Lessons - Building a Life After Jail | Thomas Vozzo - CEO at Homeboy Industries

In this lessons episode, dive into the challenges of recidivism and why many individuals struggle to rebuild their lives after incarceration. Learn how trauma-informed rehabilitation, supportive environments, and meaningful job opportunities can help break the cycle, foster resilience, and create pathways for lasting reintegration into society. So one thing that I'm curious about is that point when they're in jail and they're incarcerated, and they're looking for something different and something better. But that's not always the case. So what do we have to do to allow them to look towards something better? Because in jail, recidivism rates increase exponentially, and I'm sure, like, my back, I'm Canadian, and I know that Canada is not even remotely as bad as the US in terms of recidivism. If you put someone in jail and certain jails and certain environments, their chance of committing another crime goes up X percent, right? Because they're surrounded by the population that's not helping them rehabilitate. So how does a jail, or how does a, how come some individuals are looking for a better life whereas some individuals you see higher recidivism rates? What is the differentiator? Yes, and I would answer it this way. So let me first say, think about those statistics and recidivism going back into the prison system under a new charge, right? So a number of years ago, there was an independent independent study of Homeboy done by UCLA in a show that people have been part of our Homeboy program only have a 30% recidivism rate after two years of being out. That compares to the statewide average to your point of 70%. And so here we are two and a half times better than the statewide average. So your question is why we sit about why do people go back into the jail system? I almost say, well, why do people go back into the jail system out of two times more rate than they do after becoming to be a part of Homeboy? And the answer is simply that we invest in them. We try to help them heal from their trauma and so they can become resilient. They're going with society throws at them. In the US, people come out of the prison with a massive amount of debt, not just restitution charges but court costs. And all of me, let me tell you this one story. So early, so we have a Homeboy, a number of social enterprise businesses. We have a Homeboy bakery. And here's where we make artists in bread. And we have 11 bread routes go around and we deliver the restaurants all throughout Los Angeles. We also have farmer's markets. And artisan-based bakery means hand-pan-made breads. And so there's nothing better about breaking down walls and enemies. So when two enemies stand at that bread table, side-by-side, shoulder-shoulder, they're rolling dough. You can't demonize them, but you're in relationship with. You're working next to. And so these two guys from rival gangs were able to work it out over the bread table. Right? So that's what that's the value of having that type of work that we do. But and we sell the bread. And we sell the bread of farmer's markets. Early on in my time at Homeboy, I was walking through the bakery and trying to be friendly and talk to people. And I overheard one of our best sellers at the farmer's markets. 26 farmer's markets around Los Angeles. George, it's one of my best sellers. Every time he takes the breads out to the markets, he completely sells out and come home early. And he's had a gift for a guy. I mean, it's a certain amount of charisma. Right? And so I remember I'm talking to our manager asking for the weekend off. Well, the weekends are important days for farmer's markets. So a manager said, yes. And now I go up top to George and I've just wanted to chit-chat. What are you going to do? You're going to go to a ballgame. What are you going to have? What are you going to do? And he looks at me and says, I'm reporting in. And so what's what do you mean, reporting in? Well, he was going to report into county jail on Friday night. And spend three days there, come back on Tuesday. And he was doing that because he came out of jail on prison with debt. He had cost of his parole officer, court costs. He has all these costs. And like, for society thinks that people on the day one coming out of prison, they can start paying off their debt. And then I don't even have a job yet. Right? It's just nuts. And that sort of sort of says what society throws up against him. And so he sat that time. You can go to LA County jail and you can spend three days in jail and earn off some of the money that you owe. And so I walked away that evening. They go, that's really responsible for George. He's trying to do it the right way. He didn't go, he could have gone to his former gang as, hey, let me get some money. He could have gone to a loan shark and borrow money. He didn't want to do that high interest rates. He wanted to do it the good way, the clean way. All right, so all weekend I'm thinking about it. I see George following two studies. Hey, George, I went up to him quickly. Hey, how to go. And I see stress on his face. And I'm thinking, what happened? And he said, when he came out of prison, he was able to get custody of two children. 10 year old and a eight year old. And he has sole custody of it. He has no caregiver. He has no family support. They're in the gang. He doesn't live in the neighborhood any longer. So the caregiver who is going to watch his kids that weekend why we put the jail called at the last minute and couldn't make it. And so he had this choice or almost no choice because he committed to going to jail. So he left this 10 year old and eight year old at home in their apartment on their own for three days while he wasn't counting the jail. You could just imagine the stress as a father where you go through thinking, did you make the right decision? Are they going to be okay? How's it going to work? Quick, the end of the story is they turned out okay. Everything was fine. But as I'm listening to this story, seeing his stress, I'm thinking to myself, oh my gosh. I don't know if I would have done it that way. I mean, so you have to pause and think not to judge because they're face bar folks coming out of prison to be faced with impossible choices to live the normal life that we want in the live. Right? And yet we just have to be there for them and get and help them some way get them more money. So they don't have these choices but don't judge them by their actions. So that was a long way answering your questions. Why a hybrid citizen in the United States? Because people come out of prison and they still have all these stressors to get done. What's the side of throws at them? And they just kind of give up, button with this, give up. So now let's go back to the gang because it's easier money to be made. And I'll sort of live life that way while I may die at 30. I don't have as much stress. There are folks who almost everybody knows deep down what they're doing is not right. And they want to do it in a more honest and better way. And let's, okay. So let's talk about the progression of somebody that comes out of a gang. So then when you come out of a gang, I'm assuming you're not, these are general assumptions. But I'm assuming you're not coming out with a college degree. So if you are looking to make a living wage and you're looking to displace money from illicit activities, it could be like highly lucrative. How do you, how do you fully move away from gang life? Because it's not going to be raising a family on making artisanal bread. There has to be progression. There has to be some, some way to make it. I don't know what the, the amount is, but there has to be an amount that has to be made where you're making 60, 70, 80. I don't know what that is. And then you can actually support a family. You can put into retirement. So what is the, what is the way to actually support people so that they can become full members? Not just rehabilitated, but on par with someone else who was getting a job to support a whole family and retire. Yeah, and that's the, not with the challenge, right? And I put it in this frame, you know, the work and poor in our society have a lot of challenges. And just as you talk, but you can't provide for your family by being among the working poor. And what I'm here to say is, you know, that in the, in the United States, the poverty rate has been the same for 45 years, same narrow ban, you know, 12 to 13 percent. And so as a society, we haven't figured out how to help people, let people out of poverty along the way. But what I've learned at homeboy is, oh, actually, it's a way to help people who are poor and working poor, the folks who are demonized. And so it's a question about gang members as they, as they come into homeboy in only 40 percent of them have a high school diploma. So 60 percent do not. So while we think people get educated in the prison system, most people still don't get educated in the prison system. And so, what we do is, again, primarily we're a human service agency. We help people heal from their trauma. You know, we have, we have therapists on staff. We have, you know, homies going to therapy. We have NAA classes. We do, as domestic violence, counseling classes. We have high school classes. We allow people pathways to college, junior college. We, we get them in. We take off their tattoos, all in the context, all of us in the context of what they're working with. We give them a lot of space to do, to do that work. And so what we see is that, now, primarily, they need to heal, but then to your point, the supplement, then we have to upscale them, upscale them so that they can succeed in our economy. Again, another statistic, 90 percent of the folks that come out of the prison system have never worked in a business for more than four weeks in their whole life. And so they don't have the muscle memory of, of how to work. So with all those challenges, I'm here to say, this is a good workforce. Once they go through an organization like Homeboy, and become resilient and learn the skills. You know, we have in Los Angeles, a Zagged Rated Cafe, Homegirl Cafe, only seven other restaurants have as higher rating in downtown Los Angeles. And it's fully run by gang members of felons. And so I often think about, now, the workforce, we have a Homeboy is really good. So it's as good of a workforce as you're going to get anywhere else. And so in any workforce, you're going to have this sort of people who sort of move up the ladder and have upward mobility. And those are the ones who will bet 70, 80, 90,000 a year. And as well as you're going to have people at the frontline level who struggle because of enough skills to move higher, our role is to help people heal, get that first transitional job, and then help them get the next level jobs above that. We're proud of the fact that over half of our management team are former clients. And so again, I know our workforce is just as any workforce that is won't get the market-based wages because of their backgrounds. And so part of my thing is as I thought about writing this book, what lessons I learned. It's also kind of trying to challenge people in the business world. That's higher this population because there is good of a workforce as any other workforce in their very loyal and our folks deserve the right to have upward mobility in the job just like any other person who doesn't have a felony and doesn't not coming out of a gang in that they can shine based upon their own ability and we just got to give them that chance. Thanks for tuning in. 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