A new coding program at a juvenile correctional facility in California is teaching incarcerated youth how to build websites and apps in an effort to reduce recidivism rates.
Code.7370 is an 18-month training program supported by The Last Mile, a non-profit organization working to provide offenders with marketable job skills that lead to employment.
The program—based at the O.H. Close Youth Correctional Facility in Stockton—is part of California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s juvenile justice reform proposals working to move the state’s Juvenile Justice Divison out of corrections officials’ control and into the health and human services providers.
“If we’re going to get serious about changing the trajectory of the lives of these young children, I think we need to do it through a different lens,” said Gov. Newsom in an interview at the facility.
According to the Division of Juvenile Justice, an early 2017 report showed 74.2 percent of California youth were re-arrested, 53.8 percent were reconvicted of new offenses, and 37.3 percent had returned to state custody within three years of release.
The Last Mile is supported by a $2 million grant from Google.org.
