Mission

Our mission is to dismantle the cycle of poverty and imprisonment by creating a model of incarceration focused entirely on building lives and bettering communities. Our model seeks to empower sentenced adults with the vision, skills, and opportunities needed to succeed professionally and personally once released.

What We Do

We propose creating an entirely new model of incarceration—one completely focused on empowering incarcerated individuals to succeed professionally and personally. Reset campuses serve adults who otherwise would be sent to a traditional prison, and work with them from the start of their sentence through their return to the community and time on parole.

Similar to the charter school model, Reset’s public-private partnership with governments reorients existing funding to individual achievement. Governments contract with Reset to operate facilities and deliver a high-performing program; Reset in turn is held accountable for results and use of tax dollars.

Our program is marked by three key components:

1. We create a 24/7 learning environment. Our entire campus is focused on education, reentry, and the creation of an effective learning environment. Both a rigorous day program and a supportive residential environment form a strong, 24/7 learning culture that enables the efficacy of other components of the model.

2. We focus on reentry from “day one.” We begin preparing our participants for life in the community as soon as they enroll in our program. Participants move across three stages—called Ready, Reset, Reenter—to prepare for and facilitate a successful transition back into the community.

3. We offer a personalized learning program for each participant. We integrate five RESET pillars—Relationships, Education, Social-emotional supports, Employment, and Time—into a customized, engaging program specifically designed for our students.

The Reset model is cost-neutral to governments: a full-size campus can be operated entirely with a budget equal to that of an existing, similarly sized state facility. We are currently looking to open two campuses, one in the California Bay Area and one in New York, to serve individuals who did not graduate from high school and have sentences of less than three years.