By Sarah Jean Green, October 27, 2020, The Seattle Times.
Carolyn Presnell began serving her second, 15-month stint at the Washington Corrections Center for Women in October 2015, after pleading guilty to selling cocaine to an undercover Seattle cop, then leading police on a high-speed chase and crashing her car in Seattle’s Meadowbrook neighborhood.
Fast forward to today: Presnell is the director-in-waiting of the 1426 Project, a collaborative partnership of local nonprofits, governmental entities and corporate sponsors aimed at providing housing, jobs, treatment and therapy to people reentering the community after being incarcerated in state prisons or county jails.
The goal: reduce recidivism rates and combat homelessness and addiction by providing a one-stop shop to ease the transition of formerly incarcerated people into the community and offering them a space to heal from the trauma that led to their involvement in the criminal justice system.
“Their stories about reentry and the criminal justice system were so heartbreaking,” Amy King said. “One hundred percent of them experienced significant childhood trauma, and they all took responsibility for the decisions they had made.”
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