Since founding the nonprofit Project 180 in 2008, Barbara Richards has been at the forefront of helping people released from prison or jail rebuild their lives. Starting with little support and a shoestring budget, she has grown the organization into a transformative force that delivers financial literacy lessons and job search tips to people in jails and prisons; connects those leaving incarceration with job opportunities, transportation and addiction recovery services; and operates three residential homes where former prisoners live in a supportive, sober group setting.

Richards, now 70, was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. As an adult in the 1990s, she was living in San Francisco and working in the restaurant industry when she heard an NPR report about incarceration that inspired her to begin volunteering in a nearby prison. She was later hired to run adult education programs in jails and then, in 2004, decided to go back to school and enrolled at Florida State University to study the psychological effect that incarceration has on individuals. She moved to Sarasota and started Project 180 shortly after graduation.

Now, Richards is stepping down from her role with Project 180, and Theresa Cusimano, who has more than 30 years of experience with nonprofits and in higher education, is taking over as the nonprofit’s chief executive officer. Sarasota Magazine recently spoke with Richards about Project 180′s work, the state of criminal justice reform and what she plans to do next. The interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

What made you go into the field of prisoner reentry?

“I went to college right after high school, and I ended up visiting my sister with my family. She was in West Africa in the Peace Corps, and I got really sick. So I dropped out and I didn’t go back to school for 21 years. When I did, I went to a school that was very geared toward social justice—the Hutchins School at Sonoma State University in California. I was primed by having gone to school there and by my childhood experiences. Then, in 1997, I heard some information on NPR, which was that for every one Black man in college at that time, there were five Black men in prison or jail, and for every one Latino man in college, there were three Latino men in prison or jail. Those statistics grabbed my attention, and I decided to dedicate my life to changing them.”

Had you been inside a prison or jail before that?

“When I was about 7 years old, my dad, who was an attorney, decided that it was important for my family to take a tour of the jail. So we walked around, and all of a sudden the deputy who was giving us the tour said, ‘Why don’t you step right in here and you can see what it feels like to be in jail?’ It was an empty cell. There was nobody else around. So we all walked in. The deputy said, ‘OK we’re going to shut the door now,’ clanged the gate shut and said, ‘OK, bye.’ My dad and this tour guide went into another room and they were probably gone for three minutes. It didn’t really sink in.

“Then my father said, ’The sheriff doesn’t like to spend money on inmates and so he feeds them hot dogs three times a day.′ And that was when I knew I never wanted to be incarcerated. [Laughs.] I would never have made it on three hot dogs a day.”

What were the origins of Project 180?

“The first day I said, ‘I know I want to do this’ was May 6, 2006. I was with a group of people and we were talking about our futures, and I just said, ‘I have to do this and I have no idea how.’ They gave me a lot of encouragement.”

How did you build up the organization?

“It took years to gather enough people who were interested in the subject, which at that time was really not talked about in the greater community. We did a media audit in 2013 to find out how many articles had been written about prisoner reentry, and I think there were two in that year nationally. So we knew that we were on the forefront of something that was important to address. We could see it in homelessness, poverty, unemployment, people living on the streets. We knew that a lot of those people had been involved in the justice system, because it’s a cycle. Somebody who’s on the street is more likely to be arrested and put into the system. And somebody who’s been in the system is more likely to become homeless, because there’s so little housing for people with criminal records. It was obvious that there was something going on.

“It took us until 2013 to actually begin delivering programs. The first one we did was a CEO program in the prison in Arcadia. [Editor’s note: Project 180′s CEO Workforce Education Program brings volunteer business leaders and hiring managers into prisons, where they offer tips to prisoners about how to find work once they are released.] It was this amazing opportunity for people from what I call ‘the outside’—mainstream citizens—to go into a prison and meet people one on one and realize that there are very few people in there who should be locked up the rest of their lives. Even though they were fairly surface conversations, it was meaningful. The volunteers felt that they were giving people nuts-and-bolts practical information that would help them when they got out and the people in the audience did, too.”

Early on, when you would bring up topics like mass incarceration in Sarasota, how did people react?

“A lot of people were surprised, and they were surprised that a woman was doing it. But when they thought about it, it made sense that [incarcerated people] have trouble when they get out. Even so, people don’t realize how much individuals lose when they are incarcerated. It interrupts one’s life. You can’t pay your bills anymore, and you lose everything—apartments, family members, everything.

“In my graduate studies, one of my areas of interest was the sociology of punishment and how the punishment practices of any community reflect the values of that community, just as if you’re talking about schools or education reflecting the values of the community. It is probably unconsciously engineered for us to choose a punishment practice where we don’t have to view the person who has done wrong. We don’t have to view the experience of punishment, because it all occurs behind prison or jail walls. And not only are individuals who have committed criminal acts isolated behind walls, so we don’t see them, we also don’t see them when they come out. Most people get off the bus with nowhere to stay, and they either go into the woods or they sleep on the streets. They remain a population that is unseen and unheard. And yet they’ve been through some of the worst things that anyone can go through and they have a lot to teach us about how we can fix those problems.”

How did you begin to see the connection between incarceration and addiction?

“It finally became evident when we were able to get a house to open a residential program, which was my dream all along. I called on some people that I had known for several years, and I said, ‘I need a house manager, somebody who really knows what he’s doing and has been through the whole experience of being incarcerated.’ Someone told me, ’You probably aren’t going to find anybody who wants to come into a house unless they’re addicted.′ That’s when the connection between incarceration and addiction started to hit me.

“I started looking more closely at the statistics. At that time, around 2018, the Department of Corrections posted approximately what percentage of individuals were in need of drug or alcohol recovery, and it was 66 percent. But what we saw was that it was more like 75, 80, 90, even 95 percent. It’s very, very high. And you can see why, when you hear people’s stories and you understand how they grew up—the lack of opportunities they had because they had become addicted early.

“When somebody is shot up with heroin at the age of 12 by a trusted family member or friend, or begins drinking at the age of 6 or 10 in the family home, life goes haywire. When that is your reality, you don’t learn how to be an adult.”

How did opening Project 180′s first residential home come about?

“A friend of mine in California had listened to me talk about Project 180 forever, and she called me one night and said, ‘Well, how about if I buy you a house? If you pay the mortgage, taxes and insurance, I’ll get it for you.’ So I started looking for a home and we found one. A year later she wanted to sell it to us, but we didn’t have enough money. So the Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation—bless them—purchased it.”

And now you have three?

“The second home we occupied was a rental, and [the landlords] were magnificent people who wanted to do something good. I went to look at it, took a chance and asked, ‘How would you feel about renting to a program for individuals who are being released from incarceration?’ And the owner got this blank look on her face, then said, ‘I think I’d like that very much.’ I nearly fainted because that’s not what I was expecting to hear. It was a perfect location and a perfect layout.

“When the lease dried up for that house, we started looking for another house. The Community Foundation of Sarasota County knew that we were desperately trying to get money together to buy a second house and gave us $75,000 in a grant. The foundation has carried the mortgage for us.

“The third one was purchased for us by the Barancik Foundation, which has been amazing to us.”

Are there plans for more homes?

“I believe the board wants to get another house and have that be for women, and certainly the need is there to get another house for men.”

How many people have come through the homes?

“It’s 118.”

You invite people to come and cook dinner and eat with the residents. Why is that important?

“In my world, food fixes everything. For a lot of us, a peaceful and harmonious way to interact with other people is over food. We all eat, and we can let down our defenses and have the opportunity for meaningful conversations.

“The other piece of that is ourluncheon lectures at Michael’s on East. The residents step into another world that they’re not so familiar with. More than one has said how meaningful it is to be able to meet somebody in a venue they never thought they would go into and how healing it is for them—that other people talk to them, ask them questions about their lives, offer to do things for them. More than one tough guy has broken down in tears about that, not only because of what they feel that they’ve lost in their past, but also because of how they thought these other people viewed them. They would say, ‘Nobody’s ever wanted me in their neighborhood. Nobody’s ever wanted me in their family. Nobody’s ever wanted me. And yet here are these people I don’t even know showing that they care about what happens to me.’ That’s both tragic and healing at the same time.”

How has the conversation about incarceration and criminal justice changed locally since Project 180 started?

“I think that there is a conversation now. That’s what has changed.

“There is a great awareness, primarily because of the opioid crisis, about how people churn through the criminal justice system. Plus, we do have the treatment courts. We have this amazing recovery pod in the jail. I know that the state prison population has declined in Florida, although it is creeping back up again.

“The one statistic that I keep the closest eye on in the annual report of the Florida Department of Corrections is prior commitments. It’s a little graph that shows how many prior commitments individuals in the system have. Last time I looked, 52 percent had never been in a Florida state prison before, which of course leaves 48 percent who have. So if we could solve this problem of reentry when people get out, making sure that they get on the right track, there’s the potential for up to half the prison population not having to go back in again.

“Of course, you have to take into consideration the disease of addiction. It’s a chronic disease that will never go away and it’s always calling people back to use. If you ever want to solve the reentry issue, you need to make it a seamless transition from being in recovery in prison—where you can get any drug you want, easily—into the community and help people stay in recovery when they’re there. That’s my dream.”

Do you think we’re headed in the right direction?

“We’re headed in a better direction. Until prison and jail populations see a steep decline so that the people who are in there are the people who really cannot live on the outside and everybody else remains safe, there’s still more to do. If I have one regret, it’s that I didn’t get started in this work earlier. And yet, I don’t think I was ready.”

What made you decide to step down from Project 180?

“Part of it is because I love the family-like community that we’ve built and I’m not sure I really want to take it to a bigger level. It needs to go to a bigger level. It’s not that the need isn’t there and that there’s no justification for it. There certainly is.

“I love the personal relationships that were established, and I feel like that’s what I had to offer. And now it’s time for somebody else to take over, and Theresa Cusimano will do it very well. She comes out of higher education. She’s a phenomenal grant writer. She’s sensitive to other people’s needs, and she’s a great advocate for individuals who have been incarcerated. I think she’s going to do great.”

What’s next for you?

“I want to start a middle school for kids who need to be in recovery. A lot of our guys come from the south Venice, Nokomis, Osprey, Englewood area, and they got addicted in middle school or late elementary school. I don’t see myself as having an active hand in running it, but I really want to see one opened. We need that so desperately.”