Bees and ex-convicts | Animals | Forums

what a great idea, the re-incarceration rate is pretty amazing

Reggie Davis was only nine years old when he started selling drugs, before living the next three decades in and out of prison.

His story isn’t uncommon in Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood, where unemployment is almost triple the city’s average. More than one-third of households are below the poverty line, and more than half of the neighborhood’s adults have had some involvement with the criminal justice system.

But Reggie’s story is also part of a rapidly growing group of North Lawndale residents who are turning their lives around.

“I proved them wrong,” Davis, 41, said. “I proved everybody in my neighborhood wrong. Everybody thought I was going to come back to the streets. I proved everybody wrong.”

Davis works at Sweet Beginnings, an operation that employs residents returning home from prison as beekeepers.

Workers make high-end, artisanal honey and honey-infused skincare products. Of the more than 400 people who have worked at Sweet Beginnings over the past 10 years, less than 4% relapse into criminal activity – well below the national recidivism rate of 65%.

“I thought I was never going to get a job,” Davis said. “I thought I was shot. But they accept me with open arms. This like my second family here.”

more http://www.theguardi.....-prisoners