Description
Merit Corporation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization working with the California Youth Authority's Free Venture Program to employ young adult offenders (wards 18 to 25 years old) in real world jobs that prepare them for release to the outside world.
Merit pays its ward employees a fair market wage out of which the wards pay taxes. From their net wages, ward employees contribute:
- 15% toward fines and victim restitution;
- 20% toward room and board; and
- 40% into a savings account held for their release.
Statistics show that through job programs similar to Merit's, recidivism is reduced by as much as 80%
Operating out of the CYA's N.A. Chaderjian Youth Facility in Stockton, CA, Merit provides "surplus electronics management services" for several Silicon Valley companies including Lockheed Martin, SanDisk, Abbott Laboratories, Agilent Technologies and Northrop Grumman. These client companies dispose of their surplus electronics (electronics manufacturing equipment, test equipment, office equipment, and electronic components) through Merit who inventories and processes the material for resale and/or recycle; and then for the client companies, documents the final disposition of their material.
Merit is succeeding: Merit has built a 100% self-sustaining operation within a correctional facility, where besides Merit's one, full-time civilian employee, all the employees are young adult offenders who for the most part have never before been gainfully employed. And though Merit is continually training new employees as its trained one's are paroling out of the institution, Merit nonetheless maintains a standard of performance and expectations that gives its client companies confidence in the service they receive, and Merit's employees pride in the service they render.
For more information on Merit, please go to www.meritcorp.org.
