Program turns ex-cons into entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurship program helps inmates reach success after release by becoming employees or owners
Collaborating with a nonprofit mentoring group, the Prison Entrepreneurship Program has helped more than 200 former offenders start businesses, addressing one of the biggest challenges to the correctional system — the high rate of recidivism.
JEFFREY Offutt, after serving two stints in prison for burglary and robbery, faced the same bleak prospects as most ex-cons. His chances of returning to prison were great in large part because his criminal record made the likelihood of him getting a job small.
But instead of just finding a job, Offutt took it one step further, launching his own printing business in Houston. Seven years later, his company, Jita Printing, generates $1.2 million in sales and employs five people.
Offutt, 47, is a graduate of a unique program that helps ex-offenders secure employment and even start new businesses, with the goal of keeping them from going back to prison. The program, called the Prison Entrepreneurship Program, or PEP, has helped more than 200 ex-offenders start businesses, collaborating with a nonprofit called Silver Fox Advisors, a group of retired CEO’s who mentor small-business owners.
“PEP was very instrumental in what I was able to do here,” Offutt said, referring to his business.
PEP was founded 12 years ago to help address one of the biggest challenges to the correctional system, the high rate at which people commit new crimes after their release and return to prison, known as recidivism. A 2014 Bureau of Justice Statistics study, which tracked more than 400,000 prisoners in 30 states after their releases in 2005, found that within three years of release, about 67.8 percent of released prisoners were rearrested.
Analysts in part blame the high rate of recidivism on the difficulties ex-offenders have
finding jobs because of the reluctance of employers to hire them. Men with criminal records make up 34 percent of all nonworking men ages 25-54, according to a 2015 poll by the New York Times, CBS News and the Kaiser Family Foundation.
“It’s really difficult for returning citizens to re-establish themselves in life,” said Bert Smith, PEP’s chief executive.
PEP works with the Cleveland Correctional Center just outside of Houston and the Sanders Estes Unit near Dallas to provide a nine-month business boot camp for inmates within three years of release and without any sex offenses. With workshops on building character and courses reviewing business school case studies, the program culminates with a “Shark Tank”-style business plan competition where inmates pitch their ideas to their peers and visiting CEOs.
The program boasts a 100 percent employment rate for graduates within 90 days of release, Smith said. He added that even after finding jobs, many like Offutt go on to start their own businesses.
Offutt had worked in printing for 14 years, developing hand-made graphics, preparing photos for advertisements and making plates for printing presses. But in the early 2000s, he said, he began dabbling in drugs while working at a busy printing company.
“I was burning the candle at both ends,” he said.
In 2003, he was convicted of burglary of a building, theft and evading arrest, and sentenced to a year in prison. Six months after his release, he was arrested again on similar charges.
During his second time behind bars, Offutt tried to secure early parole, which was denied. About three months later, he found out he had been accepted into PEP and would be transferred to the Cleveland prison as part of the program.
“Not getting early parole was one of the best things that could ever happen to me,” Offutt said, “When I got the letter, I knew why I was still there.”
He said the program not only gave him invaluable business advice, but also helped him change his outlook. Instructors helped him realize that drinking and drugs wouldn’t solve his problems. They also helped him recognize the value of his work experience before things fell apart.
It was through PEP that Offutt met the owner of a printing company who, one week before his release in 2008, gave him a job that offered him management experience.
PEP mentors and friends later encouraged him to run his own printing company, which started around 2010 in the hallway of PEP’s Houston office in Directors Row. The group leased him a $120,000 printer, and Offutt went door-to-door at nearby businesses to find clients needing business cards, pamphlets and other materials. Offutt named his company Jita, for “Jesus is the answer.”
After about 18 months, he was generating enough income to buy the printer; he later rented an office in the building, adding new equipment to print booklets, posters, invitations and envelopes.
But he felt he needed more help to keep growing and turned again to PEP. The group introduced him to William “Bill” Spitz, one of the founders of Silver Fox Advisors, which counsels small businesses at various stages of development.
“If you look at the history of business, you find out that most businesspeople who have achieved something important had a mentor,” Spitz said.
Offutt paid a monthly fee of $300, which supports Silver Fox, and met every Tuesday with Spitz, a retired CEO of a pest control company. Spitz, who is 90, said watching entrepreneurs like Offutt learn and succeed is incredibly rewarding and has kept him going all these years.
Spitz helped Offutt get a line of credit for emergencies and taught him to cut through red tape to get things done. In one instance, Offutt had been promised a rebate by a company that sold him a printer, but it was slow in coming. Spitz encouraged him to speak to the head of the company, rather than lower-level managers. The rebate check arrived within 30 days.
“He had to learn how to get past the secretary to see the big boss,” Spitz said.
Offutt, whose clients include nonprofits, oil and gas companies, and health care providers, said he is planning to expand again and is looking to lease a bigger office. But he still seeks Spitz’s advice.
“It’s worth its weight in gold,” he said.