James Monteiro

Overview

James Monteiro is the founder and director of Reentry Campus Program. He works both within and outside the Adult Correction Institution of Rhode Island to ensure that adults in transition homes have a college degree pathway that is integrated into the support systems needed upon release. James dropped out of school in the eighth grade and spent most of his adult life in and out of the penal system. The last time James was incarcerated he was doing a ten year sentence in one of the country s most violent prison systems Baltimore Maryland s Penitentiary. It was there that James first went back to school earning an Associate s degree in Psychology with Honors and and upon release earned a bachelor s degree in Community Development at Roger Williams University s College Unbound program. James has won the Rhode Island NAACP Joseph Lecount Award for his work founding the Billy Taylor House a program that provides workforce development and enrichment opportunities to youth ages fifteen to twenty one in James childhood neighborhood the Mount Hope community of Providence. He has been named as one of Rhode Island s 15 to Watch for his work in youth programs that address violence in the city and prepare the next generation of Providence leaders.