Credit: Roger Utting / Shutterstock To read more of MaryLou Costa's article, please click here. “Hi, I’m sorry that I can’t respond to your email. I’m currently in a prison, recruiting more amazing colleagues for our business.” That’s a standard out-of-office reply for Darren Burns, who, as director of diversity and inclusion for well-known UK service retailer Timpson, spends a lot of time interviewing candidates from within prisons. CEO James Timpson made his first prison visit in 2002,...

A watchtower at the California Health Care Facility in Stockton on Feb. 5, 2023. Photo by Rahul Lal, CalMatters To read more of Byrhonda Lyon's article, please click here. As Gov. Gavin Newsom retools the state’s prison system to emphasize rehabilitation, his administration has little evidence that a privately run program for parolees costing taxpayers $100 million a year works to prevent future crime. The state does not collect data on whether parolees who participate in the program have...

Photo Credit: Walt Stoneburner, Flickr Creative Commons By Michelle Crouch, The Charlotte Ledger, July 5, 2023 -- With foster homes in short supply, more than 55 children over the past year have spent at least one night sleeping on an air mattress in a Mecklenburg government conference room; “It’s as bad as it’s ever been.” Dozens of children have been forced to sleep on the floor of Mecklenburg County offices over the past year because of a severe shortage of foster homes and crisis beds,...