When people are released from prison, it is often hard for them to reintegrate into society because of their “criminal” history — even when they have been in prison for a “non-violent crime.”
To that end, finding a job is almost impossible when a company runs a background check, and the recently “freed” person is forced to return to crime in order to put food on the table.
That cycle is called recidivism, and today our guest Divine talks about how he broke through.
Folks may have already read the story about how Divine met Ben Horowitz, which is certainly impressive, but this episode talks about Divine’s environment growing up. His decisions led to making $200,000 a month at 19 years old, and eventually landed him in prison.
Afterward, he learned about how important education is to break the cycle of recidivism and how private corporations are benefiting from mass incarceration. Divine also reached out to learn what tech leaders are doing for criminal justice reform and more.
If you are someone who was formerly incarcerated, or if you know someone seeking to start over after incarceration, Divine lays out a playbook to go from incarceration to innovation.