Free and Forward is live everywhere it needed to be. The reentry app is available right now on the App Store for iPhone, on Google Play for Android, and on the web at freeandforward.com. It is free to start and it does not ask for a card.
That matters more than a launch announcement usually does. People coming home from prison or jail do not all have the same phone, and plenty do not have a phone at all for the first week or two. Between iPhone, Android and a browser on a library or halfway house computer, there is now a way in no matter what you are holding on release day.
What is Free and Forward?
Free and Forward is a reentry app built around the part of coming home that nobody hands you: the logistics. Not motivation, not a pep talk — the dates, the documents, and the order things have to happen in.
On the free tier you get:
- A 27-step reentry checklist, in the order the steps actually happen, with a due date on each one
- A calendar built for supervision — court dates, probation and parole check-ins, classes, drug tests, recurring appointments
- Deadline reminders on your phone for every checklist step and every calendar event
- Cross-device backup and sync, so losing a phone does not lose your plan
- A resource directory for finding help near you
Paid tiers add a document vault, a resume builder, photo-to-PDF conversion, a job board with an application tracker, data export, and AI tools for resumes, cover letters and letters to a landlord, employer or probation officer. Nothing in that list is required to use the checklist.
Why an app, and why reminders?
Many people go back for avoidable reasons, not a new crime — a technical violation, a missed check-in, a court date nobody wrote down, a document that never reached the right office.
Reminders are unglamorous and they are also well studied. Studies of court-date reminders measured attendance, not reoffending, and we do not claim this app reduces recidivism. Free and Forward keeps the steps and dates in one place, on a phone, for free.
Where this sits next to real reentry programs
An app is not a reentry program and we are not going to pretend it is. The research on reentry programs shows real but modest average effects on recidivism, with the strongest results where housing, employment and treatment are addressed together. We have also written about the interventions that do not show results, because overpromising is its own problem in this field.
What a phone can do is close the gap between knowing what to do and actually doing it on time. Recidivism statistics measure rearrest, reconviction and reincarceration — three different things — and we make no claim about any of them. What an app can hold is the appointment, the document and the date.
If you are still inside, or waiting on a federal release
A lot of what decides the first ninety days gets decided before the gate. We keep plain-English guides on the parts people ask about most:
- First Step Act earned time credits — what earns FSA credits, what disqualifies you, and how they actually get applied
- RDAP eligibility — who qualifies and what the year off really means
- Halfway house vs. home confinement — how placement gets decided
- Getting your ID after prison — the dependency chain that saves weeks
- Expungement and record sealing — where to actually start
- Second chance employers — how to find the companies that really hire
What does it cost?
The checklist, the calendar, the reminders and the resource directory are free, permanently, with no card. Paid plans on the website are $9.99, $24.99 and $34.99. Prices inside the app are higher, because Apple and Google take a cut of every in-app purchase — so if you ever move up from free, doing it on the website costs less than doing it in the app.
También en español
The whole app and the whole site are available in Spanish. Start at freeandforward.com/es.
For facilities, reentry programs and supervision offices
If you work with people coming home — a reentry program, a halfway house, a public defender's office, a probation department, a nonprofit — there is a page for you at freeandforward.com/organizations, including how to get a demo account and printable material you can hand out.
Get it
Download Free and Forward on the App Store or Google Play, or open it in a browser at freeandforward.com. Free to start. No card.
Never forget the past. Learn from it. Move free and forward.
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