The Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) is dedicated to providing immediate, effective, and comprehensive employment services to men and women with recent criminal convictions.

Relying on highly structured and tightly supervised programs, CEO works with participants to regain the skills and confidence needed for successful transitions to stable, productive lives. Their four step process – incorporating life skills education, short-term paid transitional employment, full-time job placement and post-placement services – reaches formerly incarcerated people at their most vulnerable point, when they are first released from incarceration or soon after conviction. With a boost from CEO, participants are less likely to become reincarcerated and more likely to build a foundation for a stable, productive life for themselves and their families. Several studies testify to CEO’s success: a 16-22 percent reduction in recidivism and higher levels of immediate and long term employment. Local businesses benefit too, gaining a well-trained, reliable work force that provides the skills and work ethic needed to compete.

CEO launched in Detroit in 2018 after a year long collaboration between the GreenLight Fund Detroit and state and city officials to identify the most effective, evidence-based models for prisoner reentry. CEO is off to a quick start, with an aim to reach a large portion of the 2,500 men and women who will leave incarceration and return to Detroit annually.