The Linking to Employment Activities Pre-Release (LEAP) program funded pilot projects that created jail-based American Job Centers (AJCs) to support the successful reentry of participants and directly link them to community-based AJCs upon release. Grantees were permitted to spend the first 9 months of the 24-month project period on planning and start-up activities before enrolling participants into their jail-based American Job Centers (AJCs). This brief uses data from site visits to 8 of the 20 LEAP sites to explore the factors that enabled them to complete these activities more quickly than the time allotted.

The findings suggest that jail-based AJCs that began serving participants early in the planning period were able to leverage existing staff, curricula, knowledge, and partner experience to roll out services quickly. Further, using the proposal and early planning phases of the grant to solidify the service structure and key relationships helped to expedite the launch of jail-based AJC services. While an expedited launch does not necessarily imply that a grantee will have stronger overall performance, an analysis of grantees that began enrollment quickly provides insight into the conditions present and the strategies used to achieve faster, and perhaps more efficient, implementation.