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Fairfield County Business Journal:
Progressive Prison Ministries Head Jeff Grant
Takes on Leadership of Family ReEntry
By Kevin Zimmerman - Reporter
Support
and counseling for white-collar criminals re-entering the general
population is a growing business for Jeff Grant. Founder of
Greenwich-based nonprofit Progressive Prison Ministries, Grant was recently named interim executive director of Family ReEntry, a nonprofit with offices in Norwalk, Bridgeport and New Haven.
Founded in 1984 as a re-entry support group for men
at the Isaiah House in Bridgeport and with a budget of over $4.5
million, Family ReEntry is principally involved with helping people
convicted of street crimes and their families re-enter society. The
organization has some 15 intervention, re-entry, and family and children
programs. Services are provided in Bridgeport, Derby, Norwalk,
Stamford, New Haven and Norwich and in three prisons in Cheshire and
Niantic.
Grant’s elevation — he’s served on Family ReEntry’s
board of directors since 2009 — marks the first time that a formerly
incarcerated white-collar criminal has served as the head of a major
re-entry agency.
“It’s a tremendous step, and a bold decision on the
board’s part,” Grant said. “This is a transformative period for Family
ReEntry. I owe them my fresh start, so of course I said yes when they
offered me the position.”
He is replacing Steve Lanza, who as the group’s
executive director for the past 15 years “was the heart and soul of
Family ReEntry,” Grant said. “He had some family issues he had to attend
to and is starting a consulting practice for nonprofits in general and
criminal justice nonprofits in particular.”
Family ReEntry is also in the midst of weaning
itself from state support, as much of that was reduced as part of the
recent budget cuts, which Grant termed “adverse and dramatic.”
“We’ll miss having that overabundance of state
contracts,” Grant said, “but now we can be more creative in fulfilling
our mission.” The nonprofit’s private fund raising department is already
finding donors in that area, he said. “The miracle is that we’ve been
able to use our experience and learning from the inner-city and
white-collar communities to make each of them stronger and more
empathetic, which is part of our mission of advocating for public
awareness of the issues surrounding criminal justice and re-entry.”
In 2006, Grant, a former corporate lawyer with an
office in Mamaroneck, N.Y., served 14 months in a low-security prison
after pleading guilty to federal fraud charges. He was charged with
falsely claiming in a loan application to the U.S. Small Business
Administration to have had an office on Wall Street that was impacted by
the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
After his release, Grant volunteered with several
nonprofits that helped rehabilitate former convicts as they re-entered
society. After attending a 2009 Family ReEntry benefit in Greenwich, he
and his wife Lynn Springer joined the group and began working to
transform a blighted block across from Bridgeport’s First Baptist Church
that had been home to drug addicts and prostitutes into a community
park and garden.
In 2012, he graduated from the Columbia
University-affiliated Union Theological Seminary, and holds a Juris
Doctor and Master of Divinity degree. “It was a big deal that they
accepted someone who’d been convicted of a white-collar crime,” he said. Now a [Rev. Deacon at St. Joseph Mission Church in Cliffside Park, NJ], Grant and his wife created Progressive Prison Ministries in
2013.
Both Progressive Prison Ministries and Family
ReEntry have benefited from “individuals and families, who have been
very open and receptive to our missions,” he said. “People who live in
the affluent suburbs in particular have wanted to step up as a way of
recognizing their civic responsibility and, frankly, for the tax
savings” their donations can realize. “We have a message that resonates
around the state — to make sure these people don’t recidivate.”
The cost benefits to society could be significant:
according to the FBI, white-collar crime is estimated to cost the U. S.
more than $300 billion annually.
Grant said he’s uncertain how much time he’ll be
able to devote to Progressive Prison Ministries with his new
responsibilities at Family ReEntry, though he pointed out that the
former is still moving ahead with a number of ambitious projects.
One of those is an ongoing online support group for
white-collar and nonviolent criminals, the first in the country, which
began six months ago. Held on Tuesday evenings, the confidential
videoconference sessions have had 25 participants from nine states
logging in, with most from Fairfield County.
Since January 2015, Progressive Prison Ministries
has served and individuals and families in 25 states, with consultations
taking place before, during and upon re-entry from prison in person or
by phone, email, Skype, FaceTime, GoToMeeting or, if in a federal
prison, via CorrLinks.
On Oct. 15, Family ReEntry is serving as
Connecticut sponsor of “Emerging Leaders Training,” a daylong event at
the University of New Haven presented by New York City-based nonprofit
JustLeadershipUSA, which is dedicated to cutting the U.S. correctional
population in half by 2030 while also reducing crime.
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