Decarceration Resources | Map of Libraries & Carceral Institutions | Reading List
This page includes resources for decarcerated individuals, their families, friends, and community. The resources listed are diverse and include educational, vocational, and advocacy organizations. Many of the organizations are regional specific; for similar programs in additional localities, please contact the Ready Access Team at reentry@lapl.org.
Community & Advocacy
A New Way of Life
Provides housing, case management, pro bono legal services, advocacy, and leadership development for people rebuilding their lives after incarceration.
Anti-Recidivism Coalition
To ensure our communities are safe, healthy, and whole, ARC empowers formerly and currently incarcerated people to thrive by providing a support network, comprehensive reentry services, and opportunities to advocate for policy change.
Impact Justice
A threefold project which seeks to: prevent more youth and adults from being involved in the criminal punishment system; improve conditions for those currently incarcerated; assist formerly incarcerated people in successful reentry.
Initiate Justice
Organizes members, both inside and outside of prisons, to advocate for their freedom and criminal justice policy in California.
Los Angeles Regional Reentry Partnership
LARRP is a countywide network of reentry-focused non-profit organizations, public agencies, and advocates that works to ensure that our reentry system meets the needs of our agencies, communities, and the people we serve, both in terms of capacity and public policy.
Prison Activist Resource Center
PARC strives to be the first point of contact for people to connect with prisoners' rights organizations, community organizations, prison literature and arts projects, family and visiting resources, health care and legal resources, parole and pre-release resources, and the prison abolition movement.
Prisoner Reentry Network
[Oakland, CA] Dedicated to ensuring successful transitions from incarceration to the community through advocacy, public education, community building, and information distribution.
Project Protocol
Maintains a resource directory, community hub, and anonymous Rate My PO database to empower people in their reentry journey.
Root and Rebound
Root & Rebound restores power and resources to the families and communities most harmed by mass incarceration through legal advocacy, public education, policy reform, and litigation.
Success Stories
Delivers feminist and abolitionist curriculum that helps people who have harmed to get clear on the people and goals most important to them.
Uncommon Law
UnCommon Law fights to ensure that all people formerly and currently incarcerated for violent crime have access to healing, justice, and effective legal representation.
Educational
Berkeley Underground Scholars
[Bay Area] Berkeley Underground Scholars is an academic support program housed within the Division of Equity and Inclusion at UC Berkeley, building a prison-to-school pipeline through recruitment, retention, and advocacy.
The California State University Project Rebound
Project Rebound supports the higher education and successful reintegration of formerly incarcerated individuals wishing to enroll and succeed at the California State University. Fourteen campuses across the state contain thriving Project Rebound departments.
Career Online High School
An accredited online high school diploma and career certification program available through participating California public libraries.
LATTC Reentry Pathway
Provides individual support, resources, connections, and an inclusive community at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College. Assists with application and enrollment, basic needs, and referrals.
Restoring Our Communities
Restoring Our Communities is an academic support program at Laney College, by and for formerly incarcerated students, whose goal is to support students from reentry to graduation and/or transfer.
Solano Community College SOAR
[Bay Area] Students Overcoming Adversity and Recidivism is a campus-based support program and community for formerly incarcerated students at Solano Community College.
UCLA Prison Education Program
Creates innovative courses that enable faculty and students at the University of California, Los Angeles to learn from, and alongside, participants incarcerated at Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall, and the Custody to Community Transitional Reentry Program.
Vocational
Career One Stop
National job search page for formerly incarcerated people, with local & regional search options.
Center For Employment Opportunities
The vision of CEO is that anyone with a criminal record who wants to work has the preparation and support needed to find a job and stay connected to the labor force. CEO ensures people returning from prison are provided immediate paid employment, skills training, and ongoing career support.
Homeboy Industries
Los Angeles-based Homeboy Industries provides hope, training, and support to formerly gang-involved and previously incarcerated people. Services include workforce development, solar panel training, and an art academy.
Honest Jobs
Search and apply to jobs from more than 1,500 companies that are proven to hire people with criminal records.
National Reentry Resource Center
The NRRC maintains a listing of all Second Chance Act grantees around the country to help people connect with potential service providers in their communities as well as a Helpline to assist those preparing for, experiencing, or working in reentry.
Prison to Employment Connection
A San Quentin-based organization which works to prepare soon-to-be-released prisoners in employment readiness. Graduates of the P2EC have a recidivism rate of 1%.
San Diego Workforce Partnership
San Diego-based organization whose Reentry Works program provides pre-release employment and training services, links to jobs and post-release employment services, earn and learn opportunities, supportive services (such as transportation, housing and access to technology), and community-based connections.
TransCanWork
Supports justice-impacted trans, gender-diverse, and intersex (TGI) individuals in Los Angeles County in securing full employment.