Updates

2.27.19

Mobile Area Interfaith Conference is in the news!

Read this Lagniappe issue on the efforts and success of the MAIC to reduce recidivism in our local community.

12.1.2018

Aubrey Whitten shared her experience in the Springhillian

As a senior in criminology, Aubrey wrote an article about the New Day Experience project for the Springhillian (See p.2). Her experience with participating in reentry simulations and her internship in district court sparked her involvement in this project. We thank her for her volunteer work in updating the map and sharing our story in the campus newspaper.

11.13.2018

Dr. Demetrius Semien and U.S. Atty. Kenyen Brown on StoryCorps

Dr. Semien discusses how his background in recovery led him to volunteering to help out individuals in similar situations. He and Attorney Brown both are involved in reentry work in Mobile County. Listen to their story on Alabama Public Radio.

https://www.apr.org/post/my-background-recovery-led-me-volunteering

4.24.2017

National Reentry week and the Scarlet Letter 'F':

To highlight National Reentry week, Spring Hill College student Julie Dobbs, in a joint effort with Demetrius Semien, PhD, have organized an awareness campaign aimed at combating the negative associations made with those reentering society. You can find their website below, which provides statistics on reentry as well as their very own TEDx talk that was hosted at Spring Hill.

http://thescarletletterfproject.weebly.com/

3.2.2017

30 New Wi-Fi spots added to the Google Map

Michael Fouts, one of the students working on the project, has added 30 publicly accessible Wi-Fi hotspots to the ongoing Google Map for Previously Incarcerated Persons. These spots can be used by any electronic device for access to web-based resources, job training, continuing education, job applications, and much more.

8.21.2016

How will the cuts in bus routes affect our Google Map for re-entry service providers?

This summer and fall, we've been plotting the various bus routes in the Mobile and Prichard area to share with persons previously incarcerated, so that they may find the reentry service providers. Here's the link to the Channel 10 News about the budget cuts and affected routes. Hopefully, the Wave Transit bus routes that we already spent time adding are indeed correct. Currently, we have 7 bus routes plotted on the Google Map.

6.29.2016

Google Maps or MyMaps App to display service providers on phone:

The Google Map to Service Providers has been updated to include 51 organizations. It now includes numbers in the map legend and map location to more easily locate the service providers. Additionally, we found some customized icons to better illustrate the type of service provided. For example, those that provide food are labeled with the icon of a loaf of bread.

We will add more details to the descriptions for each provider such as the hours of operation, required documentation, and services provided. We also plan to add The WAVE Transit System bus routes to the Google Map.

The map has mobile version to view on your phone. There's also a My Maps app available for Android phones. Go to the Google Play Store and search for My Maps to download it for free. This means we do not need to develop an app right now.

You can download the map to your smartphone at a Wi-Fi location to use later without Internet service. There's a way to set the map to automatically update to include any changes we make to the map whenever you use the Internet. The map we created takes about 225 MB of storage if you download it. You can also print it out. The 11x17 'tabloid' printer settings are the best.

6.14.2016

An app for formerly incarcerated persons:

We're interested in developing an app for formerly incarcerated persons to obtain information on re-entry services provided specific to the Mobile County. The idea came to us during a presentation of Dr. Semien's in which he reported students' feedback on the reentry simulation. Students thought that previously incarcerated individuals need a map to navigate their reentry into the community.

For this goal, we researched existing apps and found that MIT started a project with the state of Oregon's re-entry providers. Here's a news article on that project: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-04-07/an-app-to-turn-an-ex-cons-phone-into-little-brother. However, we have not found any follow-up information about it as of yet. Sandra Rogers contacted MIT through their Twitter account with the link to find out if the app was completed. If there is an app for Oregon, then surely they could modify it for Alabama. Otherwise, we can start from scratch.

For now, we have created a Google Map of all the service providers in our area based on the Guide. See tab for the Service Provider Map. Feel free to grab the embed code to add this map to your website. We hope to provide photos for each organization, as well.