The Prison Entrepreneurship Program, a non-profit initiative based in Texas that offers a business education and mentoring program for ex-cons, has just been profiled in The New York Times, after a write-up in The Dallas Morning News last month.
Created two years ago by 29-year-old venture capitalist, Catherine Rohr, it is based on the premise that an unemployed convict will return to crime much more quickly than one who is gainfully employed. Only open to those incarcerated at the minimum-security Hamilton Unit, it offers a four-month intensive business course taught by volunteers from the business world. There are plans to expand it to California.
Admission into the course is limited, with any prospective student required to first fill out a 23-page questionnaire, not be a sex offender and have a proven desire to succeed in business. Once graduates are released from prison, they are then given help in “buying business attire, finding loans, housing and medical care, and consulting with business professionals.”
The results have so far been striking. Out of the 165 inmates who have graduated from the program – which has included convicted drug dealers, robbers and murderers – only four went back to prison; the normal recidivism rate is 69%. An impressive 93% of the participants have gained employment, usually within a month of release. Some graduates have gone on to do very well, including owning a shipping brokerage, owning a silk-screen printing business, running an automotive repair shop as well as earning six figures working as a trade-desk analyst.
For more details of The Prison Entrepreneurship Program, check out their website.
While you’re about it, read the “Executive Summary” on the homepage. Maybe it ’s just me – and I’m sure whoever wrote it probably meant no offence – but wouldn’t you find the following a tad insulting if you were one of the hundreds of senior business executives from all over the country who had volunteered their time and money with the Program? Not to mention perplexing? How many legitimate businesses could achieve such results other than through government protection, legal prohibition of their product or the always present threat of spraying a rival with bullets?
One hundred thousand dollars in sales per week… 90% net margin… 90% repeat business… On an investment banking teaser, this company profile would have generated widespread interest among the investment community—had the core product not been crack cocaine. A large percentage of inmates come to prison as seasoned entrepreneurs, having run highly successful enterprises such as drug rings and gangs. They know how to manage others to get things done. They are passionate, intelligent and willing to take risks. Even the most unsophisticated drug dealers inherently understand business concepts such as competition, profitability, risk management and the development of proprietary sales channels. What if these influential leaders ran legitimate companies?
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