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Second chances can work wonders.
Testament to this fact is Defy Ventures, a nonprofit focused on providing second chances to the formerly incarcerated by equipping them to start and run their own businesses. Participants in Defy’s program have low recidivism rates and high employment rates, especially in comparison to national averages.
How does Defy capitalize on the “second chance” model so successfully? Perhaps because, despite society’s use of expressions like “they’ve served their time,” people with criminal records don’t just move on from prison. Formerly incarcerated men and women often end up serving a life sentence. Many initially avoid illegal activities after being released from prison, but as their applications for legitimate jobs are repeatedly rejected due to felony records, enticing offers from old criminal connections often appear irresistible. Recidivism rates are high for people with criminal records, but of those who are rearrested, 89% are unemployed at the time.
Defy Ventures aims to break this cycle. A tuition-based, MBA-style national entrepreneurship, employment, and character-training program, Defy equips former drug dealers and gang leaders — a population so stigmatized in the labor market when they get out of prison that they can barely land burger-flipping jobs — to “defy the odds” and get second chances of their own. Defy’s curriculum, which consists of a blended-learning model, features faculty including Harvard Business School professors and key influencers like Tim Draper (Founder, Draper Fisher Jurvetson), Duncan Niederauer (former CEO, NYSE), and Seth Godin (marketing guru).
