In many societies, prison is treated as the end of the line. A person makes a mistake, they are punished, and that is where the story is meant to stop. But in reality, punishment rarely ends at the prison gates. Once released, many find that time keeps extending: the labor market is locked, employers refuse to trust, and the stigma of a conviction shadows every attempt at reintegration. Faced with closed doors, relapse into crime, recidivism, becomes less a personal choice than a structural inevitability.
The Last Mile, a U.S. based initiative, is trying to rewrite that script. From within four walls that can crush hope, it offers a secure digital platform for education and training that breaks them down. Its curriculum ranges from web development to audio and video production, preparing inmates to become workforce-ready professionals. More importantly, it weaves connections between prisons, NGOs, state officials, and employers – creating an ecosystem of opportunity that extends beyond release.
Yet the program’s biggest challenge isn’t technical. It’s ethical. Most platforms struggle with the chicken-and-egg problem, scaling, pricing, and trust. Uber had to attract riders and drivers; Airbnb needed hosts and guests. The Last Mile faces similar dynamics, but in a different form. Here, the chicken-and-egg is ethical: can society accept ex-prisoners as workers? Scaling is less about numbers than about committed employers. Pricing is political, relying on public funding and NGOs. Trust collides with stigma, not just user reviews. And its main competition isn’t another platform, but the belief that prison should punish, not rehabilitate. Success depends on ethics as much as technology.
A survey on public perceptions of imprisonment (Roberts et al., 2024) illustrates this tension starkly: 42% of respondents said the main purpose of prison is to “protect the public by removing offenders from society,” while only 19% prioritized “rehabilitating offenders.”
For an inmate, that 19% is a fragile lifeline. For the 42%, it’s a nightmare – A belief that reintegration is dangerous or undeserved. Initiatives like The Last Mile cannot succeed unless society itself chooses to believe in second chances. Its platform only works if employers are willing to hire, communities are willing to welcome, and governments are willing to fund rehabilitation over perpetual exclusion.
Would this model work in the Netherlands? Possibly, Dutch justice policy already leans toward reintegration. But it would still hinge on public trust. Platforms live or die not by their code, but by the moral consensus of the societies around them.
And so the real question remains: when punishment ends, do we allow life to begin again – or do we quietly insist that a sentence never truly finishes?
References
Roberts, J. V., Crellin, L., Bild, J., & Mouton, J. (2024). Who’s in Prison and What’s the Purpose of Imprisonment? A Survey of Public Knowledge and Attitudes. https://www.sentencingacademy.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Who-is-in-Prison-and-What-is-the-Purpose-of-Imprisonment.pdf
The Last Mile. (2019). The Last Mile – Paving The Road To Success. Thelastmile.org. https://thelastmile.org/
