Boston Globe Story: ‘People need a second chance’ – Amid nationwide truck driver shortage, a Mass. recruitment effort to train people behind bars

The cost for trainees: $0.

The CDL program, which also accepts recently incarcerated students, is the initiative of Emerge Career, which launched in 2022 and has since helped about 50 graduates enter the workforce within 90 days of receiving their licenses— the majority of them in Massachusetts and California.

Gallant, 31, recently completed the online training and is set to be released as early as February — and hopes to have his commercial learner’s permit in hand.

“As much as you may have made mistakes in life, it kind of makes you feel like you’re still a human being,” he said of the opportunity to have a promising new career just months after leaving jail. “You still have a chance to right your wrongs.”

Uzoma Orchingwa and Gabriel Saruhashi started Emerge Career after forming a tech nonprofit to help people in prison stay in touch with loved ones. It was then that they realized how difficult it was for incarcerated people to find jobs once they were released. At the same time, the Yale University graduates saw employers in dire need of workers and started investigating industries with significant labor shortages.

Vocational training has been expanding in criminal justice facilities in recent years as corrections officials increasingly seek to offer opportunities for rehabilitation and redemption. And Emerge Career — a public benefit corporation that by law must balance seeking to turn a profit with acting to improve society — goes even further.

Its workforce development system uses artificial intelligence and virtual coaches to track students’ progress online and guides them through fulfilling CDL requirements, such as physical exams and drug tests. Emerge has even arranged for the RMV to administer permit tests onsite at the jails.

When participants are released, Emerge reaches out to three of their loved ones to make sure they have a “village” of support, Saruhashi said. Emerge connects them with food and housing subsidies, if needed, and pays for transportation, child care, and other expenses to help participants get through driving school. The program also provides practice interviews that address criminal records, connects students with jobs, and provides career support for a year after they find work.

The prison population is disproportionately made up of people of color, and nearly 80 percent of the 388 people who have been through the program or are currently in training in five states are nonwhite. Worcester, Hampden, and Middlesex county jails have partnered with Emerge, and seven others, including Suffolk and Norfolk, are on the wait list.

Employers know that those who start the process behind bars are grateful for the opportunity and highly motivated to succeed, said Kevin Weeks, executive director of the Trucking Association of Massachusetts, which has partnered with Emerge.

Some felonies, such as those related to driving under the influence, prevent people from working for trucking companies for a certain period of time,but most aren’t a factor.

“In reality, we need drivers,” Weeks said. “People need a second chance.”

Emerge has to make sure students succeed, Orchingwa said. Its funding, primarily from government grants, is outcome-based, which means that if its participants don’t hit certain milestones, Emerge doesn’t get paid. So far, 90 percent of CDL trainees have graduated, and all quickly secured jobs.

Running the program isn’t cheap, and employers don’t pay to be part of it. CDL training and associated expenses cost Emerge about$9,000 per student in Massachusetts. In June, the Healey administration awarded Emerge Career a $1.4 million grant to provide CDL driver training and job placement for 150 justice-involved individuals in Massachusetts. Around 1,000 current and recently incarcerated people in the state have applied for the program.

For every $1 invested, Emerge calculates, the state can expect a return of $4.20 annually due to reduced crime and recidivism.

“We’re on the hook for what happens post-incarceration,” Orchingwa said. “No one falls through the cracks.”

The program has encountered little opposition, Orchingwa said. The mission is highly pragmatic, he noted, ensuring people are reentering society with the ability to make a living. It’s also moral: “We’re not the worst thing that we’ve ever done,” he said.

Inmates who participate in education programs have a 43 percent lower risk of recidivism than those who don’t, according to Rand research. And when that education leads to a high-paying job, graduates are even less likely to return to their old ways.

“This is public safety at its best,” said Hampden County Sheriff Nick Cocchi. “You’re able to now put yourself in a position where you have a roof over your head, you can pay the bills, you can provide food on the table, and you don’t have to be looking over your shoulder doing things that are going to potentially get you back into the criminal justice system because you can’t make ends meet.”

Idelberto Soto spent three months in Hampden County Correctional Center after being charged with drug trafficking last April. While he was there, Soto, 24, who came to Springfield from Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria in 2017, learned about the CDL program and enrolled after he was released on bail.

Because of his record, he couldn’t get his old driving job back, which didn’t require a CDL, and was turned down for a number of other positions because of the pending cases on his record.

“It made me feel really desperate,” said Soto, who is married with a young daughter.

But now, armed with his CDL and a new job driving a flatbed for Western Express, Soto can make as much as $80,000 to start. He’s fighting the charges and may have to reapply if he’s convicted. But he’s optimistic.

He recently hit the road with a trainer in Pennsylvania and then headed back to Springfield to haul wood and construction materials, trying to rebuild his life a mile at a time.