news-record.com

A news conference at 1:30 p.m. in the Plato S. Wilson School of Commerce at High Point University will outline the plan between the High Point Community Against Violence and High Point police department and America Works.

The company, based in New York City, has programs across the country that assist people in finding full-time meaningful employment. America Works helps everyone from U.S. military veterans to HIV/AIDS patients to criminal offenders.

Researchers form Columbia University conducted a first-year evaluation of the company's Project eX program in New York in 2002.

Here's a summary of results:

This report presents a model for addressing the challenge of how to reintegrate released inmates of the prison system into mainstream society. The authors find that the welfare-to-work approach used by America Works is effective in finding employment for these ex-offenders and reducing recidivism, all at a significant savings to the taxpayer. The study finds that in New York, America Works placed more than three quarters of those who completed the initial orientation process in jobs, and more than 4 in 10 are still in that same job six months later. Based on the current recidivism rates, almost a third of those people would normally already have been back in prison. And America Works, the study shows, is achieving this success at a cost more than 30% lower than what New York State would otherwise spend on incarceration.

The America Works Web site lists programs in Albany, Baltimore, Newark, New York, Oakland, but none in the South. The results seem positive for those areas. Let's see if America Works will actually work for High Point.