EDUCATION IN PRISON

Background: Education and Job Training in Prison

California state prisons provide 20 Career Technical Education programs in industry-recognized certification and job pathways, yet none provides a seamless and direct transition into a career beyond prison. Most provide vocational training without a plan of how to effectively translate those skills into a job or continued education outside of prison.

The exceptions (Soledad, Avenal, Elmwood and San Quentin) offer in-depth training in trades and are located are within easy outreach distance. We will strategically forge relationships with prisons that train individuals in the vocations that have entrepreneurial support at the Rebound Institute.

We will strategically forge relationships

The Rebound Institute will apply those skills for personal independence as people work toward their long-term goals of freedom and self-sustainment, without the additional stresses of having to cold-call strangers about jobs and housing and eventually disclose compromising history that could ultimately work against making positive life changes.

Similarly, the Institute will seek participants who have been enrolled in higher-education programs in prison. A notable example is Mount Tamalpais College (formerly the Prison University Project) at San Quentin, the first independent liberal arts institution dedicated specifically to serving incarcerated students. Students there can earn associate of arts degrees, which enable them transfer to SF State University and other four-year universities and colleges.

We will continue our already strong relationship with Mount Tamalpais College, which for many years has served as a pipeline to Project Rebound and SF State.