The Last Mile (prison rehabilitation program)

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The Last Mile is a program for prisoners at the San Quentin State Prison, California (in the United States) launched by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, that works with prisoners to help them build relevant skills in technology and other areas so that they can more easily transition to productive employment once they are out of prison.[1] Participation in the program is restricted to prisoners who have worked hard to improve themselves intellectually and emotionally.[1]

History[edit]

The program was founded in 2010 by Chris Redlitz and Beverly Parenti in partnership with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.[1]

Components[edit]

Originally, the program involves discussions with prisoners about various aspects of technology and digital communication, and prisoners are able to blog[2] as well as participate on Twitter[3] and Quora.[4] However, participants do not have direct online access, and their handwritten or typed answers are uploaded by program volunteers.[1] Inmates have reported on Quora that the program is highly beneficial to them, and their Quora answers in particular have received attention in a lot of media coverage of the program.[5][6] Prisoners who go through the program have a final project that culminates in a five-minute presentation on a Demo Day.[7][8]. The Entrepreneurship program ended in 2015, folding certain aspects of the program into the new coding program.

In 2014, The Last Mile launched Code.7370 in San Quentin State Prison, the first fully inclusive computer programming curriculum available in a US prison. The students in Code.7370 learn HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Python, all without internet access. The program consists of two tracks, a beginner track focusing on foundations of computer programming, while the advance track takes a deeper dive into Javascript, Node.js, etc. The program curriculum is expanding within California in 2015, currently in San Quentin (2014), Ironwood (2015), Chuckawalla (2016), Folsom Women's Facility (2016), and California Institution for Women (2017). In April 2018, they opened their first out of state location in Indiana's Women's prison.[9]

Media coverage[edit]

The program has been covered in Reuters,[10] The Atlantic,[6] BBC News,[11] ReadWriteWeb,[12] TechCrunch,[8] and other newspapers and magazines.[13]

The program was also discussed by Neil Cavuto in his TV show for the Fox Business Network.[14]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c d "About". The Last Mile. Retrieved March 26, 2014. 
  2. Jump up ^ "Blog". The Last Mile. Retrieved March 26, 2014. 
  3. Jump up ^ "The Last Mile". Twitter. Retrieved March 26, 2014. 
  4. Jump up ^ "The Last Mile (training program)". Retrieved March 26, 2014. 
  5. Jump up ^ "How does The Last Mile help inmates at San Quentin?". Quora. Retrieved March 26, 2014. 
  6. ^ Jump up to: a b Madrigal, Alexis (March 20, 2012). "Bringing San Quentin to Social Media". The Atlantic. Retrieved March 26, 2014. 
  7. Jump up ^ "Demo Day". The Last Mile. Retrieved March 26, 2014. 
  8. ^ Jump up to: a b Constine, Josh (February 22, 2013). "San Quentin Prison Demo Day Gives Entrepreneurs Behind Bars A Second Chance". TechCrunch. Retrieved March 26, 2014. 
  9. Jump up ^ https://www.in.gov/idoc/3515.htm
  10. Jump up ^ Shih, Gerry (February 25, 2013). "Inmates go high-tech as startup mania hits San Quentin". Reuters. Retrieved March 26, 2014. 
  11. Jump up ^ Walters, Alexander (June 7, 2012). "San Quentin's Silicon Valley: From inmate to entrepreneur". Retrieved March 26, 2014. 
  12. Jump up ^ Devaney, Tim; Stein, Tom (July 16, 2012). "From Inmates to Entrepreneurs: The San Quentin Startup Accelerator. Prison inmates have all day, every day, to sit around and think. It could be the world's largest pool of untapped brain time. Chris Redlitz decided to put it to productive use. He founded the Last Mile startup accelerator program at San Quentin State Prison in California". ReadWriteWeb. Retrieved March 26, 2014. 
  13. Jump up ^ "News". The Last Mile. Retrieved March 26, 2014. 
  14. Jump up ^ "Turning Prisoners into Entrepreneurs". Fox Business Network. March 6, 2013. Retrieved March 26, 2014. 

External links[edit]

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