Jason Wang, the founder and CEO of Free World, discusses the challenges faced by individuals with criminal histories when reentering society.

Jason Wang, the founder and CEO of Free World, discusses the challenges faced by individuals with criminal histories when reentering society. He highlights the financial burden they face due to low-paying jobs and accumulated debts. Jason shares his personal story of growing up in poverty and experiencing abuse, which led him down a dark path resulting in incarceration. He explains how he became involved in criminal justice reform while in prison and eventually started Free World to help people find employment opportunities after serving their time. The organization focuses on training individuals for the trucking industry, which offers short training programs, a driver shortage that is open to hiring those with criminal records, and living wages. The average age of participants is 39 years old, and many have served approximately ten years behind bars before joining Free World's program. Jason also mentions numerous success stories from graduates who have found stable employment through their program.
A formerly incarcerated individual faced challenges finding employment after release from prison, leading him to return to criminal activities. However, he went through a program called the Prison Entrepreneurship Program and received training that allowed him to obtain his CDLA within six weeks. He found a job that significantly improved his financial situation and was able to support himself and his family. Eventually, he was offered a position at Free World due to his passion for helping others impacted by the criminal justice system. Free World connects employers with their graduates who have successfully completed the program, providing qualified candidates for various positions in the trucking industry. The organization offers support, financial incentives, and evidence of their graduates' success in order to address any concerns employers may have about hiring individuals with criminal histories. Employers can connect with Free World through their website or by contacting them directly via email.
Jason discusses the challenges faced by individuals with criminal records when seeking employment or housing. He emphasizes the importance of providing opportunities for reintegration into society to prevent further crime. He highlights how companies can benefit from hiring these individuals and encourages listeners to visit his website, freeworld.org, to learn more about connecting with potential employees. The conversation concludes with gratitude and an invitation to contact Jason for further information.

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Transcript

Lindsey Trent:
This is Lindsay Trent with NG talks, and I am so excited to have Jason Wang from Free World here today. He's going to tell us about his story, how he got into trucking and doing the training he's doing, and what brought him. So let's get a little acquainted. Jason, tell us about you and your history and what brought you here. 


Jason Wang:
Absolutely. So thank you, Lindsay, for having me. It's truly an honor and a privilege to be a part of your show. My name is Jason. I'm the founder and CEO of a tech nonprofit called Free World. Free World is a tech nonprofit that trains and places people with criminal histories into the trucking industry. Now, the reason why I got started in the trucking industry really kind of stems from my own personal experiences as a kid. Both my parents were immigrants to this country, and were extraordinarily poor growing up. And I remember when I was growing up, my father actually saved up enough money to start his own trucking company, but unfortunately, it went out of business. But from an early age, trucking was kind of in my family and in our blood.  Well, because were living in such poverty stricken locations, the types of neighborhoods I grew up in, you would normally hear gunshots down the distance of police sirens and all sorts of things. That type of environment was really stressful in the family, and my father was entrepreneurial, but because he faced so much stress in trying to adapt to a new country where he didn't know the language, didn't know anybody here, and the fact that he had a pretty bad temper led him to abuse me quite a bit when I was a kid. And so growing up, my dad would always say that I would never amount to anything, that I was good for nothing. And there were several times where he even tried to kill me.  One time he got so angry that he picked up a butcher knife and chased me around the kitchen, just trying to kill me. And so as a young kid, I grew up always feeling alone. I grew up in Iowa at the time, and as one of the only Asian Americans in that town, I just looked differently from other kids. And so I didn't really have many friends out in the community. And so the combination of not really having friends, not having a good, supportive home environment, really led me down this dark path. And at the age of 13, I ended up joining a gang because the gang represented the family that I didn't have at home. And the gang leader was kind of like a father figure to me.  And that led me to committing a first degree felony aggravate robbery at the age of 15. And I was sent to a maximum security Texas prison for twelve years. 


Lindsey Trent:
Wow, so you're a kid. What age were you when you went into prison? 


Jason Wang:
Yeah, so I was 15 years old when I went in. And the prison agency that I went to housed about 6000 kids between the ages of ten years old and 20 years old. And so we literally had like an eleven year old kid who'd be in this maximum security prison surrounded by hundreds of other inmates of all differing types of crime levels for things like truancy or graffiti. So they didn't differentiate between somebody who committed a particularly violent offense and somebody who committed a nonviolent offense. And it was very chaotic inside this prison. Matter of fact, in 2007, the media found out that conditions inside the prison were so bad that they found cases of physical abuse where in one instance, one of my bunk mates, there was an altercation that was happening in the prison. He was a 14 year old kid.  And a prison guard picked this kid up over his shoulders and slammed him so hard into the ground that he went permanently blind in one eye. And then they left him on top of ant pile in 110 degree Texas heat for hours. And so a couple of hours later, this kid goes to the infirmary, he's got third degree burns, bites all over his body, and he's permanently blind in one eye. And this wasn't just the only case of this happening. There were other reports where they found that a warden went into a prison to take a 14 year old boy over to his house. He would sexually assault that kid and then put that kid back into the prison system. And all these things were covered up.  None of this stuff was reported, and these cases of abuse were rampant throughout the entire facility, not just for the boys unit, but also for the girls unit as well. And so it was just a really unique time to be incarcerated in Texas. The reports and the finding that eventually got leaked out to the media caused not only a statewide crisis, but became a national and eventually a global story.  

Lindsey Trent:
Yeah, you get out. Anybody, any of these young people get out and they're of age, right? They're 18, they're 19, 20. Where do they go? What do they do? What did you do? 

Jason Wang:
Yeah, well, I got very lucky. So during that time, I had been setting up bible study classes, ged classes. I tried to set up like a college program because the sad reality for many of us who are incarcerated was that because we're under the age of 18, we're required by law to go to school. But when you go to these classrooms, you've got 30 kids of all types of different educational levels. What school looked like for us was the teachers just gave us crossword puzzles just to keep us busy. And that was your education. And for most of our kids, they spent, on average, about four and a half years incarcerated. So you imagine an eleven year old going into prison, getting out at about 15 or 16 years old, not having learned anything, with no skills, no support system, nothing.  What do you think is going to eventually happen to that individual? And the truth is that the vast majority of these individuals, without any opportunities or support systems in life ended up either back in the prison system or would end up dead on the streets. And so I had a very unique opportunity when all of these allegations of abuse were happening, the governor appointed an independent ombudsman to investigate the claims. And they allowed me as a 16 year old inmate to leave the facility and testify in front of the Texas state Senate for criminal justice reform. And as a result of the work that the testimony and a lot of the work that I did, together with the ombudsman, were able to close down eight prisons and send 5000 kids out to community programs where they would better served.  And because of those efforts, I ended up being released from prison early, but kind of going back into the root causes for why people enter the criminal justice system to begin with. When I went in, I met thousands of kids who came from similar backgrounds of myself, many of them coming from impoverished neighborhoods and single parent households where violence and drugs and trauma were the norm in these neighborhoods. And so we all come to a location where there are very few opportunities to really build a positive life for ourselves after incarceration and so it's no wonder that we have such a massive problem in America, where in America, we lead the world incarceration rates, even though we have only 25% of the world's population, we incarcerate the most people of any other developed nation on earth.  Matter of fact, one in three American adults has a criminal history in the United States. And so it's just a massive problem. And our criminal justice system just continues to perpetuate that issue. So that's why I eventually started free world, is to specifically attack that issue. And the idea here is that if poverty is the leading indicator for why people enter the criminal justice system to begin with, and a criminal record is the leading reason why people are unable to find housing, employment, and educational opportunities after they serve their time and paid their debt to society, then free world could be that organization that put them into an industry that is starving for great drivers and pays living wages. And we found that to be the trucking industry. 


Lindsey Trent: 
That's awesome. What was the path you took to start training? Why were you like, we should do this. We've got to do this, and I'm setting it up. 


Jason Wang:
Yeah. Well, in the very beginning, we did analysis of all the different industries that the people that we serve could eventually find work. And we found that, by far, trucking has hit a couple of different checkboxes for us. One is that the training is relatively short. So we partner with over 160 trucking school partners all across the nation. And within a month, our individuals are able to go to school every single day. We pay for the tuition. We pay each person who goes to trucking school a stipend. And that stipend is a total of $2,000. So that way they can focus on the education, focus on driving, focus on the skills, and the pre trip and the in cab inspection, all those different things.  So that way they're really well qualified drivers coming out of these programs and provide them with a bunch of support services in order for them to be super successful in getting their trucking education. But number one, it was the fact that training cycle was relatively short compared to other training opportunities. The second thing was that there's a massive driver shortage out there. And because of that, trucking companies are more open to hiring people with criminal records. And what I really love about this industry is that when they're hiring one of our graduates, they're not just picking up somebody off the street. They're getting somebody who has the full backing and support of a multimillion dollar nonprofit organization.  Behind them, because everybody who graduates our program ends up getting five years of additional supportive services to ensure that they're being successful in the workforce and that they're leading positive, fulfilling lives prison free. And then the third thing was living wages. It is disheartening to come out of prison to look for a job where you're working 60 hours a week and getting paid eight to $10 an hour with no benefits. It's hard to raise a family that way. 

Lindsey Trent:
Right. 

Jason Wang:
It's hard to take care of oneself that way. And many people who are coming out of prison aren't coming out of prison with a stellar credit score and strong finances. Most people are coming out with debt. So you imagine that you're trying to, first of all, just get to a point of stabilization just so that way you can take care of yourself, but then on top of that, you have to take care of all these fines, fees, restitution, child support, credit card bills that went to collections while you're incarcerated, car notes, home mortgages that went to collections while you're incarcerated. And the financial burden of this can feel insurmountable. And so we provide a whole lot of support to help individuals get past that as well. 

Lindsey Trent:
How do you identify the person that goes into your program? And what is the average age of somebody in your program? 

Jason Wang:
Yeah. So the average person that applies to free world is 39 years old. It's typically a male, although 12% of the people who go through our program are female. And these individuals serve approximately ten years behind bars before they come to us. And so we work with a population that has committed some serious offenses, but we have found to be exemplary employees whenever we pair them with trucking companies that really invest in management practices and in treating people with respect. 

Lindsey Trent:
Yeah, that's incredible. I would love to hear a success story. Do you have any that you can share? 

Jason Wang:
We have over a thousand success stories. I'm happy to share one with you. Okay. So I'd love to share with you. Eme Martinez. So he's a person who joined our program. He's one of our first students in Houston, Texas. This was several years ago when were expanding in Texas for the first. So, you know, throughout his life, he came from a single parent household. He grew up in poverty as a young kid. He ended up being arrested, and he went to prison. Came out, he tried to get it together, didn't work, ended up going back to prison, came out once again, couldn't get together, ended up going back in prison.  And throughout this entire span, one of the key things that he kind of talks about, which was a key ingredient for why he ended up going back to prison, was that he just had no opportunities after release from prison. Right. There was just nobody who was willing to employ him. He didn't know what else to do because it wasn't like he had family or mentors that could expose him to what the world has to offer. And so he was kind of stuck in this microcosm of a world where he only knew what he knew. And so in order to make ends meet, he went back to doing the things that got him in trouble to begin with. 

Lindsey Trent:
Yeah. 

Jason Wang:
Well, after his third time being incarcerated, he was going through this program called the Prison Entrepreneurship Program. And we had built a partnership with that nonprofit, and so they recommended him over to our program. He then went through our training. Within six weeks, he was able to get his CDLA. We found him a job, and over the next 18 months, his life completely changed. For the first time, he was used to getting paychecks that were $400. For the first time, he was getting a paycheck that was twelve to $1,600. Like, this was real money that would allow him to be a father, to take care of his kids, to pay his rent. Right. And he got that paycheck, like every two weeks. Right. So it was a living wage. People gave him the opportunity to really show who he is as a person.  And his employer loved working with him. And so he worked that job for about 18 months. We ended up having an opening here at Free World. And so we said, hey, we love to hire our graduates. And so we offered him a position to join our company. But if it wasn't for the fact that we wanted to bring him in, and he had a heart for helping others who had been impacted by the criminal justice system. He had already dreamed of a long career in the trucking industry where he would do extraordinarily well and maybe one day become an owner operator himself. 

Lindsey Trent:
That is incredible. And with 1000 people who have successfully gone through your program, I'm sure you just have story after story. So what's the best way? Say I'm a carrier, and I would like to maybe see if I could hire one of your graduates. What's the best process and how to do that? How to connect with you? 

Jason Wang:
Yeah, absolutely. So you can certainly go to our website. So I have that in my name. So you can go to ww freeworld.org. You can also email me at jason@freeworld.org but we have an entire account management system specifically built for employers, because this is something that's core to what we do at free world. And so we build partnerships with trucking or transportation logistics companies all the times. And so that could know a swift, a JB hunt, but that could also be a Walmart, a Coca Cola, an Amazon. So, you know, we're open in terms of the companies that we work with. And what we do is we do a variety of different things. So, first of know, whenever you choose to hire one of our graduates, we have a roster of individuals that you can choose to hire from.  We are developing technology that will show you the preferences of the job seeker. And also we are getting the requirements from the employer to understand what they want, and we will do the matching for the company. And so if you're telling me that you need somebody who can drive over the road and who has the doubles and triples and maybe a hazmat endorsement and all these other qualifications you don't hire based on certain criminal offenses, then we can find an individual that suits all of your criteria that has, like, maybe two, three years of experience. Whatever you're requesting as a company, we can find somebody who suits that criteria and send them over to you. The second thing is that there are financial incentives to hiring our students, and so there are tax credits that you can access to hire one of our graduates.  There is a federal bonding program, which is insurance to hire one of our graduates. We also work with workforce boards that provide OJT. And what that means is that in some of our locations, these workforce boards will reimburse up to $10,000 in wages for hiring one of our graduates, which means that not only are you getting, like, a well qualified individual, but you're also actually getting money. So you're employing this person for free, essentially, because the workforce board will give you that $10,000 to hire this individual. So we help companies be able to access all these financial incentives, and then we also offer support. So there are many companies that may feel fear, or there are many myths out there about hiring somebody with a criminal history. Will they be reliable? Are they going to be violent in the workplace? Will they be XYZ?  And so we have a ton of data, ton of evidence, research, our own experiences in doing this for several years. And after graduating over a thousand people all across the United States, we can share with you the data and evidence to show why our graduates are outperforming their peers. 

Lindsey Trent:
That is incredible. And so I'm an employer. I want to get involved. I can email you and then you get me connected to your technology to start me on my path to get connected to some of your graduates. 

Jason Wang:
Yeah. So we'll have a portal for employers, but we're also going to have an account executive. And that account executive is essentially your point of contact, where you tell us what your hiring needs are. We'll make sure that we take care of those for you in terms of looking through our pool and getting you a qualified driver. But we also stay in touch with you to monitor the performance of that individual to see if there are any challenges or concerns that we need to be aware of. If for whatever reason that person does not work out, we are then there to be able to support you in getting a new individual into that role. And today we're doing it for free. 

Lindsey Trent:
Okay. 

Jason Wang:
In the future, for our more experienced graduates, those who have two, three, four years plus of experience, we may start to charge trucking employers for that type of service. So we accept anybody regardless of their experience. So we have some people who have driven trucks before, were incarcerated, and then they ended up wanting to go back into the trucking industry. Then we have people who are going through the trucking industry for the first time. What I mean by our more experienced graduates is we've been doing this now for about five years. And so what that means is that our earliest cohort of students now have three, four, five years of experience. So these are derisked population. Right. They're still doing trucking today. 

Lindsey Trent
Right. 

Jason Wang:
And obviously, if they've held a job during that entire time, they're as derisked as you can imagine. 

Lindsey Trent:
Yes. 

Jason Wang:
So that's what I'm saying. We keep relationships with all the alumni who go through our program. We continually help people with job placement services for five years after they graduate. And for those who are looking for opportunities to support our nonprofit free world and also find employers that are fantastic, employers that offer competitive compensation packages, good schedule, like all of those things, treat people with respect. We are essentially that broker to kind of pair those two relationships together. And in the future, we'll charge a market rate like many other placement companies out there. 

Lindsey Trent:
Sure. 

Jason Wang:
But today everything is free. 

Lindsey Trent:
So how do you get connected to people within the prison system that want to get their CDL? 

Jason Wang:
Yeah. So today, all of our programming is only for those who have already been released from the prison system. So we are not doing any education or anything inside of jails or prisons. We do have a couple of exciting opportunities at the end of this year that we're exploring for next year. And so in New Jersey, Maine, and in Minnesota, there is an opportunity for us to start training people before they're even released. But that's for the future. Today, somebody's already out of prison. Right. So there's no issues with them getting employment as soon as they complete the training. 

Lindsey Trent:
Do you connected through. Just connect to the. 

Jason Wang:
Yeah. Our best marketing tool has been word of mouth marketing, so that's where 60% of all of our applicants come from. But outside of word of mouth, we also recruit from parole, from probation, from nonprofit organization, government entities, other trucking schools, workforce boards. And so we have, like, a constellation of partners that we work with to source candidates. 

Lindsey Trent:
Are you looking for more driving schools to connect with you? To partner with you? 

Jason Wang:
Absolutely. So, right now, we've got a network of 160 driving schools all across the nation. These are trucking schools that you probably already know, like 160 driving academy sage. We also work with a lot of mom and pop shops that maybe have one or two locations. One of the best trucking schools that were really excited about in Houston is called ace trucking school. It's a small little operation, but they do a phenomenal job, and we send thousands of students to school on a yearly basis and take care of that tuition. And so our trucking partners really love working with us because we pay our bills on time and we guarantee volume. And the other thing, too, is that you're getting a fully supported student. So this student will be going to school Monday through Friday, eight to 9 hours a day.  We provide free Uber rides so that way people can get to school if they don't have reliable transportation. Once again, we've got that $2,000 stipend, so people can really focus on the education without having to worry too much about bills at home. We know that it doesn't pay for everything, but it does help. So you're getting a fully supported individual, and these students are going to school in cohorts, and so they're all learning from each other and with each other. 

Lindsey Trent:
Wonderful. What's the biggest question, typically, that people have a carrier has in wanting to work with you? 

Jason Wang:
Yeah. Honestly, one of the biggest things that carriers ask are the types of criminal histories that our students will have, and there will sometimes be a concern, especially with those who have more serious crimes. And so my response to that is, my crime was violent, but the person that I was at 15 years old is very different than the person that I am today. And I would say the same thing of many of the individuals who have gone through our program. We're talking about people, on average, about 39 years old, have spent about ten years in prison. They have kids where they've missed out ten years of their life. They're no longer a young buck running the streets. Right. A good portion of their life is now gone.  And so what I found is that the people who have gone through the most serious consequences tend to be the ones that are most grateful for this opportunity. And they're the ones who take this opportunity seriously because they know it's their last chance. And at the end of the day, regardless of somebody's past, we're all still human beings. We all still want the same thing. We want safety, security. We want to feel like we're part of a community, that we're achieving our goals and living a positive life. Nobody wants to go through life looking over their shoulder, wondering if they're going to be arrested again, wondering if they're going to be able to see their kids again.  And so I would just encourage employers to just take a look at our track record, talk to our graduates, treat them no differently than anybody else that would interview for your company. And my challenge to employers, or what I predict will happen, is that you'll come to find that these individuals are amazing and can be some of your best drivers. 

Lindsey Trent:
Jason, that's amazing. And just to know that these people can really literally change their lives because of these jobs. They can support their families. They can be proud of what they do. It's really a hope filled job. Right. To get them on the right track again, they just need the opportunity. They have the skill set. You're providing them with a skill set. They just need the opportunity now to really go and make a difference and to be able to be a professional driver to support their family and to start to change their family tree. Right? 

Jason Wang:
Yes. A question that I commonly ask of people is, what would you do if you were only known for the worst thing you've ever done? I think that most of us have some embarrassing story, something that we've done in our past that we're not proud of, something that we could have been arrested for, but we didn't for some reason. Now imagine going from employer to employer during the interview process and having to talk about that worst thing that you've ever done. Imagine every single time that you tried to rent an apartment or purchase a house or whatever, you had to talk about the worst thing you had ever done. Imagine anytime that you applied for social safety net benefits like food stamps or for a Pell grant, you had to talk about the worst thing that you've ever done. It's incredibly intimidating. One. But the other side of this is that 95% of people who are incarcerated are going to be released at some point anyways. And so as a society, if we don't provide people with legitimate opportunities to take care of themselves, what we're doing is we're actually creating a more dangerous public because these individuals, in lieu of no other opportunities, will end up doing what they need to survive. So. So that's why we see this not only as a great thing for companies to do, because they're going to get great employees, but also from a societal perspective, this is what we can do to better our society. 

Lindsey Trent:
Jason, it's incredible.  I just want to encourage anyone who is listening to this to visit your website freeworld.org, get connected.  What does it hurt to try out a driver and maybe you have a whole new system of getting connected to new drivers and helping out your community by providing good jobs and helping someone get on a good path to a good career and trucking can do that.  I say that everyday.  Trucking provides great jobs and we need to give these people opportunities.   So thank you for being on our podcast today and for what you are doing.  You're incredible, amazing.

Jason Wang:
Well, thank you well once again its an honor and privilege to be here with you Lindsey, thank you so much for the opportunity to share our story and the work that we do with your network and audience and I hope to hear from a couple trucking carriers.

Lindsey Trent:
Absolutely, so email Jason at jason@freeworld.org or online at freeworld.org