Travis Richey Teaches Inmates to Reshape Their Lives

The United States’ criminal justice system is in serious need of change; and those closest to the problem are the ones closest to the solution.The country has the world’s highest incarceration rate, home to 25% of the world’s prison population. Despite spending $80 billion a year on incarceration, the United States fails to rehabilitate its citizens: Within three years, 67 percent of the 600,000 inmates released from prison each year are re-arrested. It will be 83 percent in nine years.

Travis Richey, an entrepreneur, and advisor, started AccomplishED Ventures in 2013. The prime goal of this business is to bring real programs to the prison yards in the form of education, life skills, business skills, entrepreneurial talents, and financial literacy to the inmates to enable them to sustain a harmonious living in society after they complete their serving period. Through the in-person and tablet-based curriculum of AccomplishED Ventures, inmates learn to recognize their interests and manage the actions that add to emotional problems. They learn basic life skills and understand how to start a business and manage their finances. Travis helps the inmates to transform their past into a hopeful and bright future and be productive citizens. 

Travis cherishes every opportunity to assist people in imagining a different version of themselves and developing a plan for getting where they want to go. He also considers it an honor to lead numerous courses to provide inmates with the necessary skills and information. While talking to inmates in his visits to the prisons, he works hard on changing their mindset and makes them believe in themselves. Travis says that we’re often told that success belongs to others. It’s challenging to recognize enormous success in yourself if you don’t see it around you from a young age. Our upbringing instilled in us the belief that we would never be good enough; but the biggest person that holds you back from everything you want is you. The only limiting beliefs are those we place upon ourselves. 

Travis wants to deliver hope to the currently incarcerated across the globe by meeting the goal of 1,000,000 tablets worldwide. He loves to reform the way inmates see themselves and their life journeys. He wants them to be fully equipped to move towards their dream with passion and dedication and give their best to make this happen. Travis wishes to become a prison czar under the President of the United States to fulfill his dream of changing the narrative of prison reforms by providing opportunities and hope to millions of inmates who want to change their lives.