Lately the conversations my brother and I have been sharing are about how to quite literally, recycle people. Our personal ties and beliefs rooted the plant of compassion deeply within us. The storm has past now, the waters have settled. We want healing for all. Now is the time to build a stronger house to motivate success and positive pride toward change–so that by grace when the storms come again, this house and my family won’t be falling down.
We sense a personal responsibility to make a way for individuals effected by suffering situations, such as the formerly incarcerated, family members of the incarcerated, or at risk individuals. It’s not even about pity or even prevention; for us its about honesty in knowing these people personally, and wanting an improved life for them out of genuine love. Its personhood, its brotherly love, forgiveness.
Forbes Magazine published the article, Why Ex-cons Make Great Entrepreneurs proposing the entrepreneurial integrity ex-cons may have, because many of them already have strong leadership skills and entrepreneurial experiences based off previous experiences or criminal dealings. Catherine Rohr is the founder of The Prison Entrepreneurship Program (PEP), in which inmates are and educated through an MBA-level curriculum, and connected with exceptional business and academic talent to expand the potential of felons. The program now prides itself with proof of transformation, reducing recidivism significantly for its members.
Rohr later resigned from PEP and established a new non-profit in New York City, an organization that operates outside prison walls called Defy Ventures, developed to catalyze the skills and business success opportunities for the formally incarcerated. Defy allows motivated ex-cons the opportunity to propose and unfold real business plans, with seed financing and mentorships available to promote their start.
Lancaster City is known for the blossom of its downtown life, an obvious change from 15 years former that only locals would recognize. With a budding arts community and the well-fed attraction from a handful of unique and exceptional restaurants, Lancaster has attracted the implantation of hundreds of new residents. Yet as promising and positive these factors are, there still remains the rest of the Lancaster City community; afflicted with low-wage households and stumped opportunity, which often connects to high recidivism rates of those with criminal backgrounds, and leads a negative example toward the related youth.
Deviant criminal energy can be re-directed toward successful, legal plans. Lancaster County Prison encases potentials, if we can observe from that perspective. If mentored and challenged similarly through programs like Defy and PEP, qualified ex-offenders could contribute a whole new host of services to the hopeful city of Lancaster.
With the growth of Lancaster City’s downtown life, entrepreneurial encouragement, and the overshadowed potential of Lancaster’s former prisoners, an opportunity to fuse the two together for empowerment of the city exists. As complicated as crime life is, there is always the light in some individual that keeps burning due to genuine transformation, and we must feed that fire with opportunity and skill sharing.
I hope to see more individuals like Lancaster local, Jennifer Oehme Knepper advocating the healing of criminal issue roots. A number of non-profits and programs are making current efforts to empower the lives of affected individuals and families, I want to see them grow, too. Let’s start a conversation.
Thought Pressure 