Supporting Second Chances: Employment Strategies for Reentry Programs

The Second Chance Act supports a range of reentry programs around the country, designed to help those returning from jail or prison make a successful transition to life on the outside. In 2008, the Annie E. Casey Foundation commissioned Public/Private Ventures (P/PV) to create a resource that would be useful for Second Chance Act grantees as they develop employment strategies, by distilling lessons from research on a range of employment programs. "Supporting Second Chances" offers concrete suggestions for practitioners, based on a review of relevant literature and P/PV's own extensive experience with reentry and workforce development research and programming. The guide explores strategies in three major areas:Services aimed at helping people find immediate employment;Services that provide paid job experiences to participants; andServices that help people gain occupational skills.For each area, we provide: an overview of the approach, including its history and a brief definition; a high-level summary of the most recent and rigorous research available about the approach; an example of the approach in action; key "takeaways" for Second Chance Act grantees and other programs serving formerly incarcerated individuals; and where to go to learn more.Since the ultimate success of an employment strategy may hinge on a range of additional supports, the guide also features a section called "Beyond Getting a Job," which presents three approaches to help formerly incarcerated individuals get the most out of their paychecks and move into better jobs. The final section synthesizes lessons drawn from across the studies reviewed for the guide

Backyard Battles: Local Struggles for African American Political Advancement in Baltimore, 1920-1944.

ABSTRACT BACKYARD BATTLES: LOCAL STRUGGLES FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN POLITICAL ADVANCEMENT IN BALTIMORE, 1920-1944 by Angelique D. Jessup Co-Chairs: Nancy E. Burns and Robert W. Mickey This dissertation discusses the development of African American activism and political participation in Baltimore from 1920–1944 through different issue domains, and looks especially to when activists developed a complementary fit between their existing resources, their political environment, and their mode of mobilization. This project is motivated by some important unanswered questions in political science literature. First, several studies investigating black political attitudes and behavior begin with an analysis of black political behavior during or after the mainstream Civil Rights Movement. This literature does not offer a full picture of the nature of black political engagement prior to the big structural changes occurring during and after the mainstream Civil Rights Movement, and even less about the potential for local activism to set the stage for organizing work in later periods. Scholars in American Political Development (APD) have made great strides in explaining the institutional underpinnings of racial policy change, but do not reveal why black activists could not make larger gains without changes to structural conditions. This project demonstrates how black activists made strategic attempts to position their expertise and skill set to exploit available openings in local politics. Additionally, it shows how black activists utilized different sets of organizing structures and that different modes of organizing were consequential to the tactics unleashed and the issues they fought for. This project also works to show that black activists amassed resources in intricate and innovative ways to bolster their political influence and strengthen their leverage with local policymakers. By turning to the local politics of blacks during this period, this project brings attention to the tactics and strategies that later set the groundwork for bigger battles during the Civil Rights Movement.Ph.D.Political ScienceUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75925/1/adouyon_1.pd