Boston mayoral candidate Josh Kraft unveils reentry plan, aims to connect ex-cons to City Hall jobs

Boston mayoral candidate Josh Kraft unveiled his plan to help reintegrate formerly incarcerated people back into society, saying that he would restart a defunct city jobs program for young jailbirds and work to get more ex-cons hired at City Hall. Kraft, son of the billionaire New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, spoke to how his experience working with the formerly incarcerated population as heads of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston and his family’s philanthropic arm, would make him better suited to help past inmates reenter society than Mayor Michelle Wu. “In Boston, we must do better to provide housing, job training, mental health resources, and other services to ensure those coming back to our community have the foundation they need to flourish,” Kraft said. “Past mistakes should not define someone’s future. Doing this well not only benefits those who’ve served their time — it strengthens families and communities and helps all of Boston.” Kraft unveiled his plan Thursday while flanked by about 10 residents who previously served prison time, at a press conference he convened at the Iron Workers Local 7 Union hall in South Boston. The union has endorsed his candidacy for mayor, but did not take part in his press event. His plan, he said, involves reestablishing Operation Exit, a city program that he says began under the Marty Walsh mayoral administration as a way to deter violence and provide system-involved youth with pathways to jobs after incarceration, particularly in the trades, web-development and culinary arts fields. Kraft said the program, which he helped to fund during the Walsh administration, was ended by the Wu administration “a few years ago.” “That was a mistake,” Kraft said. Kraft also outlined his plans to create 90-day reentry plans for every person prior to their release from incarceration, form a Boston reentry network that would include partnerships with Roxbury Community College and other local higher education institutions for pathways to certificates and diplomas, and establish a national reentry task force to coordinate and share best practices with other big-city mayors. The longtime philanthropist said his plan would reestablish Boston as a national model for reentry programs, as he said it was under the Walsh administration. He shared statistics that he said show the city, with 18,000 employees, is one of the largest employers in Boston, but an estimated one in 10 city jobs remain vacant. If elected, Kraft said he would form a commission “to examine what areas of city government could benefit from hiring formerly incarcerated people who’ve demonstrably turned their lives around.” “For me, this is an issue about more than compassion for people who are reentering our city,” Kraft said. “It’s also about doing what’s smart, doing everything we can to give this community the best chance of finding stable employment and careers. And becoming advocates for deterrence is also the best thing we can do for our neighborhoods, our families and our kids.” Mayor Wu hit back at Kraft at an unrelated event Thursday, saying his attacks on her administration’s reentry work and outcomes are more of the same. “This is nothing new from this campaign,” Wu said. “It’s more irresponsible Kraft macaroni bologna — disrespecting the hard work and the results that so many partners across the city have come together to do.” Wu also disputed Kraft’s version of events, saying that the Operation Exit program, in its former iteration, was ended prior to her administration, and has since been replaced by two other city programs that have built upon that work. 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Wu said her administration has “more than tripled” the budget for the city’s Office of Returning Citizens, a euphemism she and Kraft both used for formerly incarcerated people this week, and has dedicated more than half a million dollars in grant funding to local organizations that do reentry work “in this last year alone.” “We believe in making sure that we’re delivering the results,” Wu said. “It doesn’t always have to be a city-branded and city-run program. We do the programs that we believe we can have the most impact in, but a lot of this is also ensuring that we’re getting the resources out to community organizations who already have relationships, have been doing this work for decades, and can really deliver a lot of benefit to our community members.” Boston Mayor Michelle Wu addressed Josh Kraft's reentry plan after a press event in Roxbury. (Mark Stockwell/Boston Herald)