Eric Writes: Places for Ex-Offenders

The Story

“Unfortunately, we have a lot of misconceptions about what leaving prison is actually like,” said John Oliver in a November 2015 episode of HBO’s Last Week Tonight. “Perhaps because it’s often presented in movies and TV as a happy moment when former inmates rejoin families and friends, and put their life back together.”

The episode – reported on in Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, TIME and other outlets – went on to highlight that this was not the case for ex-criminal offenders.

In fact, a number of complex barriers stand between ex-offenders and opportunities such as employment and college enrollment.

A common item on many applications asks if applicants have been convicted of a crime. Whether a yes or no question or a statement accompanied by a checkmark box, it asks for the same information.

This box can be a deciding factor for the applicant’s chances of approval. And more often than not, answering yes for any reason is grounds for an immediate rejection.

The widespread use of the inquiry and its role in applications has stirred up controversy on whether it is ethical or immoral to place such importance in a single question.

The controversy eventually led to Ban The Box, a movement that seeks to have the question removed from applications.

Oliver framed it in the context of questioning if an applicant had ever violated a watermelon. “Maybe it happened fourteen years ago, you’re not proud of it, and you’ve changed since then. If every job application you filled out had this question on it, with no opportunity to give context of how drunk you were or the fact that you haven’t even looked at a watermelon for over a decade, you’d begin to feel like the deck was stacked against you.”

The Background and Consequences

“Is employment discrimination against ex-offenders immoral?” a Washington Post article, looks at the employer’s side of the issue. The article explores the logic behind looking into applicants’ backgrounds for both professional and legal reasons.

While not in complete disagreement, a report on 273 campuses (out of 3,248 invited) by Community Alternatives calls attention to many adverse effects. The report cites many problems with rejecting applications based on criminal histories, stating at least 66% of colleges collect criminal information about applicants.

A major instigator cited by the Community Alternatives report is the Clery Act. Known formally as the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act (Crime Awareness and Campus Act in the report), it was named after Jeanne Clery, a college student who was assaulted and murdered at Pennsylvania’s Lehigh University College in 1986.

After four years of lobbying, it was officially signed into law by President George H.W. Bush in 1990.

As a result of the Act, colleges are required to submit reports each year detailing campus crime statistics and security measures. The aim, a result of a campaign led by Clery’s parents, was to provide information so campus security and safety would be taken into account in college selection.

The Community Alternatives report calls this an overreaction, pointing out a number of disparities against college students. Most crimes against college students, it claims, are committed either off-campus or by inebriated students. The report also points out that neither Josoph Henry – Jeanne Clery’s murderer – nor Virginia Tech shooter Seung Hui Cho had criminal records.

The National Employment Law Project (NELP) estimates 70 million people in the country (one in three) have arrest or conviction records. The Community Alternatives report, along with Politico, points out a major cause of the problem is overcriminalization – the rising phenomenon of identifying a widening range of activities as criminal behavior in the eyes of the law. At least half of the United States’ prison population is made of nonviolent drug offenders, according to Politico, while the number of misdemeanors – such as under-age drinking, petty theft and public intoxication – have doubled in the past 30 years according to the Community Alternatives report.

Another problem a New York Times article points out ('Out of Trouble, but Criminal Records Keep Men Out of Jobs') is that the emphasis on criminal background checks prevents capable prospective candidates from becoming productive members of society. The 2015 article focuses on the difficulties of a man who had been arrested for falling behind on child support payments after having difficulties finding and holding down jobs following his firing from his previous job in 2012. Despite sending nearly 30 job applications, in 2014, he received no offers from any potential employers.

The article also summarized a study conducted in 2001 and 2004 by Devah Pager.

Other concerns Civil Rights.org and Community Alternatives point out are a high rate of racial profiling in incarceration rates and sometimes inaccurate information. The New York Times article states that the number of white male prison inmates increased by 10% while the number of black male inmates increased by more than 25%.

Solutions

Attorney General Loretta Lynch weighed in on the issue in a column released to a number of outlets, including the Huffington Post. “Providing incarcerated individuals with a range of workforce services while they transition out of local correctional facilities better prepares them to reenter the workforce and improves their opportunities for finding suitable employment immediately upon release,” she wrote.

One solution is college enrollment. While the criminal background question is often used, not all colleges participate in it. According the Community Alternatives report, 38% of the colleges surveyed did not request or use criminal information about applicants, reporting that their campuses were not less safe after doing so.

The Community Alternatives report offers a number of recommendations for colleges that request criminal histories and ex-offenders applying to colleges that do.

A benefit cited by many sources is the reduction of recidivism in the United States, according to The Nation. A Huffington Post article based on a Pew Report points out a significant reduction in the number of prisoners re-incarcerated after having gaining a college diploma.

One such initiative has been undertaken by Pennsylvania’s Harrisburg Area Community College.

On April 25, 2016, HACC’s York Campus in Crispus Attucks hosted a seminar aimed at offering advice to ex-offenders to aid in getting employment and the benefits of being educated.

The discussion was moderated by HACC’s career services director and seminar organizer Britta Schwab and featured attorney Adam Morris, York County judge John Thompson, HACC Campus Dean of Student Affairs and Enrollment Management David Satterlee, Crispus Attucks program leader Michael Jefferson, and York City Council President Carol Hill-Evans.

“We’ve been doing a series of events around this particular conversation,” said Satterlee about the program, “but this is the specific first event for these people who have criminal backgrounds and talking to them directly about the issues we’re trying to help them with.”

Each panelist was questioned in turn by organizer Britta Schwab.

“The first practical effect for an offender is they need a job to pay fines and costs,” said John Thompson when asked about the value of individuals with past criminal offenses seeking employment. “An employer needs to understand that and be aware of that. The value is an individual thing but generally speaking, persons who have been incarcerated do need to thrive on the outside in structured environments. Employers understand that offenders on parole, who are on probation, do have financial responsibilities to the court. And that can be a plus in obtaining employment because you have shown up for work to meet your financial obligations.”

Satterlee offered an encouraging invitation for ex-offenders at the seminar. “If you have a GED or a high school diploma, you can start college at HACC. I just want to be clear about that: you are automatically admitted – if you apply to HACC, application’s free, you get admitted. We don’t ask anything about your criminal history. We know many of our students have criminal backgrounds, and we’re happy to have you at HACC, just to be clear about that. The trick for us is knowing enough about criminal conviction and the limitations or directions on training and employment. That kind of information up front is very helpful to us and helping figure out where you need to go. So, if you want to start classes at HACC, I want you to come in, apply, start talking to us, and tell us right up front what the conviction is, and from that, we’ll help you make a plan. There are some career fields that might be challenging but even in those fields, we know how to direct you in different ways that might make sense.”

Michael Jefferson weighed in on the importance of having an education despite a criminal background. “I spent 20 years on the wrong side of this fence, but the one thing I did do right was get my college degree. So I had a college degree and no matter what happened to me and where I went, they never could take my degree from me.”

Satterlee has an optimistic vision for the program’s future. “This program is unique because of our partnerships and we don’t have a particular focus on the issue, but we hope some of the principles applied here can be applied to any campus.”

Sources & References

Eric Writes

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Places for Ex-Offenders

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