Community suffers. More than 600,000 get released from prison, another 11 million cycle through local jails. More than one quarter of all americans have had some kind of encounter with the criminal Justice System. Mostly for minor, nonviolent offen offenses. A report finds that nearly threequarters of all released prisoners will be rearrested within five years. Six in ten will be reconvicted. There are proven ways to reduce this. According to research, number one, education and vocational programs. Based on scientific evidence, meaningful work is an important contributor to keeping past offenders out of jail. One program thats helping give people a Second Chance is right here in our area called the community kitchen. You have to practice. It took me three years. Reporter this is not your average cooking class. The men and women at phi philabundance are not like other traditional students. A few are doing jail time. Richard cramer served five years for conspiracy to grow marijuana. Toward the end of his sentence, he was one of several chosen for this program. A unique partnership, the bureau of prisons forged. For 14 weeks, he worked alongside others who needed a jump start to a job and help transitioning back to society. Your country has literally just said you violated our laws. And i did. And were going to punish you. Now they are saying, kind of, lets let bygones be bygones. If we could work with folks before they are released, talk about what it means to reenter society, talk about making transitions, teach skills that are employable, couldnt be speed up the transition process . Reporter many leave with jobs lined up. A major turning point for those transitioning back to real life. The numbers are massive and a big obstacle. Anything you can do to shrink those numbers is 2in the taxpayr advantage r advantage. Reporter each student attends for free. The price tag is covered by the department of labor as well as donations. Joining me now is Candice Matthews bass. Thanks for being here. Full disclosure that you sit on the board. I have visited the kitchen. Its known for trying to end hunger. How do the two missions come together . You think about all of the food that gets distributed to communities in need. Its this oneway transaction where were distributing large volumes of food and people take it and go home. How does that change things over time . It does help for the day. But it doesnt help for the long run. Being able to pour back into an individual the opportunity for them to strengthen their own lives ends hunger by having folks not require the food anymore. In the enter of ending hunger, we are looking at ways to reinvest in individuals that they would be able to then take care of themselves and eventually their community. The program has been helping people who were formerly incarcerat incarcerated. This he get sele they get selected. You added another population, people who are currently incarcerated coming into the program while they are still in prison. You think thats really important. Tell me why. Often times by the time someone has been released they may have been in prison five years, ten years. Thats a long time to not be engaged in community, not have any skills. Then we kind of let them go and leave them be. What have we invested that is going to help them be more successful so they dont make some of the same mistake ss . If we begin upon someones being paroled back into society, investing some of the skills, helping to think about what kind of career i might want, beginning to look at the life skills necessary to make that transition, we have a lot better chance of folks reintegrating and finding employment and give back to society the same way anyone would. The challenge is we have to make sure that we combine management skills, Life Management skills with actual trade thats going to enable them to find work. I was going to ask you about that. Its more than teaching people how to cook. Tell me the skills that you include in that program. Culinary arts is a very, very specific trade with a lot of different venues. There are knife skills. Different learning how to use different equipment. All sorts of food types and cooking methods and sauces. You can actually learn a lot about on the job, what you cant teach people how to do is be on time. You cant teach people how to have a forward thinking plan about how im going to use this job to get to this job to get to this job. You cant teach people necessarily what you cant teach in a school or on the job is accountability or how to work with authority. In addition to the actual skills the tactile skills, were teaching Life Management, were teaching stress management, were teaching communication skills. Not just how to function at home and whatever people do in their own lives and outside of the workplace is what it is. They need to be able to transition to the culture of the workplace. Understanding what employers are looking for and learning how to put those skills into practice by transforming the individual, looking at the mistakes made in the past, why thats happened. When many people leave your program, you help connect them with restaurants. There have been some restaurants who have been very willing to help. Absolutely. One might think that i dont want to pretend its not challenging for folks with criminal records to find employment. It is. But the Restaurant Industry happens to be a very forgiving industry. That ends up being where many of our students are able to find work. What we are finding is as the word gets out, stundents are abe to get into higher end restaurant work thats not just minimum wage, its not just washing dishes, just cutting vegetables. And move up. Tell me why society as a whole, somebody sitting at home watching this, who says, i have never been in prison, i dont know anyone who has been in prison, why does this matter to society . We need to sort of look at not just what relieves a problem. Many societal problems we have found a way to put a bandaid on that. As far as this, we are looking at trying to resolve hunger. We have been putting a bandaid on the situation. Society, we often dont know how many people are really affected. Theres a lot of people suffering in silence. They have family members and folks they dont want to talk about. We need to reinvest in the force of a problem. People as a whole would be concerned about this particular program because it actually gets to the source. Its transforming people for a lifetime. Thats not for a couple of weeks or months. Their families down the line. Absolutely. And the communities. Candice, thanks so much. Thank you. Appreciate you being here. We will talk to one of the graduates of the program about what is life like after prison and how this changed his life. A look at another program that uses horticulture to cultivate futures for those reentering society. For me, its hard. Have i a record. My record goes back to when i was a juvenile. So they look at it like, well, i got a feeling he will do it again or he will mess up again and fall back into it. And i try to tell them that it wont happen. You know, its hard. Thank you so much. Did you say honey . Hey, try some . Mmm that is tasty. Is it real . Of course. Are you . Nope animated you know im always looking for real honey for honey nut cheerios well youve come to the right place. Great, mind if i have another taste . Not at all mmm youre all right bud . Never better i dont know if he likes that. Yeah part of the complete breakfast this is nbc 10 issue. You violated our laws. Were going to punish you. They are saying, lets let bygones be bygones. It was amazing. He is talking about Philabundance Community Kitchen, a program that helped him find work after losing his career as a lawyer. He lost his law license after a drug conviction in 2011 sent him to jail. Thanks for being here. Thanks for talking about this. Lets go back to the beginning. You were an attorney. Then what happened . Got involved in a conspiracy to grow marijuana. The whole setup came undone. We were raided by the dea. That set in motion a number of events that led to me surrendering my license, also surrendering my freedom, going away from my family, friends, life. A great deal of Financial Hardship that went along with that as well, you know, financial loss. Then you come out after five years. How do you think you are going to get a job . Do people talk about that in the last few months of their incarceration . Of course. Its a large preoccupation. Its something that you cant go back to certain elements of your old life, but you do need to go back to do something. You also feel like you have a valid contribution to make to the economy and feel like you want to be useful. We have families. We have kids. So everybody wants to play some sort of a role in helping that system out. So, yeah, it is something you think about quite often. So you get out. And you were able to get into the Philabundance Community Kitchen program. Tell me what that program is like. I got into that program before getting out, which was an amazing boon and its an amazing element of the program i feel like because when you do any real element of a custodial sentence, you atrophy in certain ways. You burn out in certain ways. This is a staged way to kind of reenter and get back to your life without it overwhelming you. Because theres so many things that you want to put back together, whether its your family life, your professional life, your familial life, all these elements want to come crashing in. You want to fix them all instantly. But its just like, it kind of puts this regimented approach to reentry back in your path. And you have to deal with one thing at a time. All right, now im before im hitting the streets, im working on work. Its an intense program. Its regimented. The its a lot of hard work. Its classroom, kitchen. Its life skills. Physically demanding. Exactly. Mentally demanding. Theres a great deal of work. Theres a great deal of accountability when you go in. Its not like you cant you will be called out and you will be held accountable for what you were meant to have done by certain benchmarks and deadlines. Recently, you were on front page of the daily news as a Success Story from the program. How does that make you feel . I think anything that i can do to elevate the awareness of programs like these as well as highlight the importance for people who are following behind me coming out in terms of hitting the ground and landing on your feet as quickly as you possibly can from a work perspective and then giving you a platform from which to kind of realistically approach a lot of the other areas of your life i think is critical. And i think its something that the philabundance program in particular does amazingly well. Yeah, im hoping that all of this kind of raises some awareness as to the viability of these programs and the importance of them as well. Tell us where you are working now. Im consulting in real estate. Slowly making roads back towards a professionalism that im more accustom to. Restaurant work is difficult. Its physically demanding. When you get out, theres a great deal of hours. Its a very forgiving area of the economy, but its make no mistake, you really have to bring it. Its serious. You are working long, hard hours. People who work and staff our kitchens in this country are working incredibly hard, more than people might realize. Would you have gotten to where you are now without this program . I doubt it. I think i would be maybe scratching my head still saying, where am i going . Tell me why you think society should know about these programs, care about the challenges that former exoffenders, former inmates, we have been talking about what do we respectfully call people trying to transition back into society . I dont know in terms of what were meant to call people like me. Why should society be interested . I feel like for a number of what were doing isnt working. The recidivism rates will vary depending on who you ask what they are. I think the consensus is that they are too high. There are thousands of people like me coming back into your communities. We have viable contributions to make, i think, to the economy. I think opportunities need to be available in that situation. I think to everyones advantage to grapple with the numbers from a Community Level to a taxpayer level. Richard creamer, thanks for being here. We appreciate it. A Different Program thats helping to lower the rate of recidivism is roots to reentry. A collaboration of theociety an prison system. This was the beginning. The program prepares people for jobs in gardening and landscaping. Inmates get 12 weeks of handson training prior to their release. Once they leave prison, they work as interns with the who Horticultural Society who help them connect with landscapers. It gives us a much better chance than we would have had before. Back then, they would have looked at it and throuew it out. Some look at it and puts us more in the top of the list than the bottom of the list. He hasnt found a job yet, but he has been out of prison for a month. He is grateful for the program which also helped him improve his people skills. The rate of recidivism for people who participate in the program is about 30 compared to the average rate of 65 which is typical for philadelphia exoffenders. Next, we will tell you about a nonprofit bucking the trend. Its on a mission to hire people struggling to find a job as they reenter the community. This is nbc 10 issue. D ch, you realize that the world can be a harsh place. But you also realize it can be a really loving, wonderful place. When i saw donald trump mock somebody who was disabled, i was appalled. You gotta see this guy. Ahh, i dont know what i said, ahh, i dont remember that reporter suffers from a chronic condition that impairs movement of his arms. It told me everything i need to know about his heart and what he believes deep down. Priorities usa action is responsible for the content of this advertising. Research from the National Institute of justice finds having a record reduces the likelihood of a callback or job offer by nearly 50 . So its likely not a surprise that employers are reluctant to hire people who have a criminal record. One local nonprofit Baker Industries feels just the opposite. The organization with twos make to employ people who have the most difficulty getting a job. Joining me is the president and ceo of Baker Industries. Thanks for being here. Thank you. Tell me about what Baker Industries does. We have a 36yearold nonprofit Work Force Development program. We hire a mix of high functioning handicap, exowe fe offenders and homeless and blend them together in a Work Training program. Our objective is to build selfconfidence, selfesteem through teaching work skills and kicking them out the door. We want our people to gain the selfempowerment that they immediate to leave us for real jobs. Some of your handicapped employees will be with you for likely life. But the people who come in who are exoffenders we should mention you have been mixing those populations with exoffenders since 1988. When they come in, they say, we want to you graduate, get the skills you need. This is a stepping stone. Tell me about that. We bring them in and we have an indoctrination senk trctrina. We emphasize, we dont want them here. We want to teach them all we can teach them and we want them to leave. Then we have a review session about a month later. Find most of them have forgotten all that we told them. So we continue to reinforce it. We have a move on program to teach basic life skills to help them move in finishing with mock interviews and that sort of stuff. We find it to be quite successful. We have been able to blend this population very well. They feed off each other and take care of each other. Most people would be surprised about that. It work ss . Our handicap population has been with us an average of 11 years right now. We have been their work world and their social world. We do all we can to entertain them and keep them as happy as possible. As you try to help the exoffenders who go through your program, graduate and move on. Whats the biggest challenge you hear from them . Biggest challenge we hear is the frustration they feel in going out and going after Job Interview after Job Interview. Even though they have something with you to put on resume saying i worked, i have been responsible . We give them letters of recommendation. We work with them to prepare resumes. In many cases its 30 to 50 interviews before they successfully land a job. Some of our guys get lucky and boom, they are in and out in three weeks. Most of our people right now are with us probably for a year and a half to two years before they are able to find something thats meaningful for them. Why do you think that its important that society know about these Reentry Programs, support these programs and businesses hire people who come out of these Reentry Program snz. Its the right thing to do. We believe in compassion, not judgment. And we really feel strongly that most folks want to help other people become productive members of society. This is a group that has faced abject poverty, Mental Health issues, Substance Abuse issues. When you are faced with all that, particularly at an early age, you make poor decisions. We think they need a Second Chance. We also think that with the incredibly high rates of recidivism, the more people we can help keep on the streets and not put back in the criminal Justice System is just more beneficial to society and something that i have heard you talk before is im a numbers guy, the cost. I have seen the numbers as high as 42,000 per year to keep a person incarcerated. Its expensive. Its very expensive. Thanks for being here. Thank you. Well be right back. This is nbc 10 issue. Thats it for this edition of nbc 10 issue. Join me tomorrow and every weekday at 4 00 a. M. On nbc 10 news today. We leave you with a look at the roots to reentry garden. Nbc sports, home of the 2016 rio olympics. The nhl. Premier league. The nascar chase for the sprint cup playoffs. And primetimes number one show, sunday night football. Only on nbc. Welcom