Building a future after prison through vocational education

Wesley Nicoll builds a planter as part of the vocational education program at Wildwood Correctional Center in July 2017. (Hillman/Alaska Public Media)
In Alaska, two-thirds of people who leave prison end up going back within three years. But former inmates who can find decent jobs within a year of release are half as likely to re-offend, according to an Alaska Department of Labor report. So how does the Department of Corrections want to cut recidivism? By teaching the trades.
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