Chris Redlitz, right, co-founded the Last Mile program, which teaches inmates, such as James Houston, left, business and coding skills relevant in today’s labour market.
In addition to the usual headaches that come with running a fledgling Silicon Valley venture, Chris Redlitz's particular project faces a few unique ones – gang violence and prison lockdowns, for example.
With little fanfare, the San Francisco-based venture capitalist and tech-industry veteran has been working on a project called the Last Mile. It's an entrepreneurship and computer programming school that caters exclusively to one of California's most overlooked demographics – prison inmates.
"You can't just lock people up and then send them out and expect them to change," Mr. Redlitz said in an interview in the offices of the downtown San Francisco venture firm where he is a partner. "There really has to be some sort of rehabilitation.
"You and I, figuratively speaking, we have to deal with these people because most of them are going to get out."
For years, California has had one of the most dysfunctional prison systems in the United States, thanks in large part to the legacy of "three-strikes" laws that resulted in automatic life sentences. The state's prisons were designed to hold about 80,000 prisoners, but for the better part of the past decade, the inmate population has been almost double that amount. That overcrowding has created a nightmare of budgetary crises, class-action lawsuits and an inmate-suicide rate roughly 80 per cent higher than the national average.
Passing with 58 per cent of the vote during this year's U.S. midterm elections, however, California's Proposition 47 authorized a sweeping reclassification of various non-violent and drug-related crimes to misdemeanours. The shift is designed to allow the state to begin releasing tens of thousands of inmates early – and, in the process, reduce the strain on one of the most prolific imprisonment states in the country.
But while many of the affected inmates are non-violent and not expected to reoffend, their prospects for gainful, meaningful employment are also severely hindered by their time behind bars. That leaves the state with a serious economic challenge – one that some members of the state's tech sector, who strongly supported Proposition 47, are now trying to address.
The idea behind the Last Mile program came to Mr. Redlitz and fellow tech-industry veteran Beverly Parenti when they were invited to speak at San Quentin State Prison in 2010. They arrived having never been to a prison before, and not expecting any inmates to care what they had to say. What they found instead was a packed house – several prisoners had come with detailed business plans in hand.
For the past four years, the Last Mile has functioned as an entrepreneurship course. But a few months ago, Mr. Redlitz added a second component – coding classes. The idea is to give inmates a set of hard skills to take with them once they leave the prison.
There is no shortage of challenges that comes with running a coding class in a jail. The program's designers had to build a fairly self-contained course, since prisoners are not allowed to search for help on the Internet. Classes can often be affected by the unpredictable cycle of prison life – on more than one occasion, Mr. Redlitz's visits to San Quentin have been nearly cancelled because of sudden lockdowns. The program also has a zero-tolerance policy. Miss one class or homework assignment and you're out.
But for those who stick with it, the Last Mile has proven hugely beneficial.
"The Last Mile has taught me how to channel my entrepreneurial spirit in a positive direction and today I see a future for myself in the business world," said Kenyatta Leal, one of the program's earliest graduates.
When he first met Mr. Redlitz, Mr. Leal had already served 17 years of a three strikes-mandated life sentence. Today, he is the manager of campus services for RocketSpace, a San Francisco workspace for tech startups and accelerators. A couple of the employees who report to him are also Last Mile graduates.
In the next three years, Mr. Redlitz hopes to see the program expand from San Quentin to at least 25 prisons around the country. The plan is to build a course that can be recreated anywhere in a model similar to that of fast food franchises. "Being from a startup environment, we've tried to build it so that it's super cost-effective," he said.
"People need to be incarcerated for what they do, but if you've got someone who's doing petty crimes, you need to start giving that person an opportunity to do something proactive."