Create a prison-to-work incentive program
"Will create a prison-to-work incentive program, modeled on the Welfare-to-Work Partnership, to create ties with employers, third-party agencies that provide training and support services to exoffenders, and to improve ex-offender employment and job retention rates."
Sources: "Barack Obama and Joe Biden: Creating Equal Opportunity and Justice for All"
Subjects: Civil Rights, Crime, Workers
Prison-to-work program missing
Updated: Friday, January 8th, 2010 | By Wes Allison
No doubt, prison reform advocates would love to see it. But so far, PolitiFact could find no sign of the prison-to-work program that candidate Barack Obama touted in the campaign.
There's nothing like it at the Department of Justice, among pending legislation in Congress, or at the Federal Bureau of Prisons, other than the department's longtime Offender Transition Program, which includes halfway houses to help prisoners adjust to life outside.
Will Matthews, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberities Union, which advocates for programs such as this, said no one in his organization has heard anything about it. He checked around with the ACLU's partners in the prison reform community and found nothing either.
"We certainly are not aware of anything along those lines being proposed, and we're quite sure there isn't anything like that going on in Washington right now," Matthews said. He added, "We'd love to see something like that."
Two queries to the Justice Department went unanswered. In absence of evidence that the Obama administration is moving on this front, PolitiFact rates this promise as Stalled.
Sources:
Jan. 7, 2010 phone interview with Will Matthews, spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union.
Manual, Offender Transition Program, Federal Bureau of Prisons
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