "62.5 percent of all released prisoners were arrested within three years ... and 41.1 percent were reincarcerated." These high levels of recidivism stem from the difficulty ex-offenders have in finding employment. Without a legal income source, the temptation to return to crime as a means of sustenance is intensified.

Probation officer Nancy Berg notes that "when you talk to (probation) agents, the number-one thing they say about their clients is that these people need to be employed." The Fresh Start fair takes several measures to ensure that these former inmates do, in fact, find employment. Besides providing a forum for felons to meet employers, the fair also will offer help with resumes and interviewing techniques to to aid them in subsequent job searches. The measures the fair will take to ensure felon employment will improve the recidivism problem in the Metro Detroit area.

Another obstacle former inmates face in securing employment is a lack of marketable skills. A 1995 Capitol Hill study shows that "approximately 40 percent of prisoners in the federal prison system do not have a high school-level education." The lack of education often precludes them from attaining employment upon release and forces them away from the work force - and toward crime.

Another study reveals that "inmates who spent at least a year in prison and successfully completed one or more education courses in a year, demonstrated a 15.7 percent reduction in the recidivism rate over a three-year period."

The matter of educating ex-offenders is central to them leading productive lives. The Fresh Start fair also effectively addresses this issue by providing access to job training - which is especially important at a time when state governments are slashing funds for prisoner training and rehabilitation programs.

The program's main sponsor, MESC, also plans to provide financial incentives for area businesses that employ ex-offenders. One plan would allow businesses to write off 35 percent of the first $6,000 in wages of all ex-offenders hired. This financial reward would likely counteract much of the reluctance companies harbor toward the employment of ex-criminals.

Fresh Start is a pragmatic step to improve the prospects of released criminals. It targets major factors contributing to recidivism and allows ex-convicts to move back into a healthy societal role.

You are awesome girl!!!!!!!!!
I am going to print all of these out! And, Robert will really dig the last one cuz he can actually PROVE to these guys that ex-cons can have decent futures!
Thanks and you ROCK!!!!!!!! :)~

So Jeni, did this help Robert prove to his cellies there is hope outside of the walls?


Off subject: We really do need to plan another 'Ladies night here at PTO'!!;) :p

We do need another ladies night. In the chat room last Tuesday I changed my name to Ho. (I really wonder what goes through my head these days! lol) It was funny because Emme was friggin hilarious! She was on the BALL that night! I'll tell ya, no one understands a HO. lol
Where were you mmmhhh?
I talked to Robert about the info, and he told me to forget it. I guess he isn't getting along all that well with his cellies lately, and doesn't much care if they get a job once they get out! Hey, as long as HE has a job once he gets out, that's all I care about ya know! lol
Where is Toe? We need his sense of humor here!
Hey, do you think he will wear a skirt? <grin> lol

tee hee...i just found a compliment...blushing...

wow, pam, look at what you found out...you are amazing!

ooh, i hope robert's friends all get their butts in gear now!

emme

Where can i get more info.


E-mail removed due to PTO Policy. Please contact members via PM. Thanks!

Moving this to the For Offenders...Employment Sub-forum for discussion.

Hi Cameo, you seem to be a wealth of information. My son is in OCJ since Oct. 31 looking to be realesed in Aug. 07. He says there is some financial aid through MESC for inmates, payment for incarceration per week? Is this true? Has anyone heard of this? I'm also looking for programs in Oakland county to help him get a job once he gets out. He will need to finish high school and work at the same time. I have a distance learning program that he can earn his diploma through but I'm lost on the employment arena. Any ideas for Oakland County?