Decarceration Resources | Map of Libraries & Carceral Institutions | Reading List
This page includes resources for decarcerated individuals, their families, friends, and community. The resources listed are diverse and include educational, vocational, and advocacy organizations. Many of the organizations are regional specific; for similar programs in additional localities, please contact the Ready Access Team at reentry@lapl.org.
Community & Advocacy
Anti-Recidivism Coalition
To ensure our communities are safe, healthy, and whole, ARC empowers formerly and currently incarcerated people to thrive by providing a support network, comprehensive reentry services, and opportunities to advocate for policy change.
California Reentry Program
A San Quentin-based program providing up-to-date information for housing, employment, education, community, and government services.
Impact Justice
A threefold project which seeks to: prevent more youth and adults from being involved in the criminal punishment system; improve conditions for those currently incarcerated; assist formerly incarcerated people in successful reentry.
Justice Reinvestment Coalition of Alameda County
We fight for equitable and sustainable systems that eliminate criminalization while acknowledging that detention and incarceration impoverish our communities and harm public safety.
Los Angeles Regional Reentry Partnership
LARRP is the only countywide network of reentry focused non-profit organizations, public agencies, and advocates that works to ensure that our reentry system meets the needs of our agencies, communities, and the people we serve, both in terms of capacity and public policy.
Prison Activist Resource Center
PARC strives to be the first point of contact for people to connect with prisoners' rights organizations, community organizations, prison literature and arts projects, family and visiting resources, health care and legal resources, parole and pre-release resources, and the prison abolition movement.
Prisoner Reentry Network
Dedicated to ensuring successful transitions from incarceration to the community through advocacy, public education, community building, and information distribution.
Root and Rebound
Root & Rebound restores power and resources to the families and communities most harmed by mass incarceration through legal advocacy, public education, policy reform, and litigation.
Success Stories
Root & Rebound restores power and resources to the families and communities most harmed by mass incarceration through legal advocacy, public education, policy reform, and litigation.
Uncommon Law
UnCommon Law fights to ensure that all people formerly and currently incarcerated for violent crime have access to healing, justice, and effective legal representation.
Educational
The California State University Project Rebound
Project Rebound supports the higher education and successful reintegration of formerly incarcerated individuals wishing to enroll and succeed at the California State University. Fourteen campuses across the state contain thriving Project Rebound departments.
Career Online High School
An accredited online high school diploma and career certification program available through participating California public libraries.
Cerro Coso Community College
The Incarcerated Student Education Program offers a pathway to graduation from within the prison system. It provides transferable access at junior-level status to academic institutions inside and outside California.
Prison EDU Program
The UCLA Prison Education Program creates innovative courses that enable faculty and students at the University of California, Los Angeles to learn from, and alongside, participants incarcerated at Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall, and the Custody to Community Transitional Reentry Program.
Restoring Our Communities
Restoring Our Communities is an academic support program at Laney College, by and for formerly incarcerated students, whose goal is to support students from reentry to graduation and/or transfer.
SOAR
Students Overcoming Adversity and Recidivism is a campus-based support program and community for formerly incarcerated students at Solano Community College.
Underground Scholars
Berkeley Underground Scholars is an academic support program housed within the Division of Equity and Inclusion at UC Berkeley, building a prison-to-school pipeline through recruitment, retention, and advocacy.
Vocational
Career One Stop
National job search page for formerly incarcerated people, with local & regional search options.
Center For Employment Opportunities
The vision of CEO is that anyone with a criminal record who wants to work has the preparation and support needed to find a job and stay connected to the labor force. CEO ensures people returning from prison are provided immediate paid employment, skills training, and ongoing career support.
Homeboy Industries
Los Angeles-based Homeboy Industries provides hope, training, and support to formerly gang-involved and previously incarcerated people. Services include workforce development, solar panel training, and an art academy.
National Reentry Resource Center
The NRRC maintains a listing of all Second Chance Act grantees around the country to help people connect with potential service providers in their communities as well as a Helpline to assist those preparing for, experiencing, or working in reentry.
Prison to Employment Connection
A San Quentin-based organization which works to prepare soon-to-be-released prisoners in employment readiness. Graduates of the P2EC have a recidivism rate of 1%.
San Diego Workforce Partnership
San Diego-based organization whose Reentry Works program provides pre-release employment and training services, links to jobs and post-release employment services, earn and learn opportunities, supportive services (such as transportation, housing and access to technology), and community-based connections.