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Throughout its history, Centerforce has worked to promote humane and effective services for prison visitors and prisoners. Centerforce's founders began their work by establishing a visitors' center to provide families, friends and children of prisoners at San Quentin State Prison with a place to escape the rain and cold while waiting for their visit. Centerforce went on to establish a network of visitors centers at prison sites throughout the state, and to successfully lobby the California State Legislature for a bill to provide ongoing funding for these centers. Today, Centerforce continues this tradition of working for systemic change through its directs services (provided by our four Service Areas: Children and Families Services, Transitional Services, Prisoner Service and Informational Services), its annual conference and through direct consultation and training for departments of health, community-based agencies and correctional facilities across the country and internationally.
Centerforce believes strongly in the integration of our constituency throughout the agency's infrastructure. Centerforce has developed a Prisoner Advisory Board at San Quentin State Prison and at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla, CA, which provide input on current agency programs and help inform future practices. Centerforce coordinates two inmate peer educator programs that train, supervise, and support prisoners in their efforts to provide health education and outreach to other prisoners.
Three ex-prisoners sit on the Centerforce Board of Directors and five Board Members have or had a family member incarcerated.
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