FROM LEFT: In La Vista Correc-
tional Facility, Triplett (far right)
took an eight-month program to
learn business and self-aware-
ness skills. On the outside, she
moved into a halfway house and
got a job on a road crew.INSIDE AND OUTImagine, she says, a world in which
we had information about how many
inmates got the flu, or had chronic dis-
eases, and how they were being tested
and treated. “That creates this overlay
of accountability,” Brinkley- Rubinstein
says, so that advocates, loved ones,
and surrounding towns know whether
incarcerated people—who can’t really
advocate for themselves—are receiv-
ing adequate care and protection. And
so that prisons don’t contribute to ill-
ness within the community.
One thing, though, remains con-
stant, whether a state or the federal
government or a for-profit company
runs a prison, and whether soap is
gratis and an air filter occupies a
duct: If you decrease the surplus pop-
ulation, those who remain are safer
from respiratory illnesses. It’s as true
behind bars as it is at entry-limited
Whole Foods or half-capacity Chili’s.TRIPLETT, RELEASED APRIL 29,
is glad to be part of the surplus that
got out. She may be more prepared
for life on the outside than most.
That’s due in part to her participation
in Defy Colorado, the program that
helps people like her jump to their
feet when released. Run by Stacey
Putka, who used to provide counsel-
ing to men on parole, it’s just one of
many education schemes— public and
private—to help those in US prisons
have a better life once they’re not.
Putka cofounded the project in
2018 because she saw how manyrecently released inmates had entre-
preneurial mindsets but not the
training or connections for solid em-
ployment. “You’re completely cut off
from community and society, and
the only people you interact with
are other incarcerated people and
corrections officers,” she says. Plus,
getting the requisite documents in
order—driver’s license, Social Se-
curity card, birth certificate— isn’t
simple even under normal circum-
stances. Defy Colorado helps its
graduates get those papers so they
can put their classes to use.
According to a RAND Corporation
study, inmates who take part in “cor-
rectional education programs” are
13 percent less likely to go back after
release and 13 percent more likely to
find a job. More than 80 percent of
state prisons offer some sort of edu-
cational option, although only around
half of incarcerated people partici-
pate. In most states, such programs
net inmates “earned time”—basically
days shaved off their sentences. Be-
tween the start of Putka’s program
and the onset of the pandemic, only
nine of her 200 participants got out.
Things picked up in early 2020, when
La Vista released 10 of her graduates.
Defy Colorado helps participantsestablish stable, hourly-wage lives.
Many parolees used to walk door-
to-door to restaurants looking for
dishwashing or server positions. They
often also went to libraries or work-
force centers to search for jobs online.
All of these are more difficult, if not im-
possible, in COVID times. The program
gave Triplett and the other graduates
Chromebooks and smartphones for
safe hunting and pointed them toward
essential- worker positions.
On a shockingly hot day, the
warmth radiating from a Denver strip
mall’s asphalt, Triplett walks from her
halfway house to meet me at Chili’s,
texting that she’ll be the one wear-
ing black leggings and a brown shirt.
She’s excited about her food possibil-
ities now; in prison, she’d sign up for
different diets— kosher, vegetarian—
just for the variety. She orders fajitas
(yes to guacamole) and smiles, her
long dark hair framing her face, un-
masked but appropriately distanced.
“Six and a half years in, and I got
out to a zombie apocalypse,” she
says. It’s mostly a joke: She doesn’t
mind this particular apocalypse, ac-
tually. After life on the inside, with
very few options, it’s kind of nice to
have only slightly more at first.
Defy Colorado was key to teach-
ing Triplett about herself and about
how to be part of a business before
perhaps starting her own. “They cov-
ered everything from broken families
to character development,” she says.
“Applications, résumés, how to dis-
close your felony to an employer.”
Local business leaders and poten-
tial business lenders came to coach
students on their own entrepreneur-
ial ideas, which they pitched in a
Shark Tank–style event at the end of
the program. Triplett’s would be a hit
on Etsy: art made by prisoners and re-
covering addicts, printed on clothing
and sold with a written story about
how the painting or drawing came to
be. “So often, you see art and you just
think, ‘What was the artist thinking
when they made that?’” she says.
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 129)COURTESY OF DEFY VENTURES COLORADO (LEFT); COURTESY OF ALEXIS TRIPLETT