Prison-Adopt-a-Block Program: Incarcerated Youth & Men Helping Build Safer Communities
Location
The program links incarcerated youth/men with their home communities to reduce violence and improve the life chances of at-risk youth and prisoners returning home.
About You
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Your idea
Year the initative began (yyyy)
1993
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Plot your innovation within the mosaic of solutions
Which of these barriers is the primary focus of your work?
Young men’s missing voices and input leads to disconnection and failed policies
Which of the principles is the primary focus of your work?
Change surrounding cultures to create a society that values and enriches young people’s transition to adulthood
If you believe some other barrier or principle should be included in the mosaic, please describe it and how it would affect the positioning of your initiative in the mosaic:
This field has not been completed
Name Your Project
Prison-Adopt-a-Block Program: Incarcerated Youth & Men Helping Build Safer Communities
Describe Your Idea
The program links incarcerated youth/men with their home communities to reduce violence and improve the life chances of at-risk youth and prisoners returning home.
Innovation
Describe your program or new idea in one sentence.
The program links incarcerated youth/men with their home communities to reduce violence and improve the life chances of at-risk youth and prisoners returning home.
What makes your initiative uniquely positioned to create change in your community?
Over 2.25 million individuals were incarcerated in the US at year-end 2006. The highest rate is among black men; with current trends, 28% could spend time in prison during their lifetime. Because ACM was founded by previously incarcerated black men and our proven 15-year track record of respect and trust from inmates, prison officials, community leaders and youth, we are in a unique position as change agents to reverse these trends and build healthy communities.
This unique program deals directly with the missing, yet common and essential element in an "at-risk" youth's life: the incarcerated parent. ACM believes incarceration does not relieve people of their family/community responsibilities. ACM helps incarcerated youth/men transform their lives, re-connect with their families, and “give something back” to communities they once harmed. Incarcerated youth/men are uniquely positioned to influence at-risk youth in their communities since their inmate status gives them credibility and authority on the street. ACM has worked with incarcerated youth/men to mediate gang truces and stop cycles of violence.
Describe how you organize and carry out your work?
ACM targets and transforms communities plagued by violence, drugs, and gangs and then provides economic alternatives by building innovative coalitions with various government agencies and civic organizations.
We partner with schools, churches, community-based organizations, businesses, and government agencies to provide comprehensive prevention/intervention services for individuals, families, and communities. Our multi-dimensional strategies address the social, educational, training and employment needs of youth/adults, leading to changes in attitudes, values, and behaviors essential to leading humane and productive lives and transforming communities.
What is your plan to scale and expand your innovation into your community and beyond?
The Prison-Adopt-a-Block program is comprised of several components that work with currently and previously incarcerated adults/youth, including: the “Abridging” program to teach parenting skills and connect incarcerated parents with their children; the “Going Legal” program to help adults/youth clear up their legal problems, which enables entry into employment; and the “Youth Re-Entry Partnership Program,” which supports ex-offender youth through education, life skills training, mentoring and supervision. We are expanding upon past successes and seek to institutionalize these programs in federal/state prisons and communities.
We are currently in negotiation with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the Maryland and District of Columbia Department of Corrections, and Wackenhutt Private Prison. `
ACM has developed an 8-week training program to transform inmates into positive leaders. “Graduates” will train other inmates and pledge to protect their old neighborhood by promoting peaceful norms. Simultaneously, ACM builds pipelines between inmates and communities/youth, cultivates positive activities and “safe streets campaigns” driven by community residents and inmates’ families, and incentive programs for participating youth.
What other resources, institutional, or policy needs would be necessary to help sustain and scale up your idea?
We have been working in federal/state prisons and local jails with incarcerated youth/adults. We are seeking to formalize and institutionalize these relationships to ensure the program’s expansion and sustainability. In order to implement our plan, ACM must seek out funding sources and finalizing appropriate agreements with governmental agencies, including federal and state prisons, community and faith-based organizations, social service agencies, and private entities.
We need funding in order to initiate this process, with the expectation that continued success will lead to funding support by the federal/state prison system and local governments who stand to gain significant cost savings from our program in addition to gaining obvious social benefits from reduced violence, crime, recidivism and incarceration rates, and the positive development of healthy communities.
Impact
Describe your impact in one sentence, commenting on both the individual and community levels.
ACM has transformed incarcerated youth into healthy adults, re-connected incarcerated youth/men with their families/communities, reduced recidivism, reduced street violence, and transformed lives and neighborhoods.
What impact has your work achieved to date?
The overall impact of the program is it has developed a sense of family in individuals that in many cases have never had a true working model of what a real family is. The following are other areas that inmates and family members share as they have evolved into productive individuals.
- Transformed individual lives
- Reduced recidivism
- Possessing employable skills
- Restorative Justice Training/Skills
- Community Outreach Skills/Awareness
- Public Safety Awareness
- Gang Intervention Skills
- Increased involvement of fathers with their children, providing greater numbers of positive male role models
The Prison-Adopt-a-Block Program has incorporated all of the above aspects w/reference to the overall re-entry process of inmates that are truly dedicated to becoming model citizens upon release from incarceration. This process has a direct correlation that affects youth/adults both inside and outside of prison.
Prison-Adopt-a-Block builds on past successes and addresses the need for reducing recidivism and violence, while transforming communities and young men at risk into successful adults.
Number of individuals served
Prison-Adopt-a-Block programs serves the following number of individuals:
- Inside prisons: 1,000 inmates a year, including the Ottisville, Ray Brook, NC Rivers, and Hagerstown correctional facilities.
- Youth Re-Entry Partnership Program: 1,920 clients a year.
Much of our work with previously incarcerated individuals and youth is included in the number of individuals served by our broad array of family services, including:
- Reaching Our Youth (ROY) Program: 9,600 clients a year – multi-dimensional youth services.
- Save-A-Child (SAC) Program: 9,600 clients a year -- assists Child and Family Services with locating and returning absconded youth; provides street-level outreach in the identification, location, return and follow-up of missing/absconded youth, and mentoring, job readiness and assistance, life skills, gang intervention and mediation, including seven gang peace treaties reaching hundreds of youth.
- Woodland Terrace and Park Morton: 15,600 clients a year – food and family services program.
These numbers do not include the indirect and multiplier-effect of our programs.
Community impact
The Prison-Adopt-a-Block program:
- Helps inmates to become productive citizens and channel their influences, reputations, and relationships to reduce violence and crime in their communities.
- Increased involvement with their children, providing greater numbers of positive male role models
- Increased community cohesion and action
We have facilitated seven peace treaties between rival youth gangs. All included involvement from gang leaders in prison who agreed to support peace. Impacts:
- All have been successful to date, dramatically reducing crime and violence in the community.
- Example: Within one year of the 1997 truce in Benning Terrace, one of the most dangerous D.C. neighborhoods: the number of gang-related murders decreased from an average of 5/year for 10 years, to zero; overall crime dropped 29%; the US-Drug Enforcement Administration reported a drop in drug activity; most of the youth are gainfully employed today.
- Currently, ACM is working with incarcerated leaders of the Crips and Bloods in a maximum correctional facility in Maryland to negotiate a truce.
Society at large
- Inmates are beginning to work w/law enforcement to create public safety and are contributing to building healthy communities.
- Reduced crime and violence leads to lower costs for tax-payers.
- Positive images of currently/previously incarcerated black men in the media helps revolutionize the way society views its inmate population. ACM’s work has been on nationally/internationally televised documentaries and talk shows, and in the New York Times, Washington Post, etc, describing its powerful impact on the lives of young people and communities.
What measure do you use to gauge your impact and why?
- Crime and violence statistics of individuals worked with and in the neighborhoods served
- Employment rate of direct participants, or percentage in school/college/vocational training
- Decrease in recidivism rate
- Change in value system
- Increase in civic duties and responsibilities
- Family building and positive attitudinal change
- Community acceptance and inner strength
- Spiritual awareness
Using pre/post measures, we seek to assess our multi-dimensional approach that addresses the social, educational, training and employment needs of youth/adults, including attitudes, values, behaviors.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
How is your initiative currently being financed and how would you finance further expansion and/or replication?
- Current funding is provided by grants and contracts for our Youth Re-entry Partnership Program, Abridging program, Save-a-Child program and family service programs. In addition, we rely on donations and volunteer services.
- To replicate existing programs in federal/state prisons and expand the program to include the more structured and broadly scoped 8-week training program, ACM needs to raise additional funds. It will take $250,000/year to successfully operate a program of this magnitude. In planning discussions, the USDOJ/BOP has requested that ACM fund the pilot phase of the expanded program in one prison. Assuming the program is successful, USDOJ/BOP would seek government funding to replicate/expand the program into all its prisons. A similar funding approach is planned for implementing the program in state prisons.
Provide information on your current finances and organization:
A. annual budget: $1,500,000
B. annual revenue: $1,900,000
C. sources of revenue: Government 75%, private 25%
D. number of staff: #46
- full-time #42
- part-time #4
- volunteers #25
ACM’s staff is trained and certified as Restorative Justice Peacemakers and includes social workers, drug/alcohol counselors, employment counselors, probation officers, other skilled professionals, and young outreach-workers, many of whom were previously incarcerated.
Who are your potential partners and allies?
Current:
- Maryland Police Department
- DC Public Schools
- DC Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services
- DC Housing Authority
- Correctional Departments/Facilities – D.C., Wackenhutt, Jessup, Ottisville
- Weed & Seed
- East of the River Police and Clergy Partnership
- Columbia Heights Collaborative
- Marshall Heights Collaborative
- NE Collaborative
- U.S. DOJ-Bureau of Prisons
Potential:
Philanthropists and corporations with the financial resources to contribute to the overall success of the ACM and that are valuable stakeholders in our communities.
Who are your potential investors?
Same as above.
United States Department of Justice, Bureau of Prisons
The Story
What is the origin of this innovation? Tell us your story.
Since 1991, ACM has been providing out-reach, violence prevention, intervention, social services, cultural enrichment and recreational activities for youth and families at risk and in crisis throughout the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.
The relationship among our core founders, Tyrone, James Alsobrooks, Rahim Jenskins, Eric Johnson, Joe Nelson and Arthur ‘Rico’ Rush, developed over thirty years ago when we were attending Eastern High School in D.C. We share the bond of adverse life experiences coupled with exposure to dangerous situations and personal transformations that turned our lives around. Our experiences with the increasing social problems that have been brought to bear on today's youth fortified our commitment to make a positive difference. The constant siege of drugs, violence, teenage pregnancy, illiteracy and murder in D.C.'s communities outraged us. We refused to passively watch as the youth murder rate grew, teens dropped out of society and "hardcore" survival on the streets became the norm. We responded by dedicating ourselves to saving the lives of today's young men and women who, in epidemic numbers, are dying from social, political, economical and communal diseases.
In 1991, Tyrone Parker lost his son, 19-year old Rodney, to a teen murder, inspiring him to found the Alliance with his former high school friends. Since then, we have been putting our experiences, training and street smarts to use, counseling children, teenagers, and adults in Washington DC. As former incarcerated persons, we have used our own experiences to engage other prisoners to take back responsibility for their families and communities.
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers marketing material.
Tyrone C. Parker, founding member and Executive Director of the Alliance of Concerned Men, formerly worked for the court-appointed Receiver of D.C. Housing Authority; D.C. Institution of Behavior for Youth; and D.C. Department of Corrections. He is best known for negotiating a truce between the “Avenue and Circle” crew-members at the Benning Heights Housing Development after 12-year old Darryl Hall was kidnapped, murdered and found frozen in a ravine. He's been featured on television, in newspapers, and has received numerous awards.
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