Month: October 2018

Baltimore is Fighting Crime with Reclaimed Wood

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Baltimore is fighting crime with reclaimed wood

 

The Humanim jobs, which pay $11.66 to $22 an hour and provide health care benefits, are ideally transitional work — with ex-offenders spending 18 months to two years with the non-profit — before moving on to better paying work in the trades.

In that time, Carroll said, the workers are able to work on trade certifications and demonstrate they have developed “stickiness” and dependability that can be used to help persuade future employers to look past their criminal records.

“If we get these guys past that year mark, they are not going to go back to prison,” said Carroll, who said Humanim has not had an instance of an employee from its deconstruction or wood and brick processing divisions return to prison in more than two years.  “I tell (prospective employers), ‘I’m helping you find a guy who has come to work every day for the last year and a half or two years. I’m not going to give you a loser.’”