In 2014, CCJRC helped pass HB14-1355, landmark legislation that created the Work and Gain Education & Employment Skills (WAGEES) grant program.
What began as a $500,000 pilot has grown into a statewide network of more than twenty nonprofit organizations providing comprehensive reentry services to people released from Colorado prisons. Since its inception, WAGEES programs have served nearly 15,000 individuals, and participants are 32% less likely to return to prison than people on parole who do not take part in a WAGEES program.
HELPING REBUILD LIVES WITH DIGNITY
WAGEES shifts resources from prison spending into local solutions that help people returning from incarceration rebuild their lives with dignity and stability. Participants are referred through parole and reentry professionals to community partner organizations that provide individualized, free services, including:
Job training and employment placement
Education and skill development
Housing assistance
Case management and mentoring
Connections to mental health and other supports
Source: America Magazine, Feb 2023
HOW IT WORKS
WAGEES Community Partners are community nonprofit organizations selected through a competitive process. Many are led and staffed by people with lived experience of incarceration — leadership that strengthens trust, improves outcomes, and builds community capacity statewide.
Crucially, a grantmaking intermediary (The Latino Coalition for Community Leadership) serves as the grantmaking intermediary, providing oversight, technical assistance, data collection, and coordination. This structure ensures accountability while keeping funding rooted in trusted local organizations.
WAGEES is proof that Colorado can invest in what actually advances safety: stable housing, meaningful employment, and strong community connections. It remains one of the state’s most effective reentry initiatives and a model for real community safety.
“Despite heavy enrollment and a concentrated population of people at high risk of reoffending, only 2.5% of WAGEES program beneficiaries have returned to prison for committing new crimes while in the program.”
— The Urban Institute Justice Policy Center Report
Investing Justice Resources to Address Community Needs: Lessons Learned from Colorado’s WAGEES Program February 2018
