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Every one of New York City’s estimated 8,500 [incarcerated individuals] sentenced to time in city jails will leave with guaranteed, minimum-wage, short-term jobs likes cooks, restaurant bussers, or construction flaggers under a policy by Mayor Bill de Blasio. The aim is to reduce recidivism, he said.
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The state Department of Corrections plans to bar visitors from bringing packages to [incarcerated individuals] to cut down on contraband being brought inside, the Daily News has learned.
Instead, clothing, books and canned foods will have to be sent through “approved secure vendors."

More than 650,000 [incarcerated individuals] are released every year in the U.S., but no federal agency tracks the unemployment rate for this population. Experts say low reading and technological literacy, as well as reluctance among employers to hire formerly [incarcerated individuals], means many drop out of the labor force altogether.
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Another amazing thing about working at a professional commercial kitchen is that they are involved in helping others by bringing in interns from The Fortune Society.
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Rabbi, tzaddik, shaman: there may be something of all of these in David Rothenberg, who was celebrated Feb. 24 at an “Evening With David” on the roof of the Castle, a beautiful five-story neo-Gothic structure in Harlem that is run as a halfway house by the Fortune Society for 60 [formerly incarcerated individuals].
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