Recently, I had a golden chance to visit Homeboy Industry, an organization that provides support and training to individuals who were formerly criminals or incarnated. I had an opportunity to meet and interview two youths who were undergoing training after serving jail term ranging from 6 months and 5 years. I also interacted and interviewed an employment counselor who works fulltime in acting as an intermediary between trainees and employers. Although she holds a junior position at Home Boys, she seemed to have answers to all questions to do with funding, the activities, and the model that Homeboys Industries uses.
In my interaction with the employment counselor, I used semi-structured questions to collect valuable information about the organization. For example, I learned about the model whereby Homeboys acts as an alternative to incarceration by creating a favorable environment for former offenders to realize their potential. According to the counselor, Homeboys Industries brings together ideas, solutions, and opportunities that individuals need to be re-integrated back to the society after serving their jail terms. The organization also pulls together resources from the community to support its course. For example, the counselor was quick to mention the role of volunteers in bringing the much-needed sustainability. With more volunteers, Homeboys has managed to achieve sustainability by spending less on human resource. However, she lamented that corporations are not doing enough to support Homeboys. According to her, the best way for large for-profit organizations to give back to society is to help organizations such as homeboys.
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My interaction with the employment counselor was very enlightening. It opened my mind to see the need for the society to work together to help hopeless individuals who resort to crime just to feed their children or make it in life. Since then, I have started developing a strong belief that we should have more organizations such as Homeboys rather than prisons that locks out and punishes offenders. With this model, we can solve the root or cause of the very problem that tempts people, especially young people to join criminal gangs just to survive economically.
In my interaction with the two trainees at Homeboys, I was able to put myself in their shores and think about their experiences as ex-offenders. One of them had just joined the training after failing to secure a job. According to him, his tattoos and criminal records are to blame for his troubles and wished he had followed his sister’s advice to “hide” his tattoos. The other interviewee was a 23-year old male who had been with Homeboys for months after serving his 4-years jail term. Although both of them were reluctant to talk about their past, they were more than ready to share their present and future. They agreed unanimously that Homeboys offered them a second chance by allowing them to pursue their dream careers.
My interaction with the two young trainees was an eye-opening experience for me. For once, I could not understand why society is reluctant to accept reformed individuals. In my view, the reluctance to employ young people who have just completed serving a jail term is not only unfair but encourage them to go back to their unlawful ways of life. For example, one of the interviewees noted how incarceration nearly changed his life for the worse when he met “recruiters” who were more than willing to offer him a place once he is out of jail. According to him, a prison is just a place where minor offenders meet with real criminals and get the connections for more lucrative criminal activities. Luckily, people at Homeboys showed up right on time to offer him the alternative he needed to turn his life around for the better. In my view, I firmly believe that Homeboys Industries offers the best model that can be adopted in every state to bring down crime while at the same time improve the American justice system.
