SOCAP24 Early Bird tickets are on sale! Register now.

How Social Entrepreneurship Can Help Ex-Cons Stay Out of Prison

Meghan French Dunbar March 5, 2016

In his 1947 student paper, “The Purpose of Education,” Martin Luther King Jr. reminds us, “Intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character — that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate. The broad education will, therefore, transmit to one not only the accumulated knowledge of the race but also the accumulated experience of social living.”

I have facilitated educational programming within the state prison system in the Pacific Northwest over the past eight years, and it’s clear to me that there are many prisoners who are both extremely intelligent and full of character. The challenge, as Dr. King suggests, is to offer worthy objectives for their education. There are significant challenges unique to this population — the range of distractions and demands experienced by prisoners, in addition to limited nutrition and lack of sleep, can make concentration difficult.

However, if the will to change is there, then educational programming offers a way out — it offers an inmate who is ready to work hard the chance to break the cycle. According to Lois Davis, a senior researcher at the RAND Corporation, in a 2015 interview with NPR, “We looked at 30 years of research… and what we found was that, if an individual participates in any type of correctional education program — whether it be adult basic ed, GED preparation, college education or vocational training — they had a 13 percentage point reduction in their risk of being re-incarcerated.”

While broad educational programming and job skills training are effective, they often do not address the personal and cognitive factors an inmate needs to develop in order to successfully transition to the “real world” beyond the bars and walls. This is where entrepreneurship training can be effective. This type of training focuses on a person’s mindset and value systems, and offers them a strategy for approaching some of the greatest challenges they will face in their “new life.” It can help formerly incarcerated individuals think beyond knowledge acquisition and employment skills. The entrepreneurial propensity, as discussed by professors Robert Barbato, Robert Lussier, and Matthew Sonfield, can be measured as “a need for self-achievement, a preference for avoiding unnecessary risks, a desire for feedback on the results of one’s efforts, an aspiration for personal motivation, and a desire to think about and plan for the future.” Developing these characteristics produces a profound change and creates new pathways for re-imagining one’s future.

One of my students was able to develop an entrepreneurial mindset while incarcerated, and started to build resiliency well before she was released back into her community. Regina was incarcerated for ten years, and during that time became an expert in braille transcription through a vocational training program offered at the state prison. The program was her worthy objective that opened a new pathway and offered hope for achieving independence on the outside.

Once Regina finished her certifications, she joined my class, an entrepreneurship and small-business management skills course, and was determined to figure out how to start her own braille transcription business. She understood the what, braille transcription, but wanted to know the how: creating her own business model. After taking two iterations of the course, she had crafted a comprehensive business plan and was able to clearly articulate a vision for how she was going to achieve this. We said our goodbyes at graduation and held each other accountable for staying in touch.

Six months after that, she was released, and held up her end of the bargain.

I remember receiving her phone call then. Regina was on a bus, and I remember her saying how nervous she was about starting a business. She had no family or support network on the outside, and this venture would be her only source of income. She was relying on her education and training during incarceration. A month or so later, I received the kind of voicemail you save for as long as you can: she told me that after years of learning and planning while incarcerated, she had finally established the Abundant Braille Center, and had landed her first contract from the Washington State School for the Blind. For me, it was a moment of appreciation for the resiliency of the human spirit, and the power of education and service. For her, it was a new life, and one in which she had created great purpose.

Regina procured her first international contract in Canada in 2014, and was recently certified by the Royal Society for the Blind in Australia. She can be reached at regina@abundantbraille.com.

Anthony Gromko worked with Mercy Corps Northwest teaching entrepreneurship and small business management at the Washington Corrections Center for Women. He is now faculty with Washington State University Extension, leading community sustainability projects around urban areas in western Washington. Anthony also teaches an elective course at Pinchot University, “Business Solutions to Poverty,” which examines how business can address issues of poverty, economic development, and social inequality.

 

A SOCIAL IGNITION

THE CONCEPT IN PRACTICE

PROMOTING ENTREPRENEURSHIP AFTER INCARCERATION

original

Location: Portland, OR

Founded: 2012

Team Members: 2

Structure: Nonprofit, working to expand to a hybrid structure

Impact:

• 35 graduates of The Ignition Option entrepreneurship series

• 0% recidivism to date

• 5 businesses being developed by graduates

• 90% employment rate

A Social Ignition works with men to assist them with successfully integrating into the world post-incarceration by building confidence and creativity through business. The organization teaches an entrepreneurship series, The Ignition Option, inside prisons, bringing community business leaders in to discuss topics ranging from the power of choice and teamwork to finance and marketing. After completing the course, all members are invited to join The Long Haul, a program that provides individual weekly coaching to participants to work on their entrepreneurial ventures, employment readiness, and the personal challenges that are inevitable during such a dramatic transition.

According to founder Sonja Skvarla, “People often assume men with criminal records are scary, can’t be trusted, and are generally bad people with intentions to do harm to you. I have learned it matters little what you tell people; it matters what they experience. So I invite people to come to prison with me and experience the men I work with firsthand. Inevitably, that opens their mind to what people with felonies are like and breaks down stigmas.”

Stakeholder Capitalism
Join the SOCAP Newsletter!