Incarceration

Reggie Bailey’s Barbershop

“My last trip in the penitentiary, I had to make a decision on what I wanted to do with my life,” said Reggie Bailey, sitting in the swiveling barber chair in his small shop in the heart of downtown Oakland. “I just decided to go to barber college.”

An American friend: A visitation program for immigration detainees

Detention Dialogues is the first immigration detention visitation program in California. Each week one of 40 trained volunteers visits detainees, mostly from Central and Latin America. Their hope is to bridge the gap of isolation by visiting detainees on a regular basis and supporting them throughout their detention by contacting family members on their behalf, connecting them to attorneys and forging a bond with the outside American world.

A church-run soul food restaurant offers jobs for ex-offenders

With over 65 million Americans reported to have an arrest or conviction on their record, it seems nearly impossible for an employer to hire a person that does not have a criminal history. But Soul’s Restaurant in East Oakland has one goal: to provide jobs to those men and women struggling to transition back into non-institutionalized society.