F. Safe Streets & Second Chances

At Florida State University, the Charles Koch Foundation has already invested in a project led by the political operatives with overt ties to corrections contractors, lobbyists, ALEC, and SPN. The FSU Project for Accountable Justice championed Florida’s recent “data-driven” criminal justice reforms.

In 2018, Koch pledged another $1 million to FSU to hire an out-of-state professor, Carrie Pettus-Davis, to create the Institute for Justice Research and Development.

Rather than being an independent center, it will be part of a larger $4 million initiative, called Safe Streets & Second Chances, designed to leverage Koch’s research into policy change. It describes itself as “an innovative and revolutionary initiative that combines academic research, policy reform, and evidence-driven programming.”

Professor Pettus-Davis was part of a similar project at Washington University, where academic researchers partnered with reentry providers, but she abandoned the project abruptly in 2017 with no explanation, much to the shock of the public and partners. She was hired at FSU with funding from the Charles Koch Foundation approximately one year later.

Safe Streets & Second Chances “leadership” page lists nine people, three from Koch Industries, two from the (Koch-funded) Texas Public Policy Foundation/Right on Crime, and two from academic programs funded by the Charles Koch Foundation (Carrie Pettus-Davis and Johnny Taylor Jr.). The remaining leaders include a member of Charles Koch’s donor network, Doug Deason, as well as televangelist and President Trump’s “evangelical adviser,” Paula White.

A Texas organization, Unlocking DOORS (UD), has been noted as an early collaborator with Safe Streets & Second Chances. It is not a reentry provider, but a “Reentry Brokerage™” firm with “Data and Predictive Trends.”

A description of Unlocking DOORS’ trademarked “Reentry Brokerage” shows how they play the role of a private middleman, selecting reentry contractors as it sees fit, for inmates it chooses:

First, Unlocking DOORS™ seeks out ex-offenders who want to move forward and start a fresh life. A client then meets with one of our Reentry Brokers™, who gives them a detailed assessment to determine their specific needs in terms of housing, education, training, and health -- including challenges in mental health and/or alcohol and drug addiction. Then our Reentry Broker™ works closely with the client and develops an individual plan that will connect them with the right agencies and providers”

The list of providers on UD’s website includes GEO Reentry Services (the reentry branch of the private prison GEO Group), the Prison Entrepreneurship Project, and the Prison Fellowship Ministries, which received $100,000 from the Charles Koch Foundation in 2016.

Unlocking DOORS itself received $30,000 in 2016 from the Charles Koch Foundation.

Rather than relying on an independent, third-party evaluation, the Charles Koch Foundation is funding various parts of the operation; both the contractor and the evaluator.

Unlocking DOORS’ vague description of potential methods for “cost savings analysis” suggests the same questionable projections seen in other contractors above. They conclude by loosely reckoning; “it reasons that we can save millions of taxpayer dollars annually.”

The program “seeks to reduce recidivism rates among the clients served…when compared to a similar cohort group of previously incarcerated people who have not utilized the Unlocking DOORS program.” The program's mission to "seek out ex-offenders" introduces a selection bias into their methodology that cannot be meaningfully controlled. Similarly flawed methodology can be found in PFM and PEP.

It should come as no surprise that Unlocking Doors has already been promoted and funded by the Charles Koch Institute (2017). Jerry Madden serves as UD’s Secretary and on its Board of Directors (2017). Madden is a senior fellow at Right on Crime, and a key figure within the American Legislative Exchange Council, serving on ALEC task forces that promoted Voter ID laws and the Stand Your Ground bill.

In 2006, Madden and UD’s CEO, Christina Melton Crain, were caught indulging in a loophole in Texas law that allows legislators and some state officials to use unpaid prison labor for personal benefit. In particular, Texas Correctional Industries is “a division of the state prison system that manufactures, among other things, furniture, signs and clothing” for state agencies.

At the time, Madden was a Texas House Representative and Crain chaired of the Texas Board of Criminal Justice. Crain placed several orders of prison made goods for her husband Nate Crain, a Republican party official, who paid with party money. It was:

reported in campaign records that he bought items as gifts for his volunteers and a Republican women's group.

Board Chairman Christina Melton Crain said it was acceptable for her to order the items for her husband. "I am allowed to order them and, as my spouse, he is allowed to pay for them," Ms. Crain said. Mr. Crain said he didn't know whether the gifts, which included pillows and duffel bags, were more or less expensive than they would be at a retail store. (Dallas News, 2006)

Nate Crain is also on the advisory council of Unlocking Doors.

In Part 7, we consider that, despite the fact criminal justice privatization is generally considered a problem limited to corrections, academics in Koch's network have a much deeper hunger for privatization, including the privatization of the police.