Long Beach will see its first Reentry Week—a city-wide, week-long event to bring awareness to resources for formerly incarcerated individuals and educate the community on the traumas of incarceration.
The community is invited to support Long Beach’s first Reentry Week by shopping from local vendors, enjoying live music performances and entering the chance to win prizes this Sunday from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. at Grey LB.
The fundraiser is hosted by the Long Beach Community Action Partners Alliance (LBCAP Alliance), a grassroots organization that provides resources to the formerly incarcerated community in the city.
The pop-up market will raise funds and awareness for Long Beach’s first inaugural Reentry Week, which will be hosted by the organization from July 11 to July 16.
“Our intention for the week is to not only get people connected to resources, but to also really educate the community on what this experience is directly from people who have actually experienced it,” said Chelsie Nicholson, co-chair of LBCAP Alliance. “Not from the media, not from politicians, not from, you know, secondhand accounts or third parties like I want the community to really understand what reentry is and what that transition looks like.”
Another priority of Reentry Week, and one of the main goals of LBCAP Alliance, is to collaboratively reduce the rate of recidivism among those who are formerly incarcerated.
As of 2019, the rate for recidivism, which the state defines as when a person is convicted of another crime within three years of being released from prison, is at 46% in California.
According to a report from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the rate of recidivism has remained around 50% in the state over the last two decades, despite current prison rehabilitation programs.
The Long Beach chapter has been supporting formerly incarcerated individuals through mostly virtual means due to the pandemic, connecting people with organizations around the city to help them get reacclimated to life outside of prison.
“There weren’t really any interagency partnerships or even just awareness that a lot of providers existed in the community. It was astonishing seeing that we’re like bringing all these people together in one place.”
—Chelsie Nicholson, co-chair of LBCAP Alliance
After joining the chapter’s parent organization CAP in 2016, Nicholson and two others branched off and formed a Long Beach chapter in 2019.
The need for a partnership between organizations for justice-impacted individuals in the city was clear, Nicholson said, and as co-chair, she decided the best way to accomplish that was with a week-long event catered to the entire community.
“There weren’t really any interagency partnerships or even just awareness that a lot of providers existed in the community. It was astonishing seeing that we’re like bringing all these people together in one place,” Nicholson said. “There’s organizations that have existed in Long Beach for like 30 years and other organizations are like, ‘Oh, yeah, we’ve been around here for 20 to 25 years, but we never knew each other existed.’”
This Sunday’s pop-up market will feature businesses and artists from throughout Long Beach, with all proceeds going toward Reentry Week. Vendors such as Pueblita Tortillas, The Urban Reset, Native Sol, A Queens Touch and McDowell’s Soul Food and Barbecue will be selling their products.
Music performances from Donnie Waters, Breraww, Mista Clean, Quincybeats and Kazie will entertain attendees as they contribute to LBCAP Alliance’s mission to remove the stigma surrounding incarceration.
LBCAP Alliance has collaborated with a number of community resources, including the city’s Health and Human Services Department, the prosecutor’s office, Phoenix Rise Project, Transformational Living Homes and various licensed social workers and therapists.
Seven days of events for Long Beach Reentry Week
On Monday, July 11 Long Beach Reentry Week will kick off with a gallery opening, which will include an accompanying short-film premiere and panel discussion. There will also be a panel discussion “Reentry V. Recidivism: How Long Beach Can Do Better” at the Ronald R. Arias Health Equity Center from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Members of the community can participate in a job fair on Tuesday, July 12 at the Ronald R. Arias Health Equity Center. Later in the evening, the Long Beach Prosecutor’s Office and the Long Beach Bar Association will host an expungement clinic from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
The third day of Reentry Week, July 13 will feature a virtual reentry forum with various city leaders from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. July 14 will offer an education fair hosted by LBCC’s Justice Scholars and CSULB’s Project Rebound at the Long Beach City College PCH Campus from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.
A healing and self-care workshop “Feeling Like Healing” will take place for the community at Compound LB on July 15 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Nicholson said an important part of reentry awareness is to deal with the trauma brought on “before, during and after” incarceration.
“There’s a lot of trauma involved and it’s not just individual traumas, it’s community trauma, it’s trauma within the family unit,” she said. “And it really impacts people in a very deep and profound way that then inhibits them from succeeding and other parts of their life.”
The last day of reentry week will be July 16 and will offer residents the chance to connect with city-wide organizations through a Reentry Resource Fair at Houghton Park from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
There are about 60 slots available for organizations in the community to register and offer their resources at the fair. There will also be live music, food being sold from vendors, a number of panels throughout the day and a community healing circle.
For more information on Long Beach Reentry Week, visit LBCAP Alliance’s Instagram page.