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NIC Transition and Offender Workforce Development Bulletin

Career Resource Centers: An Emerging Strategy for Improving Offender Employment Outcomes

“This bulletin highlights the ways career resource centers are being used in jails , prisons, and community supervision offices to improve the long-term employment prospects of offenders” (p.1). Sections of this publication include: common elements of career resource centers; getting started; working with inmate career clerks; building community ties; role of assessment in career resource centers; technology resources; finding champions and overcoming resistance; and future directions. Also included is a DVD with additional material. Resources contained on the DVD are: a PDF version of the bulletin; video interviews with many of the practitioners features in the bulletin; the CareerZone program; reentry guides from federal, state, and local correctional facilities; the Veterans Incarcerated Employability Workshop; a life-skills curriculum; virtual tours of career resource centers; links to Internet resources that promote the development of career resource centers; and career development documents that can be distributed to the inmate population.

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Creating a Workforce Development Culture to Reduce Reincarceration

This document highlights Vermont’s Workforce Development Program. Male participants that successfully completed the program lowered their reincarceration rate from 74% to 59% at six months following release, females lowered their rate from 63% to 38%. Topics discussed include:

  • Creating a unique workforce culture
  • Habits of Mind curriculum
  • Workplace application
  • Evidence of effectiveness
  • Program replication
  • Future of the program
  • Program costs
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