Incarcerated Atlanta Fathers To Get New Opportunity For Employment
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Chief of Corrections Patrick Labat and other city officials are shown with some of the first eight people who have completed a new job-training program for incarcerated fathers.
Ross Terrell / WABE
Atlanta city officials announced a new job-training program Monday aimed at incarcerated fathers.
Nonviolent offenders in Atlanta’s Department of Corrections who have kids will now have the chance to undergo job training and start working while still in jail.
Atlanta Chief of Corrections Patrick Labat said rebuilding families is what inspired the program.
“Knowing that we are in a space that we can impact and change lives, that’s huge,” Labat said. “So, it is solely focused on children reconnecting with their families and really the ability for fathers to start paying child support.
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said inmates’ employment would come with the Department of Watershed Management. Bottoms said they would keep their job upon release and get full health benefits as well.
She said this program was especially personal since she grew up without her father who was imprisoned.
“It really was the death of our family,” Bottoms said. “The impact on me to go from ballet on Saturdays to having to visit my dad in prison on the weekends as a little girl is something that has stuck with me.”
To qualify, inmates must have 12 to 18 months left on their sentences.
Eight people have already completed the program and are city employees. Fourteen more are on track to finish later this month.
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