Hello!
Based on this title, you might know what this post is about. I have finally
decided where to donate my two weeks winning money to! Drumroll please….. It is
a local organization called Center for Employment Opportunities more well-known
as CEO. The only reason for my delay in donating is because I had a difficult
time deciding between Catholic Charities Food Pantry, where I volunteer or to
CEO, an organization I learned about through the Public Learning Service
Community.
Although I did not request RFPs from these two organizations,
I was mentally comparing several criteria’s which are similar to what we have
discussed throughout the course:
- Where would my money go towards?
- Who am I helping?
- Which issue do I want to help more?
What really made me choose CEO was when I talked
to Katie Blaine on the phone. She told me honestly that most funds or money given
to the CEO is used on salary for the workers. But because I personally called
and asked about where the money would help in the organization, she said would
make sure the donation will be used towards the clients they target. More specifically,
someone who is employed for a month or two will be rewarded a $25 gift card. This
gift card is a motivation and recognition for men who wants to make a change
and really integrate back into society. This also provides them extra money in
their pockets and a great encouragement.
As a college student, I don’t often think about issues like incarceration because
it is not a common issue raised in conversations. But most of us know, a
criminal record makes it very difficult for felons to land a job after they
come back out from prison. Organizations like CEO teaches them how to work
around that stain on their history and help them acquire new skills for future employment.
And I hope my donation can really brighten someone up and encourage him to really
join the community and make Binghamton an even better place.
Thank you for reading and I hope this makes you think about the issues we do
not focus in class as much. Should this be an issue we should worry about?
I do believe incarceration and our criminal justice system in the U.S. is a big problem. We have spoken briefly about this issue in class; I know Steven is particularly interested in it. After reading your post, I did a quick google search of “philanthropy and the criminal justice system.” I came across the LJAF (Laura and John Arnold Foundation) and was very impressed with their website and ideas. One of their main focus areas is Criminal Justice. Their overall mission is the following: “Our core objective is to address our nation’s most pressing and persistent challenges using evidence-based, multidisciplinary approaches. We strive to create functional solutions that target the root causes, not just the symptoms, of these problems. The solutions must be both scalable nationally and sustainable without permanent philanthropy.” After going through the website it’s clear that they are very passionate about evidence-based approaches, and about creating transformational change. I think their approach is very interesting as we have spoken in class about what how we view philanthropy in relation to social change. In one of the videos at the bottom of the “About” page, Laura speaks about how they believe there is a place for “feel-good, traditional” philanthropy, but that in order to create transformational change, you have to delve into the root causes of the biggest problems in society. Part of their criminal justice initiative is to “fund the development of research and data centers that will help criminal justice officials make more objective, evidence-based decisions.” I would encourage any of you interested in this topic to read more on their website about how they are bringing together researchers, policy-makers, and others to work on this problem.
ReplyDeleteIn comparing this foundation’s mission with that of the CEO that you donated to, Jessie, it seems that CEO is working to help people who have already been affected by our flawed criminal justice system, while the LJAF is working to learn about how to change the system itself in order to eradicate these problems in the future. I personally believe both types of these missions are important not only for this particular issue, but for all issues. While working to improve a flawed system, we cannot ignore the people who are already affected by it.
http://www.arnoldfoundation.org/initiative/criminal-justice/
CEO sounds like an organization that does an excellent job of combatting the very issues we are attempting to address as a class. While we, for some reason or another, decided to channel our focus towards early education, I believe that CEO is performing a form of education that can prove just as valuable as any provided by Catholic Charities or the YWCA or Urban League. We stated that our overriding goal was to treat the problems in the area--the poverty, drugs, violence. We deliberated and came to the conclusion that giving to early education programs would be the best way to treat the area. However, late intervention and education--in this case AFTER a life changing arrest--can also help treat the area.
ReplyDeleteCriminal records can hold individuals back in their career pursuits. Inability to work a well-paying job results in poverty which traps an individual in the cycle of poverty, drugs, violence, unhealthy relationships and when the individual has children, those children are dragged into the cycle as well.
We have spent a lot of time talking about how we can reach the children who don't have the best home life and are in the cycle. But, what if we got the adults too. By giving a parent a better life, can we ensure that the parent will in turn pass it along to his or her child? Is it riskier than treating the child directly? Possibly. However, Freud names the well-being of one's off spring as one the core desires of human nature. Surely, the majority of parents want what is best for their children and will give to them what they can.
It raises an interesting question for me: Why are people--including the class and myself--so inclined to prefer early education instead of late intervention?
Perhaps it is because the mind is more malleable at an early age. Maybe it is true that early intervention is more effective. But, I like to think late intervention such as that provided by CEO can be effective as well.
I think this is a great organization to donate towards. It looks like CEO greatly benefits the community by keeping certain individuals off the streets and out of trouble by giving them something positive to, 1. work towards and 2. spend the majority of their day doing.
ReplyDeleteOn top of that, CEO helps the community's economy by helping people who wouldn't otherwise have employment opportunity now have an income. Since they will have an income, they will be less likely to turn to crime as a source of income and therefore police officers can spend their time solving other important cases or crimes.
It's unfortunate that prior criminal history has such a massive effect on an individual's ability to be hired. I'm glad there are organizations like CEO who may assist a person move past a difficult time in their life.
Thanks for writing this informative post. I have never heard about CEO previously and from reading your blog, I can somewhat conclude that CEO is a pretty good organization. Although our class did not choose to focus on aiding those who have been incarcerated, I think that this could be a potential focus for future Philanthropy & Civil Society classes. Incarceration is a huge issue in the US and it does not help that most men and women (mainly men) who are incarcerated are men of color. I took a class last year called Women and the Criminal Justice System taught by Professor Juanita Diaz and we learned about the great injustices of the justice system. According to facts discovered through research and statistics, men of color are a lot more likely to be incarcerated then white men. The prison population nowadays is also mainly built up with men of color. Therefore, I think that if we helped out more organizations that target incarcerated men, we will not only be helping them get back on their feet but also alleviate the social injustices for minorities as well.
ReplyDeleteAlso, according to this article I found (http://extract.suntimes.com/news/10/153/17549/2016-people-incarcerated-united-states-drug-crimes-statistics/), 1 in 5 people incarcerated are there for drug crimes. Rather than just imprisoning these people, the US should make an effort to help counsel these people rather than just lock them up. In my previous class, I had also learned that the Reagan Drug War was targeted towards men of color as well. There was a spike in crime rates during this time period in the US and Reagan's solution was to declare a War on Drugs. He purposefully locked up men of color to reduce the crime rates, which is racism in the utmost form.
Overall, I believe that organizations similar to CEO should be better supported and I hope that future classes will look into incarcerations as a class focus!
Josie is right, I am VERY interested in the whole topic. I was initially very interested in the Urban League, which focuses on this issue area in part, for that reason, especially. My eyes were opened about incarceration from a great class; I'd suggest it, for anyone who has free time or needs an "N" gen ed: Sociology 100a. The professor discussed a lot of shocking things about incarceration in this country: a country with one of the highest incarceration rates in the world. In this state in particular, the the NY government has been taking away funding for SUNY and CUNY schools, and reallocating it to build more prisons. He explained the need for so many prisons and the sheer amount of criminal activity in this country to be results of a phenomenon called the Prison Pipeline. This concept came from reading a lot of Foucault, a sociologist who specialized in analyzing penitentiary systems. The concept is essentially that certain areas breed a particular percentage of people destined to go to prison, statistically speaking. This is because funding is going towards larger prisons and stronger punitive measures within the modern panopticon system of prisons, instead of education. So kids who normally would be considered 'at risk' and be helped through careful attention of schools, for instance, or such organizations as we're seeking to fund, are not being helped be less 'at risk.' Rather, they become simply a liability within the societal structure, since there are less opportunities for them to better themselves. Then these people grow up and become criminals, often presented with few alternative countermeasures, and add to the number of cells needed to hold them. And so the cycle continues.
ReplyDeleteThe best way to break the chain is to support a way to structurally change the system, and to support organizations like CEO. I'm really happy you chose that organization, Jessie: like you said, this is a topic not enough people discuss. And if you peel through all of the jargon of the interesting things I've learned from that sociology class, the ultimate point is that it's disgusting that people are relatively predestined to fail, no matter how they try, in a country that promises just the opposite. I wish organizations like CEO, which provide many of these Pipeline victims with the alternatives they so desperately need, were more prominent in the media, as well as this whole issue. I was very happy to read your post, and I hope everyone else can glean just how pressing an issue this is.