INDIANAPOLIS — His first race suit was tiny, barely big enough to fit a doll. It was red, white and gold, a replica suit made for 2-month-old Davey Hamilton Jr. to match the one his dad was wearing as he ran the Indianapolis 500 that year. Hamilton Jr. still has that suit from 1997, when his dad […]

The anniversary of the groundbreaking program falls on Second Chance Month. RALEIGH, NC, March 22, 2022 – April marks the 30 year anniversary of the founding of Inmates to Entrepreneurs, a now-global program started by entrepreneur Brian Hamilton that provides free entrepreneurship training for people with criminal records. Hamilton started the program in April 1992 […]

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon’s recent piece for the New York Times urges both employers and lawmakers to make changes that allow more Americans with criminal records to find gainful employment. He urges business leaders to prioritize second-chance hiring and lawmakers to pass Clean Slate legislation. When these people seek work (or even housing), employers do a quick Google search […]

Landscaping was hardly his lifelong dream. As a teenager, Alton Lucas believed basketball or music would pluck him out of North Carolina and take him around the world. In the late 1980s, he was the right-hand man to his musical best friend, Youtha Anthony Fowler, who many hip hop and R&B heads know as DJ […]

When Lawrence Carpenter was released from prison in 2001, he was determined to make a better life for himself and his family. Yet he knew that having a criminal record would make it tough to find a job. “I shouldn’t have to live in poverty for the rest of my life because I made a […]

Brian Hamilton founded Inmates to Entrepreneurs, which teaches people coming out of the prison system how to start and grow their own businesses.

To play the board game Chris Parker designed, a person first needs to know a few terms. Trap House — an abandoned residence used for the manufacturing and distribution of illegal narcotics. Major Keyz — jewels or nuggets of knowledge that are vital to achieving success in your daily life; common-sense wisdom that is gained from […]

In 2018, Joshua Nowack served three months of a six-month sentence in a Santa Ana, Calif., jail for felony fraud by embezzlement. But when he was released, Nowack learned that, despite his MBA and previous professional experience as a CFO and accountant, no employer wanted to hire him once they found out about his record. […]

Brian Hamilton and Lawrence Carpenter, of Inmates to Entrepreneurs, talk about their new reality show “Free Enterprise” in which they help formerly incarcerated people make money with their business ideas.