Every year, Tennessee penitentiaries release nearly 300 people a week who have served their sentences. Nearly half of them are back behind bars within three years, according to the Tennessee Governor’s Task Force on Sentencing and Recidivism. Project Return, started in 1979 by two Nashville ministers, expanded to Chattanooga this fall with its support services, skills training and job placement for former inmates. Over the past four decades in Nashville, Project Return reports it has cut the recidivism rate among its participants to less than a third of the statewide average, and offered a more promising future for thousands of Tennesseans. CEO Bettie Kirkland has spent a decade in leadership for the organization after a career as an attorney and stints in the Peace Corps and as a writer and researcher for the Race Relations Institute of Fisk University. The tight labor market has created new demand for second-chance hiring, she says.
“There have been some prominent voices and general movements in that direction, which is great, but the current great need for a workforce helps people think about talent acquisition as the primary innovation they need to have as a company,” she says. “We are able to speak to how second-chance hiring and working with Project Return can be the innovation that helps turn the corner.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What are some of the biggest hurdles for people who hope to get into the workforce once they have been incarcerated?
It’s important to be aware of the fact that, for most people, they are coming out of prison destitute, so there’s this immediate time pressure in the context of destitution. They are often put outside the gates of prison at midnight and maybe arrive in a city at dawn with a few dollars in their pockets. Most are in debt from fines and court fees, they have no job prospects, no place to live or start from. These are the pressures people are under from the first moment of freedom, and those play into how easily they can slide into the workforce. It helps tremendously if you’re healthy, have clean clothing, a stable living situation. It also helps if you have identification documents, which is obviously an absolute requirement, but most people coming out of prison don’t have basic documentation. Those are just some of the basics that stand in between people and day one of employment.