On April 26, 2017, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed Senate Resolution 129, declaring April Second Chance Month. This followed a Prison Fellowship campaign to raise awareness around the barriers to reentry and to encourage others to give formerly incarcerated individuals a second chance at success. Each subsequent presidential administration has issued a proclamation recognizing April as Second Chance Month, acknowledging that our communities are safer; crime rates and prison populations are reduced; and taxpayer burdens are eased when individuals with criminal records are afforded the opportunity to obtain and maintain suitable employment to support themselves and their dependents. As a former adult probation and parole officer and current executive committee member of the Bucks County Reentry Coalition, I can unequivocally say that people have the power to change and desist from crime when the social shackles of a criminal record are unlocked.

Did You Know?

Sweeping Legislation, Soaring Populations

Did you know that one in three Americans has a criminal record—not because of an increase in violent crime, but because of legislative changes and altered police and prosecutorial practices over the past five decades? From 1970 to today, three key pieces of legislation resulted in a 500 percent increase in jail and prison populations, including a 433 percent increase in the number of pretrial detainees and a 280 percent increase in the number of adults under some form of correctional control in the United States.

Beginning with the now avowed racist War on Drugs and the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, federal legislation in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s increasingly created new categories of crime targeting individuals suffering from mental health, substance use or poverty issues. The Bail Reform Act of 1984 significantly expanded the pretrial detention of legally innocent individuals, resulting in people pleading guilty to be released rather than pursue their constitutional right to a criminal trial. Despite declines in overall and violent crime rates, the largest crime bill in the history of the United States, the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act was passed, imposing mandatory minimum sentences, three-strikes laws and mandatory life sentences for a variety of crimes, including minor and non-violent offenses. This law also provided historic levels of funding, incentivizing states to adopt similarly punitive strategies to address public health and social welfare issues.

Today, nearly 100 million adults have a criminal record. There are also 5.5 million adults under some form of correctional control in the United States, the vast majority of whom are on community-based supervision. Of the nearly 2 million adults who are incarcerated, half a million have not been convicted and 95 percent of the total inmate population will eventually be released. The Herculean challenge of trying to reenter a society that would rather cast these individuals aside makes it nearly impossible for people to secure the basic life necessities they need to remain law-abiding.

Collateral Consequences of Arrest and Conviction

Did you know that there are 45,000 legal and regulatory restrictions that limit or prohibit people convicted of crimes from accessing employment, business and occupational licensing, housing, voting, education, and other rights, benefits and opportunities? While some such restrictions pertain to specific crimes, many are not related to specific offenses nor do they consider the length of time since arrest, the circumstances of conviction or the rehabilitative efforts that follow. People who have been charged but not convicted of a crime are not exempt from these restrictions.

The use of criminal background checks as an initial screening tool eliminates opportunities for millions of Americans to secure stable employment, housing, food, education and other resources that are vital to their survival, the survival of their dependents and their desire to remain law-abiding. One year after release from jail or prison, 60 percent of reentrants are still unemployed and the unemployment rate among formerly incarcerated individuals beyond that year is 27 percent, compared with the 3.7 percent rate in the general population. Unemployment is a key predictor of recidivism, since people may feel compelled to resort to crime to provide for themselves and their families. The cyclical involvement in survival crime and incarceration drives future unemployment, homelessness and food insecurity and produces stress and mental health issues. Half of all children in the United States have a parent with a criminal record, which is an adverse childhood experience that exposes them to instability and predisposes them to poorer academic, health and legal outcomes.  

Taxpayer Burdens

Did you know that eliminating one-third of our population from the workforce because of a criminal record costs the national economy $87 billion each year? The social costs of lost earning potential and family disruption are an estimated $1.2 trillion each year. Taxpayers are left to pick up the tab of records-based discrimination that results in labor shortages, increased product costs and distribution issues. The public welfare costs of increased homelessness, cyclical unemployment, incarceration and burgeoning costs of the criminal justice system also fall on law-abiding, tax-paying citizens.

Ninety percent of employers use background checks and applicants with a criminal background are half as likely to receive a follow-up call or interview. Despite the prevalence of their use, criminal background checks are often flawed, incomplete and inaccurate. Only 12.5 percent of employers are willing to accept a job application from a person with a criminal history and, as employers struggle to hire and retain stafflabor costs are soaring. This is counterintuitive to existing research indicating that people with criminal records are more motivated employees who are less likely to quit and no more likely to be fired, which reduces employee turnover and saves businesses money. Eighty-two percent of managers who have given a second chance to an employee with a record report that the employees perform as well or better than their counterparts without a record. Multiple studies assert that employing formerly incarcerated individuals can save cities and states millions of dollars in correctional costs and the costs of future recidivism.

The Solution

Fortunately, there are a number of existing strategies and potential solutions to this kind of routine exclusion for the formerly incarcerated. Second chance opportunities, like petition-based record sealing and ban-the-box initiatives have been around for decades. Unfortunately, fewer than 10 percent of eligible individuals pursue petition-based sealing because of cost, time and the complexity of the process. Ban-the-box is also ineffective and has exacerbated racial disparities in employment. Clean Slate legislation, which provides free, automated record sealing, is a superior alternative. Individuals who have remained arrest free in the years that follow the completion of their sentences are less likely to commit crime than their counterparts without a criminal record. Additionally, their earning capacity increases, which creates a stability that allows them to establish a non-criminal identity, helping them desist from future crime. Offense eligibility criteria that prioritizes public safety and allows for access to criminal records under specific, limited circumstances mitigates the harm of sealing records from the public. Instead of the digital punishment and civil death that befalls the majority of people with a criminal record, those who have had their charges dismissed and those who have been held accountable for their crimes and paid their debt to society deserve an opportunity to reestablish themselves as law-abiding, contributing members of society.

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