Orijin, a national leader in correctional education and workforce development technology, announced it has acquired Honest Jobs, a national fair-chance employment platform that connects formerly incarcerated individuals with job opportunities and reentry resources.
The acquisition combines Orijin’s education, rehabilitation, and workforce-preparation platform with Honest Jobs’ national employer network and reentry technology, forming a comprehensive pathway that connects incarceration to meaningful employment. The combined platform is structured to serve the full justice continuum, including parole, probation, and community corrections, with the goal of supporting justice-involved individuals in securing employment and reducing recidivism.
Orijin prepares individuals in correctional facilities through education, vocational training, and career-readiness programming. The company cites outcomes in Blount County, Tennessee, where recidivism declined by 50%, and in Hancock County, Indiana, where more than $4.4 million in taxpayer savings was achieved through reentry preparation efforts. Honest Jobs extends support beyond release by providing access to fair-chance employers and a national directory of reentry resources.
Together, the companies aim to create a seamless continuum from credential attainment to verified employment opportunities, aligning educational programming with measurable workforce outcomes while streamlining administration for correctional partners.
The acquisition also addresses what the companies describe as a gap in the corrections market, where education and training programs often lack direct, scalable connections to employers actively seeking second-chance talent. Honest Jobs brings a job board featuring more than 300,000 openings from over 1,500 employers, as well as a directory of more than 200,000 social services. The platform has received recognition from Forbes, Bloomberg, NPR, and Harvard Business School for its work in advancing fair-chance employment.
With the addition of Honest Jobs, Orijin is expanding its footprint beyond correctional facilities into community-based supervision environments. The integrated offering is intended to provide parole, probation, and community corrections agencies with tools to support employability and long-term outcomes for supervised populations.
Integration of the Honest Jobs platform into Orijin’s managed learning system will begin immediately, with phased enhancements expected throughout 2026. The Honest Jobs Reentry Navigator will also be available as a standalone solution for probation, parole, community corrections, and reentry nonprofit organizations.
Orijin partners with correctional jurisdictions and agencies including the Massachusetts Department of Correction, Tennessee Department of Labor, and North Carolina Division of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. As a public benefit corporation, the company focuses on preparing justice-impacted individuals for sustainable employment.
KEY QUOTES
“Reentry success does not start at the prison gate. It starts inside. For years, correctional leaders have invested in education and workforce preparation, yet too often the pathway to employment after release remains fragmented and difficult to navigate. By bringing Honest Jobs into the Orijin platform, we are connecting preparation to opportunity in a direct and measurable way. This is about turning education into real outcomes.”
Arti Finn, Co-Founder And Chief Strategy Officer, Orijin
“As someone who experienced incarceration firsthand, I built Honest Jobs to ensure people leaving prison had a real opportunity to rebuild their lives. By integrating with Orijin, we now gain visibility into the talent pipeline before release—allowing us to align employer demand with the education and workforce training individuals are completing inside facilities, and proactively build employer partnerships around verified skills. Together, we are creating a scalable bridge from incarceration to sustainable employment.”
Harley Blakeman, Founder And CEO Of Honest Jobs And Incoming Director Of Business Development At Orijin
“This acquisition reflects a meaningful step forward in Orijin’s long-term growth and impact. By bringing Honest Jobs into our platform, we are expanding beyond correctional facilities and into parole, probation, community corrections. This positions Orijin to support the full continuum of reentry while increasing our ability to scale nationally and serve a broader range of partners. Harley Blakeman is one of the most respected entrepreneurs in reentry, and we are thrilled he is joining Orijin to accelerate this next phase of growth.”
Harris Ferrell, CEO Of Orijin
