Ten years ago, Debbie Jakacki, owner of Jakacki Bag & Barrel in Chicago, a family business that's been around since 1942, found herself continually frustrated by her employees. We didn't have a lot of people who had a great work ethic, says Jakacki. After learning about the Safer Foundation, a Chicago-based nonprofit that helps people with criminal records find gainful employment, she decided to give it a try, and it has worked out very well.
Eight years after surviving an explosion as a teenage soldier in Iraq, Army corporal J.R. Martinez can't stop smiling as he captures the hearts of millions on Dancing With The Stars.
A new study from UCLA reports California has saved about $800 million over the last five years by sentencing non-violent drug offenders to community-based drug treatment programs rather than prison.
Dr. Rajiv Parti, MD has written a book detailing his journey of overcoming personal injury, cancer and a dependence on pain medications to emerge as an alternative medicine advocate and crusader for wellness. I experienced my own ‘Dark Night of the Soul' when I was hit with prostrate cancer, surgical complications (life-threatening sepsis), chronic pain, depression and, finally, a dependence on pain medications. I had to sell my house and quit my job, all while feeling my marriage teetering and my health suffering. Healing from my ‘dark night of the soul' was not easy, but I succeeded.
The Deep Meadow Correctional Center houses 800 Virginia inmates. It is also home to 22 horses who like their handlers have often been cast aside. It gives you the sense of accomplishing something, said one of the eight inmate who was chosen to care for the retired race horses.
The first time Brayan ever held a gun, he pointed it at a woman stepping out of a gray Lexus and stole her purse — his initiation into an older cousin's gang. He was 12 years old at the time. "I was losing control of my life," said Brayan, now 17 and a 4.0 student at Scriber Lake High School in Washington.
There is a school at one Virginia county juvenile detention center where troubled youths work toward high school diplomas and credit their teachers with saving their lives from ruin. The jail's educational program is a little-known entity within Fairfax County Public Schools that offers the students hope for better days ahead.
Treasures stolen from a Russian museum during WWII have found their way back home. Two crates with hundreds of rare exhibits stolen in 1941 were voluntarily returned to Russia by a Wehrmacht doctor's son.
When many states have cut their wellness and education programs for inmates, citing cost and political pressure, some wardens looking for a low-cost, low-risk way for inmates to reflect on their crimes, improve their fitness and cope with the stress of overcrowded prison life are turning toward yoga.
Only around 5 percent of the wetlands in western Lake Erie remain from the days before pollution and dam construction. Now, a five-year process is underway to restore one of the lake's largest coastal wetlands, thanks to the Nature Conservancy.
Hoping to persuade children not to make the same mistake he made, a reformed al-Qaida-linked terrorist has become a comic book sensation in a series that chronicles his transformation from villain to invaluable ally in the fight against terrorism.
The wayward emperor penguin that was found on a New Zealand beach June 20, far from his Antarctic feeding grounds and moved to the zoo after he became ill from eating sand that he likely mistook for snow, has since regained weight and been cleared to be returned to the wild.
California inmates are helping correct the behavior problems of shelter dogs, a therapeutic exercise that benefits both convicts and canines.
Teams of inmates, many of whom have worked previously in the food profession, cooked against the clock to concoct a menu of delicious dishes in what was dubbed, Iron Bar Chef. The cuisine contest is the latest recreational effort at the largest prison in the Philippines -- part of a broader program of arts, crafts and sports that officials say has vastly helped tame the mood of the jail's inmates.
After serving a 14-year sentence for murder, no one would have expected Sarah Jane Coffman to go anywhere near the Hiland Mountain Correctional Center once she was released. But every Saturday she makes the 10-mile drive with a viola in tow for orchestra practice at the prison just north of Anchorage. Coffman is a founding member of the women's string orchestra at the prison, playing since 2003.
A program at a Washington state prison is improving the lives of abused cats and also the inmates who now care for them. Five felines that were rescued from neglectful or abusive situations currently reside at the prison as part of a cat adoption program coordinated with the Humane Society. The inmates socialize the cats and get them ready to be adopted.
Across the state of Missouri, dog rescue programs set up by the state's Department of Corrections are thriving in prisons, creating a more humane inmate population while getting shelter dogs ready for adoption. As the program evolved, the idea of removing from shelters the dogs that were deaf, and thus hard to adopt, and teaching them sign language, has led to dogs being delivered to a school for deaf children.
After all six were left in a dumpster, puppies raised by inmates at a South Dakota prison were nursed back to health and trained for a brighter future.
Yoga gives inmates in West Virginia prisons the mindfulness tools to help them cope and find freedom within.
Female inmates at Rikers Island are taking classes through the Stella Adler School of Acting outreach program, writing and performing their own pieces.
Recent Stories
A Heartfelt Reminder to Appreciate the Ones We Love
Cherish the Woman Who Stands by You
Breaking Generational Cycles of Pain
Living by Your Own Values, Not Others' Approval
When Life Brings Rain, It’s Okay to Rest
Before You Judge Someone's Life, Take a Moment to Walk in Their Shoes.
A Friend Who Spreads Gossip is Not a True Friend at All
The Value of Human Connection Over Digital Convenience
The Quiet Kind of Love
One Day, Your Mom Won’t Call You Anymore
I’ve reached a point in my life...
Happiness is a mindset, a conscious choice we make every day