Interesting Reentry Program

Razing Barriers - Raising Bars

We are leading a collaboration of agencies to create a dynamic national education program that provides training, resources, and support to formerly incarcerated human beings who are reentering society and rebuilding their lives for good. The “Razing Barriers - Raising Bars'' education program is a national cooperative effort between two Jewish agencies, the Hinda and Aleph Institute, graduate students and professors at the UIC as well as local groups in Illinois, working together to resolve the challenges of reintegration. Our mission is simple: 0% recidivism, 100% acceptance. 

The Challenge

Human beings reentering the job market and society face multiple challenges; employers unwilling to hire someone with a criminal record, the inability to reinstate a professional license, a severe lack of internet and computer skills due to restrictions during incarceration, sometimes a lack of basic literacy skills, a gap in their work experience and community ostracism.

Objectives

Post an extensive needs analysis and survey, we have developed a leading-edge program with three overall goals.

1) Helping human beings who are re-entering society to support themselves.

2) Helping human beings who are re-entering adapt socially and mentally.

The program offers courses in social skills and strategies for reintegration, social support and addiction support groups, spirituality, and nonjudgmental compassionate mentors as required.

3) Providing basic legal guidance.

Target Audience

Initially, this program will nationally serve 365 clients reintegrating. The population will include diverse genders, religions, races, and types of offenses within a humanistic paradigm from the perspective of Jewish spirituality. These online courses will also be delivered nationally in correctional institutions using tablets. The program uses a composite of learning approaches; ZOOM, online learning in technical skills, professional tutoring on the internet, Word and Excel as well as literacy support, mentorship, caseworkers and discussion forums.

Innovation and Impact 

This program provides a holistic continuum of support between the educational and spiritual counseling offered within prisons and during the various stages of reentry and throughout the lives of our clients. This maximizes our impact. We begin the process in prisons with monthly visits and online training on tablets. This program combines training, casework, tutors in technical skills, and mentors to ensure success.

The cost to incarcerate a person is $38,000 per year. The Hinda Institute has historically kept over 90% of its clients from going back into prison as compared to the general population where more than half return to prison, saving taxpayers millions of dollars.

The program is designed to be free of cost and with replicable educational models that service multiple organizations and impacts, the way reentry is approached in our communities. It is more than offering low-level jobs and leaving our clients underemployed for life; it raises the bar in terms of success for our clients. This program changes not only the goals and social perceptions of our clients but also tackles the systemic racism holding our clients back from success.