Marin Independent Journal— With their release on the near horizon, more than 200 incarcerated men turned out to a green jobs fair Saturday inside San Quentin State Prison.

Governing— During his five years at the helm of New Jersey's largest city, Newark Mayor Cory Booker's work could provide fodder for months of columns on energetic, innovative and responsive government. For starters, he has overseen a stunning reduction in violent crime. In March 2010, Newark had its first month in over 44 years without a single murder.

Willows Journal— Glenn County officials have divvied up the money available to assist in the re-entry of state prison inmates, but some think it may not be enough.

The Herald-Sun— If people coming out of prison can get jobs, it’ll reduce the chances of them committing crime again and going back to jail, said speakers at the Faith, Partnership & Re-Entry Conference held Saturday at Antioch Baptist Church on Holloway Street.

New Haven Independent— In a new bill to be introduced Tuesday, the mayor aims to help people like Jimmy Nigretti have an easier time getting into the hot dog business.

Correctional News— California Gov. Jerry Brown’s decision to move nonviolent criminals and parolees from state operated prisons to county facilities may put a strain on local services.

Ventura County Star— The Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Oxnard and Port Hueneme aims to reduce repeat crimes among juvenile offenders in Ventura County by merging two pilot projects into a new program. The nonprofit received $609,232 from the Department of Justice to create RAMP, a Reentry Aftercare Mentoring Program, which will provide mentoring to incarcerated teens in the group’s Juvenile Justice Facility program so they are prepared to reenter the community and avoid committing further crimes.

Reclaiming Futures— 2011 was quite a year for Reclaiming Futures Every Day. To help jog your memory of all of our great and on-going discussions, I've compiled a list of the top 20 most popular blog posts from the past year. Some of these posts were published in previous years, but continued to be read and discussed and are still relevant today.

The New York Times— In 2010, the Chicago Public Schools declined to hire Darrell Langdon for a job as a boiler-room engineer, because he had been convicted of possessing a half-gram of cocaine in 1985, a felony for which he received probation. It didn’t matter that Mr. Langdon, a single parent of two sons, had been clean since 1988 and hadn’t run into further trouble with the law. Only after The Chicago Tribune wrote about his case did the school system reverse its decision and offer him the job.

The UpTowner— On a rainy Wednesday night, six young ex-convicts sit in the basement of an East Harlem storefront, eating slices of pepperoni and sausage pizza. Except for the sounds of chewing, the room is silent, the young men shifting in their chairs and avoiding eye contact until Mark Goldsmith walks in, takes a seat beneath a poster of Muhammed Ali and begins his seminar: “How to be Successful in School and Work.”

Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman—

We are using our Editorial space today to call attention to a Spectrum piece by Sen. Johnny Ellis printed on page 11 in this edition. Ellis continues a drumbeat begun in our pages last month after the Mat-Su Coalition on Housing and Homelessness' Housing Summit Dec. 13.The summit was divided into tracks and focused on "Success with and for Unaccompanied Youth in Housing," "Rapid Re-Housing, Closing the gaps quickly for families and individuals" and "Building a Strategic Prisoner Re-entry Plan for Housing."

The State Journal-Reigster— Beginning this week, Illinois law requires judges hearing cases involving minors to use incarceration only as the sentence of last resort.

The Commercial Appeal— Identifying the obstacles of its participants is a key strategy for the Juvenile Intervention & Faith-based Follow-Up mentoring program.

Huffington Post— Recidivism is a perennial problem in Philadelphia. Making this problem worse, is a deficit of facts about recidivism. Recidivism is a subset of reincarceration. Reincarceration means that someone is suspected to have committed a crime (or did a technical violation of parole), whereas recidivism typically means that someone has been found guilty of a crime.

The Log Cabin Democrat— A new program implemented by the Arkansas Department of Correction pairs dogs on death row with incarcerated inmates with the hope that the animals may become more adoptable.

Press-Register— When you’ve been locked up for more than 2 decades, even the most mundane tasks can be daunting.

New York Times— By age 23, almost a third of Americans have been arrested for a crime, according to a new study that researchers say is a measure of growing exposure to the criminal justice system in everyday life.

New York Times— The taste of cocaine and the slow-motion sensation of breaking the law were all too familiar, but the thrill was long gone.

Associated Press— The business of background checks is booming. Employers spend at least $2 billion a year to look into the pasts of their prospective employees. They want to make sure they're not hiring a thief, or worse. But it is a system weakened by the conversion to digital files and compromised by the welter of private companies that profit by amassing public records and selling them to employers. These flaws have devastating consequences. It is a system in which the most sensitive information from people's pasts is bought and sold as a commodity. A system in which computers scrape the public files of court systems around the country to retrieve personal data. But a system in which what they retrieve isn't checked for errors that would be obvious to human eyes. A system that can damage reputations and, in a time of precious few job opportunities, rob honest workers of a chance at a new start. And a system that can leave the Kathleen Caseys of the world — the innocent ones — living in a car.

Pensacola News Journal— Last year, Chief U.S. District Judge Casey Rodgers set up the Robert A. Dennis Re-entry Court, a program designed to help people released from prison stay on track and successfully re-enter society.