Washington Prison Trade Training Program Boosts Employment Income Upon Release
When Brittany Wright, 30, got out of a Washington prison in June 2023, she was confident that it would be easier than her last release 10 years earlier. Back then, she had found it almost impossible to find a job or a place to live. But when she stepped out of prison a decade later, Brittany had to wait just a single day before reporting to work at Kiewit, a Seattle construction and engineering firm. By January 2024, Wright was banking $31 an hour on a light rail expansion project for Sound Transit.
Credit for the difference goes to Trades Related Apprenticeship Coaching (TRAC), a 16-week state program designed to reduce recidivism by ensuring prisoners getting out have a job. Research conducted by the nonprofit Prison Policy Initiative has pegged the unemployment rate for the formerly incarcerated at a sky-high 27%, and those lucky enough to find work earn about half the salary of their non-incarcerated peers—even less if the releasee is a minority.
TRAC teaches entry-level skills needed to become a trade union apprentice. The union then helps the former prisoner find work after completing roughly 6,000 hours of paid on-the-job training. The boost to earning potential is huge: Apprentice ironworkers in Western Washington start at $32 an hour, rising to more than $100,000 a year as journeymen.
There are still challenges, though. Washington releases prisoners into the county where they were convicted, so a job that requires crossing county lines requires special permission or else it may have to be turned down. Washington is one of several states, including Colorado, Iowa and Ohio, to set up apprenticeship programs like TRAC with trade unions.
Source: Open Campus Media