KINGSTON, RI – February 4 – Formerly incarcerated people face alarming rates of unemployment or underemployment, which in turn, can lead to recidivism – the term used to describe reoffending. Across the country, there are few resources available to help these individuals find stable employment in family sustaining careers. President and CEO of Building Futures, Andrew Cortés wanted to fill that gap and make retentry in the state of Rhode Island a sustainable and supportive process.

Since 2007, Building Futures has been providing people–including formerly incarcerated people–with pathways to the Registered Apprenticeship System that leads to a union career in the building and construction trades. Recently, with the the help of a competitive federal grant via the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) Second Chance Act, Building Futures has been able to expand its work to intentionally reach people currently incarcerated in the Rhode Island Department of Correction by developing a pre-release program that gets people on track with the trades before they return to the community. Rhode Island was one of nine states selected to receive $900,000 from the Department of Justice. Building Future’s new behind-the-walls program also has a number of more local supporters, including the Rhode Island Foundation.

What is BFI?
Modeled after their community-based program that operates out of Building Futures’ in Providence, Building Futures Inside (BFI) provides construction training and job skills to people currently incarcerated at the adult corrections facility (ACI) and a pathway to enter into Building Futures’ training in the community upon release and then a Registered Apprenticeship. The goal is to help remove one of the significant barriers to stable, family-sustaining employment that formerly incarcerated Rhode Islanders encounter, by providing skills, certificates, and material resources through a holistic reentry model.

Officially launched in the ACI back in February 2023, the BFI curriculum aligns pre-release workforce training and education with one of Rhode Island’s fastest growing high-wage industries. Per BFI’s website, the large-scale unionized construction industry offers the gold standard of on-the-job training via registered apprenticeship and a much-needed pathway to economic stability for justice-involved individuals. Across all of the trades, average registered apprenticeship entry wages are $20 per hour plus benefits. At the completion of a 3-5 year registered apprenticeship program, workers earn on average $40 an hour, plus excellent healthcare and retirement benefits.

Building Futures Inside is a 3-phase construction training program, intended for incarcerated people within three years of release:

• Pre-Release: Participants receive construction and job skills training on-site at the ACI, leaving with multiple industry certifications.
• Post-Release: Graduates have the opportunity to transition into Building Future’s core pre-apprenticeship program, BF200.
• Post-Graduation: BF200 grads are placed in Registered Apprenticeships with union partners and receive continued reentry support from Building Futures.

 

Building Futures Inside started in RIDOC’s men’s minimum security prison but is working on expanding into the state’s medium security prison in order to reach as many people as possible. To date, 30 people have graduated from Building Futures Inside. 10 BFI graduates have been released from the ACI and completed the community based pre-apprenticeship program, BF200. Building Futures has always worked in the formerly incarcerated community with 46% of their graduates either formerly incarcerated or justice involved. With a recidivism rate of 3%, the evidence proves that access to this program creates new opportunities for participants and their families.

Where does URI come in?
With a shared interest and passion for reducing recidivism, Natalie Pifer, chair of the Criminology and Criminal Justice department; and Chelsea Farrell, assistant professor of criminology and criminal justice, bring their expertise to researching the BFI program. Further, the pair applied and won the 2023 Public Policy Lab Fellowship award from URI’s Social Science Institute for Research, Education, and Policy (SSIREP), in order to support student involvement with their work.

Pifer and Farrell are actively working to understand how the BFI program operates, how participants experience it, and ultimately, if the program is effective at reducing recidivism. Their approach views the reentry process holistically by expanding beyond the recidivism binary to include measures of wellbeing, satisfaction, and desistance as a process. Officially, they serve as BFI’s third party evaluators and fidelity assessors, which is required by Building Future’s Second Chance Act grant to ensure that the program is effective and consistent across each graduating cohort.

The duo approach their formal research on BFI using longitudinal and mixed methods. The data is collected in waves. First, BFI program participants are invited to participate in a survey and interview near the end of the program and, usually, while still incarcerated. The second wave of data is collected from participants who have been released to examine if (a) they have continued with BF200 and if it is working for them or not, and (b) if the individual is not continuing with the program, why not and what are they doing now? The third wave of data involves analyzing administrative data from RIDOC and BF to compare people who are involved with BFI to people who have not in order to analyze the BFI program’s role in moving the needle on recidivism.

Pifer also speaks to the importance of “time one” data collection as providing important insight into how BFI participants have experienced and perceived the program, but also as an opportunity to form a rapport that can help when it comes time to collect additional waves of follow-up data. Without this baseline connection, it becomes more challenging to connect with participants for additional data collection opportunities after they have been released from the ACI.

URI alumni and student participants
What makes this organization special is its dedication to a holistic reentry to society. The cohort meets once per week with a therapeutic component where they can learn soft skills like conflict resolution and emotional intelligence. It also provides the necessary financial support to address barriers that many formerly incarcerated people face like late parking tickets, renewing their license, or funding clothing needed for construction work.

URI alum Nick Ferro ‘09, psychology and a minor in sociology, is also instrumental in this cause. After working with incarcerated populations for many years, Ferro is now a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker in Providence, Rhode Island and Social Service Director at Building Futures. For the BFI program, Ferro utilizes the Level of Service Case Management Inventory (LSCMI) which assesses criminogenic risk factors like substance abuse. This process identifies and aggregates a risk score level for the group, and from there he tailors his curriculum.

“For example, I won’t cover substance abuse if there’s no one in that group that’s dealing with it. I try to focus on the actual reasons that people are coming to prison, tailoring my lessons around the issues a particular cohort is experiencing,” said Ferro.

He also works closely with Farrell and Pifer as he was responsible for writing the RFP (request for proposal) to bring them in to evaluate the program.

“I was really happy that they had responded. Obviously being familiar with Rhode Island they already have an understanding of the state which brings a unique perspective. I have regular follow ups with them, and they come to the prison to observe my class and meet with each cohort. They’ve been wonderful,” said Ferro.

Farrell and Pifer were also joined by two undergraduate research fellows funded by SSIREP’s Public Policy Lab. These student fellows had the opportunity to gain skills in both qualitative and quantitative data management and analysis, along with a deeper understanding of program evaluation and program fidelity assessment.

“I think for the student end of things, I want people to realize that getting involved in research doesn’t just build your resume, but offers you an inside look to a population that we often think about and study in terms of, like numbers and textbook definitions,” said Farrell. “The empathy and the ability to humanize the people that we study is what’s most important.. So, I think a lot of the time, students are seeking out traditional criminal justice careers like corrections or policing. Obviously, there’s a connection here because you’re seeing the people that you could interact with, and that’s important to humanize those individuals. However, I also think that people who are interested in other fields, whether that’s going to law school or social work or advocacy work, things like that, are able to see what that might look like.”

Farrell and Pifer have recently expanded their evaluation of vocational programming research by partnering with Polaris MEP to study their Fast Track program that brings CCRI’s community-based manufacturing program into RIDOC. Farrell and Pifer received a grant from URI’s Proposal Development Fund to support this work.