For two decades, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has invested substantial funding toward programs serving justice-involved individuals. Among its recent investments, DOL awarded over $243 million in Reentry Projects (RP) grant programs between 2017 and 2019 to improve participants’ employment and justice outcomes. DOL prioritized awarding grants to programs that were evidence-informed, and many went to experienced providers. They were awarded across a broad range of intermediaries and non-profit community-based organizations serving a total of 17,361 participants across 34 states, Washington DC, and Puerto Rico. RP grants were 36-39 months long and were at different phases when the COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020. RP grantees served a total of 9,098 adults (individuals over 24) and 8,263 young adults (individuals between ages 18 and 24) after their release from jail or prison.

In 2017, the Chief Evaluation Office, in collaboration with the Employment and Training Administration funded the Reentry Project Grants Evaluation. This implementation and impact evaluation aims to identify and evaluate promising practices used in reentry employment programs, which are comprehensive strategies to address the range of challenges formerly incarcerated adults and young adults who have been involved in the justice system face in making a successful transition back to the community.

The evaluation team conducted 27 virtual site visits with selected 2018 and 2019 RP grantees between December 2021 and April 2022. Sites were chosen by examining certain grantee characteristics to ensure selection of a diverse set of grantees to inform impact study results and explore potentially promising practices of interest, as identified by site visit respondents, to DOL.

This brief draws on a variety of sources, including survey responses from 89 RP grantees; interviews with RP program staff, partner organizations from 27 sites, 37 RP participants, 41 employers, and national workforce data from the Workforce Integrated Performance System (WIPS), with the aim of describing the types of work-based learning (WBL) provided to RP participants, RP programs’ experiences in offering WBL opportunities to justice-involved individuals, and some lessons learned from offering WBL to the reentry population.

Key findings include:

• Most sites offered access to paid and/or unpaid WBL, providing those services directly through their RP programs or through referrals to partner organizations.
• WBL offered justice-involved individuals opportunities to earn an income while engaging in training, building their workplace skills, and gaining real-world experience. It also served as a conduit for employers to gain familiarity with and comfort in hiring justice-involved individuals.
• Future programs could benefit from providing supportive services, ongoing case management, mentoring, and encouraging participation and completion of WBL opportunities for justice-involved individuals.