Jason Wang

About Jason

• My parents were immigrants and we really struggled financially—my father internalized those struggles and took it out through abuse on me.
• My parents divorced and I moved with my mom to Texas and ended up joining a gang—this led to me being arrested at 15 years old and sent to a maximum security juvenile prison on a 12 year sentence.
• While incarcerated, I testified in front of the State Senate on criminal justice reform, which springboarded me into a national conversation—I essentially became the face of juvenile justice in Texas.
• When I was released, I got a full-ride scholarship to the University of Texas at Dallas, where I earned my bachelor’s degree and a double master’s degree.
• Despite my degrees, I found that my criminal record still barred me from finding a job—people still saw me as the worst mistake I had made rather than the person that I was.
• Through help from mentors, I was able to find some jobs in things like management consulting, but I found it very difficult to adapt to the corporate world.
• I realized that there were probably others like me facing the same struggles, so I started doing research to find ways to connect formerly incarcerated people to career opportunities.
• In 2018, I founded FreeWorld, a nonprofit organization with a mission to end generational poverty and recidivism by helping formerly incarcerated people into high-wage jobs.