V.R.I.C. - Facts & Figures
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- The V.R.I.C. is located on a 10.2 acre complex at 2801 South Rockwell Avenue in Chicago Illinois.
- The one year program is split into two phases, the Residential and Post Release Phase. The Residential Phase consists of eighteen weeks of intense military discipline and education. The Post Release Phase lasts for a total of eight months and consists of daily interaction with an assigned case manager.
- The inmates live in platoon style dormitories with 48 inmates in each platoon.
- There are a total of 10 buildings on the compound, including two educational buildings, four dormitories, a mess hall, an intake dormitory containing medical and counseling offices, an administration building, a gatehouse, and a gymnasium. The gymnasium is utilized for graduation ceremonies and as a physical training area in inclement weather only. All of the inmates time is focused on training and education towards the goal of graduating the program, there is no recreational free time for the inmates.
- The V.R.I.C. offers an educational curriculum that covers learning disabled students up to pre-G.E.D. coursework. The V.R.I.C. is an official G.E.D. testing site and the G.E.D. is offered on-site monthly to both in-camp and post release inmates. Over a twelve hundred G.E.D.’s have been earned by V.R.I.C. inmates.
- Computer recycling classes are offered through a partnership with West Side Technical Institute. To date the V.R.I.C. has recycled over 3420 Computers equaling 97,702 pounds of materiel which would otherwise have gone into landfills.
- Chicagoland Prison Outreach has partnered with the V.R.I.C. to offer a class that prepares inmates to take the written carpenter’s apprentice examination.
- An ongoing partnership with Chicago Botanic Garden will harvest an estimated 12,000 pounds of produce from the Urban Farm program. Organic food waste from the VRIC mess hall is used to make high grade compost for the Urban Farm.
- Substance abuse programming involves both individual and group counseling. Inmates in the post-release phase are subject to random drug testing and are referred to either inpatient or outpatient treatment upon a positive result.
If you are looking for information on V.R.I.C. programs for an individual, please contact the Lincoln Challenge program by clicking here: http://www.ngycp.org/state/il/ or calling (800) 851-2166.