May 28, 2019
Entrepreneurship for the Formerly Incarcerated: A Process Evaluation of the Pathway to Enterprise for Returning Citizens (PERC) Program
Formerly incarcerated individuals may be unable to secure stable employment and struggle to acquire income; however, opening a small business may offer this population an alternative to the traditional job market. Researchers evaluated the Pathway to Enterprise for Returning Citizens (PERC) program, which offered training in entrepreneurship and other resources to those returning from Illinois prisons to Cook County. Researchers examined the delivery of PERC’s entrepreneurship training, experiences of program participants and training staff, program completion among participants, and knowledge gains with information from focus groups, surveys, interviews, and administrative records. Feedback from staff and participants was mostly positive and the program increased entrepreneurship knowledge. However, engaging the 72 returning citizens in the program was a challenge—of all eligible participants, 16 attended the first week of training (22 percent) and only 12 graduated from the program (17 percent).
- Article
https://icjia.illinois.gov/researchhub/articles/entrepreneurship-for-the-formerly-incarcerated - Download
Entrepreneurship for the Formerly Incarcerated: A Process Evaluation of the Pathway to Enterprise for Returning Citizens (PERC) Program PDF
Individual publications, as well as old meeting agendas, minutes, and materials, are always available for download from the ICJIA Document Archive: https://archive.icjia.cloud