Google is doing its part in the criminal justice reform movement. The company has a program called Grow with Google Career Readiness for Reentry, created in partnership with nonprofits to offer job readiness and digital skills training for formerly incarcerated individuals.
Google also invested over $8 million in organizations helping the formerly incarcerated enter the workforce.
The tech giant works with nonprofits including The Last Mile, Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO), Defy Ventures, Fortune Society and The Ladies of Hope Ministries.
Some of the funds will also go to Grow with Google Career Skills, aiming to help people impacted by the justice system develop career specializations.
Nonprofits can also apply for up to $100,000 in grants to “offer Google’s reentry skills training to their community.”
Maab Ibrahim, racial and criminal justice lead at Google.org, told TechCrunch that it was always Google’s intention to bring urgency to the Career Readiness for Reentry program because more than 640,000 people are released from prison each year in America. Most of them face
challenges that include a lack of digital skills because many inmates can go well over a decade without access to technology. More than half of correctional educational programs in the country don’t allow prisoners access to the internet. A lack of literacy also hinders ex-prisoners’ ability to take advantage of government services, which often require online applications.
Programs like Career Readiness for Reentry can make a difference and digital literacy can reduce recidivism.
Google’s goal is to help 100,000 formerly incarcerated people build career skills by 2025 so the company will expand access to digital literacy programs across federal and state penitentiaries.
Since no one organization will reach everyone in need, Google hopes to continue this work, and expand their programs to a massive scale in the coming years.
