Win-win-win scenarios
The CDL Truck Driving program and others like it, which prepare incarcerated people for well-paying jobs in high-demand fields, have vast appeal: for the more than 600,000 people leaving prison every year, these training programs can significantly reduce barriers to employment—and that benefits them and their families. It’s also a win for employers, who seek skilled workers and are increasingly relying on this largely untapped labor pool. By helping program graduates secure skilled, long-term employment when they leave prison, these training programs can help reduce the likelihood that they are reincarcerated. That makes communities safer—and lower incarceration costs can translate to millions in savings for taxpayers.
Minna Long just earned journey-level certification in iron work. Last fall, she qualified to compete against 57 other apprentices from across North America in the Iron Workers Outstanding Apprentice Competition, where she welded, built windows, tied rebar, and climbed columns. She just completed a second bachelor’s degree at Ohio University and plans to pursue a master’s degree in law next.
But until just five years ago, she was incarcerated at Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW) in Gig Harbor, where she spent eight years in prison.
She credits much of her success since then to Trades Related Apprenticeship Coaching (TRAC), a 16-week pre-apprenticeship program that prepares women incarcerated in Washington to become carpenters, cement masons, laborers, and iron workers. The Washington State Department of Corrections (WA DOC), which runs the TRAC program in partnership with the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, collaborated with four local unions to create the program curriculum. Graduates can join a registered apprenticeship program and, ultimately, find work that offers security, career advancement, and benefits.
Long graduated from the TRAC program—which requires students to pass a skills test in at least one of these trades—in 2017, the year before she left WCCW.
“You wouldn’t believe the doors that have opened just from that one decision to do the program,” Long said. “I didn’t realize that by doing this—by just trying to take advantage of every opportunity to succeed—I didn’t think I would fall in love with a trade.”
According to WA DOC, TRAC program graduates have a recidivism rate of less than 5 percent within three years after release, compared to the DOC recidivism rate for all women in the state, which is about 15 percent.
Creative partnerships
Other departments of corrections have developed similar programs that prepare incarcerated people for jobs in industries that demand skilled workers by partnering with colleges, employers, unions, and other groups. The Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC), for example, offers a Line Clearance and Tree Trim Program, one of many trades available through its Vocational Village. The training program was created when local energy services provider DTE Energy approached MDOC about five years ago regarding the demand for skilled tree trimmers.
Thinking back on the partnership, Dean McGregor, assistant education manager at MDOC, reflected, “We have one of the largest energy companies here in the state of Michigan. They’re willing to hire our guys as they’re coming out. Why can’t we do this?” McGregor eventually spearheaded the program, which launched in 2019.
As of November 2022, Vocational Village graduates had an employment rate of 69 percent, and 60 percent of graduates of the tree trimming program are actively employed, according to McGregor. In contrast, national data suggests that up to 60 percent of formerly incarcerated people are jobless at any given time.
Additionally, the recidivism rate within three years after release for Vocational Village graduates is 11 percent, far less than the statewide average of 27 percent, according to McGregor.
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