Gothamist87%
From Rikers to the open road: Program helps detainees land lucrative trucking jobs 17%
By Brittany Kriegstein78%
8/3/2026, 5:01:00 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 26 faulty reasoning types, including Optimism Bias, Hasty Generalization, and Availability Heuristic, with Post Hoc (False Cause) as the most egregious example at 9.8% saturation with 107 hits. Analysis detected 1,087 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,096 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 26.4% and a BS Rank of 17% (23,385 of 28,112 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 83.20% of the article peer group.
On an ordinary summer day, a white delivery truck turned out of a commercial lot and rumbled down a narrow cobblestone street in Red Hook, Brooklyn.
The truck looked like any of the other hundreds of hulking vehicles that crisscross New York City, aside from a “student driver” sticker on the front.
But the day marked an important milestone for the man behind the wheel, who wore a grin and a black baseball cap.
Three months earlier, Christopher Stewart was still on Rikers Island.
He was part of the jail’s first cohort of detainees to graduate from a commercial driver’s license certification course while still behind bars — and the first among them to be released, start his in-person driving practice, and even get a six-figure conditional offer of employment.
“ I'm just excited.
It's overwhelming to be at this part, but at the same time, there’s more work to be done to get the license," Stewart, 43, said before climbing up into the truck’s cab beside his instructor Igor Elisman.
“It’s something that's giving me motivation and drive.”
The training is part of a free workforce development program called Next Mile NYC that launched in 2025 and is expanding to people across the city who have had past involvement with the criminal justice system — whether they’re still incarcerated, on parole or struggling to find economic opportunities because of their history.
It’s made possible through a partnership between the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice and Emerge Career, an organization that helps connect people who have had involvement with the criminal justice system with lucrative jobs in industries that need workers.
Emerge is actively working with 800 people across New York City alone, with the goal to help them find work as commercial truck drivers and diesel technicians.
“ The thesis behind Emerge Career is that there's a huge skill trade shortage all across the country.
About 2 million job openings and growing,” said Uzoma “Zo” Orchingwa, the co-founder of the nonprofit, “A lot of justice-involved individuals both who are currently incarcerated and formerly incarcerated have ridiculously high unemployment rates.”
The program is funded through the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice which has plans to increase funding from $2.9 million this fiscal year to $5 million in fiscal year 2027.
MOCJ Director Deanna Logan called it “a win-win” — for the people the program helps stabilize and for New York City taxpayers.
“We use tax dollars to support individuals in our programmatic work, but we are investing $10,000 per person, and then we're getting back all of the tax revenue that comes from individuals getting gainful employment at a $100,000 salary,” she said, “It's definitely a return on investment that you don't get when you have people sitting in Rikers Island for $500,000 a year.”
This spring, the program newly collaborated with the city’s Department of Correction to allow detainees to begin training while still behind bars at Rikers.
On March 30, Christopher Stewart and six other men became the first group to graduate, posing in green jumpsuits with their certificates.
They were eligible for the program because they were all serving a “city sentence” at the jail — meaning they had been convicted of lower-level, nonviolent offenses requiring less than a year of incarceration.
Correction Commissioner Stanley Richards was one of the speakers to address them.
“Outside these walls, outside this facility, the next step of your journey is waiting,” he said.
“Your possibilities are unlimited.”
Richards had special words for Stewart, who was slated to be the first graduate to be discharged: “Remember, you’re the first one out.
Make it happen.”
For Stewart, who was born and raised on the Lower East Side, it wasn’t all smooth sailing after his release.
He suffers from dyslexia, and he said it took him multiple tries to pass the written commercial driver’s license exam: an hourlong multiple choice test that covers topics like air brakes and tractor-trailer maneuvers.
He said a staff member from Emerge would stay in the office late to coach him until he passed.
The hard work paid off, as Stewart finally found himself face-to-face with a truck’s engine compartment on a humid July morning in Red Hook.
He already had one pre-hire letter, conditioned on him passing the remainder of his training requirements, from Ohio-based hauling company Dutch Maid Logistics.
Elisman, the instructor, was walking him through a pre-trip inspection, explaining how each bolt and instrument should look and function.
He said that working with formerly incarcerated people has been a lot more rewarding than he expected.
“ Those people, they went through a lot in their lives, and you feel it,” he said.
“You have to put much more energy in to help them out and sometimes it's not easy.
But at the end, you see their happy faces, some people actually cry.”
“I could afford to leave New York and find a place to live in North Carolina,” he said.
Now, Hennis traverses the country, hauling everything from mail and clothing to water and paper.
He was recently sent to California for the first time.
“I love the aesthetics... it's just so beautiful driving through the mountains and the desert,” Hennis said.
As of July Next Mile NYC, which also operates in Massachusetts, Colorado and California, has expanded to more than 11,000 New Yorkers currently on probation across the five boroughs, according to City Hall.
In a statement, Mayor Zohran Mamdani called it a “pathway to long-term stability” for those who are now eligible.
“When we invest in opportunity, we reduce recidivism, strengthen our economy and make our city safer for all,” he wrote.
For people who are skeptical that formerly-incarcerated individuals can truly turn their lives around, Logan, the MOCJ director, has a powerful statistic about the 111 Next Mile graduates who have landed driving jobs — with an average salary of more than $73,000 — since the program began in 2025.
“We have zero rearrests,” Logan said.
“It is absolutely safe.
[These are] people who really want to be part of a community, to contribute to society, and just be happy like everybody else.”
Back in the Red Hook parking lot, Stewart said he was excited about the opportunity to provide for his family and steer clear of the negativity of the past.
He said one of his daughters had called to wish him luck before the training session.
“People make mistakes, you know?
No one's perfect,” Stewart said.
“It's all about how you bounce back.”
Speakers
9speakers58%attributed speech461writer words
Selected voice
100%flagged-word coverageDeanna Logan
167 attributed words26% of attributed speech43% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
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