North Lawndale Organization Aims to Break Cycle of Incarceration Through Work Development Programs

A new report aims to shed light on the structural barriers fueling the cycle of incarceration in North Lawndale on Chicago’s West Side, while also offering a potential blueprint on what it takes to improve outcomes for people who were formerly incarcerated.

The report released Tuesday is a collaboration of the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois Chicago and the North Lawndale Employment Network.

The report looks at 20 years of data to examine systemic economic barriers in North Lawndale and the role community-based reentry and work development programs — along with justice reform and social-impact businesses — can play in helping lower recidivism rates.

Read the full report. 

“Oftentimes, people are returning to the same economic and social environments that they left,” North Lawndale Employment Network President and CEO Brenda Palms said. “If you come back to a neighborhood where you are still very much struggling with all the ills and social challenges of poverty, then you’re really likely to fall back into some old habits. What we try to do is to create a new support system for people, connect them to support services.”

Among the main findings of the report were:

• The cumulative correctional costs for people who reoffend in North Lawndale over the course of two decades exceeded $1 billion for Illinois taxpayers.
• North Lawndale remains significantly more disadvantaged than Chicago as a whole with the neighborhood experiencing high poverty, high unemployment, low income and high job leakage, or residents working outside the neighborhood.
• For every 10 people enrolled as North Lawndale Employment Network clients, $405,000 in annual incarceration costs are diverted for Illinois taxpayers.
• Recidivism can be lowered in a cost-effective way through a combination of “fair chance hiring” policies and community-based programs that focus on all the needs of individuals reentering their communities.

Leslie Williams is a program graduate of the North Lawndale Employment Network. Williams currently works as a maintenance technician at the organization and runs her own cleaning business. She entered prison at 19 and was incarcerated for 23 years for a murder conviction.

Williams said the biggest barriers she faced after she was released were employment and housing. Williams credits the North Lawndale Employment Network with helping her gain work experience and helping her learn how to write grants, how to use the computer and how to use her voice.

Formerly incarcerated people deserve to work and deserve a second chance, Williams said.

“They tell you that the only job you can get is a warehouse (job) or you’re a felon so you’re not going to pay your rent,” Williams said. “If I’m working and I can produce my pay stubs and I’m showing you that I can do this, why are you telling me that I can’t get housing because of my background? My past doesn’t predict my future.”

Teresa Córdova, director of the Great Cities Institute, points to social-impact businesses in communities as helping lower recidivism rates.

Sweet Beginnings, for example, is a social-impact business at the North Lawndale Employment Network aimed at assisting people returning from incarceration and those facing significant barriers to employment. It provides job training and experience through the production and sale of honey and honey-based skincare products. 

“The combination of the training, the actual employment and the wraparound services provides an important mechanism through which people can get employment and have a more successful reentry into their communities,” Córdova said.

Contact Eunice Alpasan: ealpasan@wttw.com