In an effort to decarcerate America, there are national campaigns to shed women and men from prisons and jails. As these campaigns gain traction we are seeing shifts in policy as well as public opinion. The anticipated release of Americans - thousands at a time, nationwide – will no doubt flood re-entry service providers and government agencies. In DC we anticipate a spike of returning citizens.

To this end, Mission: Launch is committed to building, testing and reworking re-entry solutions until they are ready for successful integration into larger systems.

We host friendly citywide events to collaborate, share common areas for improvement, engage with unlikely allies, and invite the community to problem solve – together. At the end of every event we have a 4-step call to action: connect; donate; join (a prototype team); and share (the message). The events and extension programming are scalable and offer easy-to-engage opportunities for the general public as well as key stakeholders.

Our hackathons are community problem solving gatherings to discuss, understand and prototype solutions for local re-entry issues. We “hack” away at presented barriers with the aim of incubating and demonstrating tech-based tools within 8 months.

The accomplishments from our first hackathon in 2014 have presented a unique case study for success. To that end, we are eager to bring the city together for a 2nd year. High-level executives, state and local politicians as well as service providers and coders as well as returning citizens themselves and the public-at-large will gather on Oct. 31st & Nov. 1st.

Open-source tech built and stewarded by our community will help to close gaps in service delivery as well as policy implementation. Within the Washington, DC - region there is a strong push for re-entry efforts.