This article is not written by Tom, nor about him personally, but is about a new opportunity for prisoners that can help so many of the incarcerated find meaningful lives after. We know from reading Tom's letters that there is very little in the prison system that is geared towards making successes out of failures - just a parking space for a long sentence without much to help make the necessary change in life when the prison doors are opened.
Prison Entrepreneurs
Pros Work With Cons
By David M. Drucker
Former Northern California venture capitalist Catherine Rohr, on a mission to use her skills for the social good, has discovered a surprising pool of entrepreneurial talent in the last place most would ever think to look: prison.
Not long after a chance tour of a Texas prison which she admits she approached as a “zoo tour,” Rohr chucked her job as a San Francisco VC to found the
Prison Entrepreneurship Program.
The nonprofit corporation, using Fortune 500-type business executives as volunteer mentors, harnesses the entrepreneurial skills inmates had demonstrated while running the successful, albeit illegal, enterprises that landed them in prison and teaches them how to put those abilities to use running legitimate businesses.
The hope is to increase their chances of success once they get out of jail.
Street Smart for Good “Prisoners usually don’t end up in prison because they’re lazy,” Rohr says. “They may not be the best educated; but talk about street smarts. They’re driven, passionate and very charming. All of these are traits they share with business executives.”
With husband Steven, Rohr recently moved to Houston where the first full-fledged franchise of PEP is now up and running. It operates strictly on private contributions not taxpayer dollars. The plan is to go national as quickly as fund-raising efforts allow.
PEP also has a formal partnership with California’s Prison Industry Authority, one of the few programs the state prison system has that teaches inmates practical skills they can use on the outside once released or paroled.
PIA General Manager Matt Powers is a former Sacramento deputy police chief. Powers says he knows firsthand the effects paroled prisoners have on local communities statewide (90 percent of paroled and released inmates return to the community from which they were arrested.)
Manufacturing everything from office furniture and supplies, to prescription eyeglasses, to the custom parts that outfit vehicles for the California Highway Patrol, PIA’s participating prisoners get the same kind of training offered at vocational schools on the outside, complete with professional certifications for service and manufacturing jobs in at least nine different industries.
At any given time, PIA employs around 6,000 prisoners at factories located in 22 prisons throughout the state. According to PIA officials, the program is funded solely by the approximately $150 million in revenue earned annually through the sale of products and services that cover around 65 separate industries. The PIA does not rely on any appropriations from the Legislature to function.
And because of pressure exerted by state lawmakers, PIA is in the process of making sure its prices are competitive with those of private companies, something that until recently was not always the case. PIA-employed inmates are paid 30 cents to 95 cents per hour, with court-ordered restitution payments deducted from their wages.
Not Stuck in Folsom With state lawmakers’ new focus on reducing the heavy recidivism of parolees, PIA officials are looking forward to when PEP can begin teaching prisoners how to start businesses, possibly using the practical manufacturing and distribution skills they have learned at one of PIA’s multiple factories statewide as the basis for self-employment. Once PEP has raised the necessary funds, it will begin training future entrepreneurs incarcerated in San Quentin, with plans to expand to Folsom next.
If these former prisoners can find a job, they will be much less likely to commit new crimes and end up back in prison, which is why Powers feels so strongly about his work at PIA and why he partnered with PEP.
“I’d rather have these people be taxpayers, not tax consumers, when they get out,” Powers adds.
“I’m still learning how important the program is to me,” says Robert Aikens of Houston. Aikens spent 15 1/2 years in prison for armed robbery before getting out in July 2003. Soon after his release, he started REALS Landscaping, specializing in decorative shrubbery and stonework.
Without PEP, says Aikens, he wouldn’t know how to put his knowledge of landscaping to work in a revenue-generating business. The program taught him how to manage cash flow, adhere to the various state and federal tax laws and manage employees, which at present consist of himself, his wife and two kids when they’re not in school.
Aikens calls it “learning how to operate a business from the neck up.”
The benefits to prisoners are obvious (PEP works with low- and medium-security prisoners only, although some trainees are in prison for committing violent acts, including murder.) Each inmate is assigned a mentor, usually a highly successful entrepreneur or business executive. The mentors help prisoners write business plans and teach them how to run their proposed businesses. In some cases, the program even pitches enterprises dreamed up by newly released or paroled inmates to VCs for investment.
In most cases, says Rohr, it’s the first time anyone has ever provided positive encouragement and instruction to the individuals participating in PEP. Yet it’s often the volunteer executives who benefit just as much, if not more, from the program. Many of the manicured, white-collar executives can’t get enough of PEP.
Macho Execs in Tears Though Rohr allows them to quit at any time no questions asked, she says the participating executives love going to prison and imparting their skill sets to the inmates. In some cases, they have been reduced to tears upon seeing their trainee progress and succeed, though Rohr is quick to point out that the program appeals to the macho nature of a successful executive, which she’s happy to take advantage of.
“This program is pretty addicting; (executives) love to come back,” Rohr says.
Mark Carr of Houston is CEO of Christian Brothers Auto Parts, a national chain of consumer auto-parts stores. In Aikens, his trainee, he sees someone similar to himself: a man without a formal education, but with street smarts and business sense, who needs someone with know-how to mold his raw talent.
Carr describes the prisoners in PEP as creative and brilliant men who have been using their skills for evil instead of good. His work as a mentor allows him to redirect that energy into something positive.
“I’m just a street-smart guy who knows how to add and subtract. I’m creative; I looked at a business that had a need and made it big,” he says. “When I speak to these guys, some are brilliant, they’re incredibly creative. Some of these guys are running 15 (drug dealers) on the street.”
Aikens describes Carr as someone who doesn’t want any credit: “He was actually really there for me in word and in deed.”
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