Mayor de Blasio wants to guarantee short-term employment paid for by the city for every inmate who serves a sentence in a jail, he announced Wednesday.
“Everyone deserves a second chance,” de Blasio insisted in a statement. “We’re working to break the cycle of returning to jail for those in city custody by making sure they have opportunities to learn and grow while in jail, and connecting them with the re-entry services to support a pathway to stability when they leave.”
The voluntarily program will cost the city $10 million, he said.
The ex-cons will be given “transitional employment” through organizations like the Fortune Society, a non-profit that helps ex-offenders and is staffed mostly by former inmates, according to de Blasio.
“When you provide a short-term job opportunity immediately out of jail it reduces recidivism by 22 percent,” he said.
The mayor also announced that every incoming inmate will meet with a counselor, who will set up five hours of programming per day to help connect them to employment or education when they get out.