PENDLETON — Helping prisoners learn high-tech skills so they’re better prepared to assimilate back into the general population is the goal.
Google.org recently announced a $2 million grant to a program called The Last Mile TLM — a technology and business skills-training program founded in 2010 for incarcerated people wanting to learn behind bars.
The Google.org grant announcement was made alongside community leaders, including Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb and Beverly Parenti, executive director of The Last Mile, at the Pendleton Juvenile Correctional Facility last week.
Holcomb was happy to be part of the program, according to a press release on the announcement.
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“Now with the help of Google.org, even more offenders will leave prison able to return to the workforce with the valuable skills world-class companies like Google are looking for,” Holcomb said in the release. “The Last Mile program really starts the first mile of the rest of their new life.”
The Last Mile, a non-profit based in San Francisco, is expected to educate and certify an estimated 525 incarcerated youth, women and men during the next two years in a variety of business skills, the release said.
Inmates will be able to learn technology and soft-skills curricula, including entrepreneurship, front end coding, web and mobile app development, design and quality assurance skills while in prison classrooms at the Pendleton Juvenile Correctional Facility and at other prisons in Oklahoma and Kansas in 2019.
The grant will support the launch of Indiana’s first coding program for incarcerated juveniles at Indiana’s Pendleton Juvenile Correctional Facility, as well as outfitting Indiana Women’s Prison with new computers, electronic devices and audio-visual equipment for students and instructors.
The equipment is expected to provide state-of-the-art learning in the facilities to enable inmates to be prepared for life after release.
Research shows education is key to reducing recidivism, the release said. Incarcerated people who participate in correctional education are 43 percent less likely to return to prison within three years than prisoners who don’t participate in such programs.
“This effort between Google.org and The Last Mile is a significant milestone,” Parenti said. “The grant enables TLM to increase the number of citizens returning back to society with meaningful job skills and ultimately reducing recidivism.”
In addition to the grant funding, Google software engineers, user experience researchers and program managers are volunteering their time to review The Last Mile’s adult coding program, the release states. They’re expected to adapt it for young people, develop accessibility web development training, and even create a virtual lecture series so Googlers can engage with classes of learners via Hangouts.
The project is expected to help strengthen program offerings and will give participants direct access to technologists working in the sector.
Google.org takes a data-informed approach to philanthropy, the release states, working to understand how its contributions can have the greatest impact in areas such as closing educational gaps and improving the U.S. criminal justice system.
Since 2013, Google.org has given more than $30 million to nonprofits advancing criminal justice reform and $60 million to organizations working to expand access to hands-on computer science learning, the release said.
In 2017, TLM was one of more than 35 nonprofits to benefit from Google’s $30 million holiday fund. Google’s donation provided laptops and tablet devices to allow incarcerated students to continue learning outside the classroom.
In addition to its flagship location inside San Quentin State Prison, TLM is run inside 10 correctional facilities for men, women and youth in California and Indiana.
To learn more about The Last Mile, visit thelastmile.org.
