Program Implementation

Tips to Implementation: CEO has established key strategic partnerships with New York State Division of Parole and other vital social services, including relationships with local community colleges, health care facilities, technical training institutes, the New York Department of Social Services, the New York criminal justice departments, and other community and social stakeholders. Re–entry requires clients to have tools and resources to reduce recidivism. CEO works with community partners that address addictions–relapse prevention, coping skills, and community resource referrals, mental health treatment and, through a partnership with Career Gear and Dress for Success, provides new and used business attires and accessories to clients.

Successes: CEO places clients in full time jobs within 2–3 months of release. Over the life of the program, more than 14,000 participants have been placed with full time jobs and has relationships with more than 500 different area businesses and organizations. CEO has nurtured important coalitions and partnerships that have established it as a key organization for the re–entry community. The CEO model's its program methodology has been replicated in many parts of the country. Through its Responsible Fatherhood Program, since 2001 CEO clients have contributed more than $1,000,000 in child support payments on behalf of their children.

Challenges: Negative perceptions of people with criminal histories limited technical and business acculturation skills, lack of a strong work history, and minimal formal education also affect client employability. Community perceptions and stigma continue to plague former inmates, but CEO works with stakeholders to improve perceptions and reduce the impact the stigma has on client re–entry Throughout New York, there are multiple barriers to employment. About 70% of formerly incarcerated people do not have a high school diploma and most have few work skills, limited work experience and no references. Furthermore, surveys find employers are much more reluctant to hire people with records than they are any other disadvantaged group. In order to break these barriers, CEO acts as an intermediary between jobseekers with criminal convictions and employers. CEO helps clients develop an employment plan that matches their skills with current job openings. Employers are then willing to lower their apprehension and hire CEO workers because they have a work reference through CEO transitional work program and the staff gets to know the job seekers and properly match them to the employers' needs. In fact, in 2010 during the worst economic downturn that this country had, CEO secured 1,098 full–time job placements for people with criminal convictions in New York City.

Other Lessons Learned: CEO was born in the 1970s as a Vera Institute of Justice demonstration project; the agency was created to test this idea: What would happen if, instead of meeting barriers to employment, people coming home from incarceration were offered immediate, paid transitional jobs and help rejoining the permanent workforce? CEO's Theory of Change posits that if the employment needs of people with criminal convictions are addressed at their most vulnerable point –when they are first released from incarceration or soon after conviction —–they will be less likely to re–offend and more likely to build a positive foundation for themselves and their families.

This assumption has been borne out in independent research on CEO's program conducted by the respected social policy research organization MDRC, and funded by the US Department of Health and Human Services. MDRC's three–year randomized, controlled study of CEO showed that for individuals recently released from incarceration, participation in CEO resulted in lower rates on all measures of recidivism, including arrests, convictions, and returns to jail and prison. Convictions of a crime fell by over 22 percent, and re–incarceration for a new crime fell by over 26 percent—–outcomes MDRC not only deemed statistically significant but “rare” for rigorous studies of this kind.

MDRC's evaluation also showed that CEO dramatically increased employment during the year after an individual's release from prison, and found that for those who came to the agency within three months of their release, participation in CEO had positive impacts on full–time employment for up to three years. A final cost–benefit analysis, conducted jointly by MDRC and the Vera institute of justice, is scheduled for release in the near future, and will show a 3:1 benefit/cost ratio for participation in CEO.

Also, CEO's program model depends on extensive data tracking across a variety of measures, using an in–house web–based adaptation of a customer relationship management (CRM) database. CEO has customized user profiles for direct program job titles and every program employee is required to document their work in the system in real time. CEO's adaptation of the CRM database has contributed significantly to the ability to share information and track outcomes at our offices in real time.