{"id":297,"date":"2022-03-31T16:48:41","date_gmt":"2022-03-31T16:48:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/speirenua.org\/?p=297"},"modified":"2022-04-16T17:20:38","modified_gmt":"2022-04-16T17:20:38","slug":"switching-to-energy-saving-bulbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/speirenua.org\/?p=297","title":{"rendered":"How second-chance employment combats the \u2018scarlet letter\u2019 of a criminal record during the hiring process"},"content":{"rendered":"

https:\/\/www-independent-co-uk.cdn.ampproject.org\/c\/s\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/world\/americas\/second-chance-hiring-criminal-justice-b2035018.html?amp<\/a><\/p>\n

About a third of adult Americans have a criminal record. A new generation of companies say that shouldn\u2019t stop them from getting jobs,\u00a0Josh Marcus<\/a>\u00a0writes<\/p>\n

Tuesday 22 March 2022 20:38<\/p>\n

Jeffery Arview, a military veteran, was able to find work at Kelly Services, a staffing firm, despite a criminal record, thanks to the company\u2019s embrace of \u201csecond-chance\u201d hiring.<\/p>\n

Bottom of Form<\/p>\n

Jeffery Arview didn\u2019t have a backup plan. He joined the military out of high school, went to Iraq, and planned to stay in the armed forces for decades before retiring. Then a seemingly innocuous knee injury set in motion a course of events that would threaten everything he was dreaming of.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to retire at 20 years,\u201d he said. \u201cI never really had an exit plan. Never talked about it, never thought about it, not anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

One day, he injured his knee playing basketball, and was soon prescribed a powerful regime of opioid treatments, including a fentanyl patch, for the pain, before being medically discharged. It took him a while to realise he was addicted.<\/p>\n

The addiction soon consumed everything \u2013 his money, his family, his home \u2013 and he was homeless for a period before getting clean and finding work at a VA medical center in Tennessee. But there, as a mail clerk, he found himself helping ship out packages containing pharmacy packages, and he was caught stealing pills in a sting operation.<\/p>\n

Even with his military service, he had a difficult time finding work afterwards, now that he had a criminal record, a crushing blow after so many already.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really heartbreaking to me, especially after serving in the military,\u201d he told\u00a0The Independent<\/em>. \u201cI was really proud. I thought well, \u2018When I get out, it shouldn\u2019t be that hard to find a job.\u2019 Once I got that one ding on my background, it became really difficult. At times it made me want to quit, to just stop looking and fall back to the wayside.\u201d<\/p>\n

The experience, and in particular the estrangement from his family, inspired him to change things, and a methadone clinic helped him get clean again. Eventually, he found temp work in Tennessee through a staffing firm called Kelly Services, where he has now worked for more than four years and rose to become a full-time talent adviser. Finding a job that would accept him, given his history, proved to be a major turning point in his life.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a huge difference. You start to build that respect for yourself. Your family starts to respect you again. Your children begin to look up to you again,\u201d he said. \u201cThe stability of having gainful employment, having a nice house, having a working car, being able to provide the things for my family like I always wanted to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Arview is one of thousands of Americans who have found work with employers who embrace what\u2019s called \u201csecond-chance\u201d hiring. It\u2019s a movement rooted in social justice that seeks to view people as more than one mistake in their past and provide job pathways to the\u00a078 million<\/a>\u00a0US adults with some kind of criminal history.<\/p>\n

Numerous employers ask some kind of question about criminal background during the hiring process, often automatically ruling out candidates with minor or unrelated infractions who would be more than capable of doing the job, according to Jamira Burley, senior fellow at the Responsible Business Initiative for Justice, an advocacy group.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s extreme. One of the first questions you\u2019re asked is whether you have a criminal record. Folks don\u2019t even make it to the interview stage because they\u2019re automatically eliminated based on that question,\u201d she told\u00a0The Independent<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a barrier she\u2019s seen the impact of in her own life: all 10 of Ms Burley\u2019s brothers, as well as both of her parents, have been incarcerated, and that\u2019s made finding work extremely difficult for them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI watched them struggle with getting avenues to employment because of their criminal record,\u201d she added. \u201cWhat employers miss out on is a wide range of knowledge and skills that we have yet to fully maximize from folks who are formerly incarcerated because of the stigma we have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ready access to good work has also been shown to lower prison recidivism, Ms Burley said.<\/p>\n

Conversely, many people end up in the justice system for what are effectively crimes of poverty \u2013 lapsed car insurance, unpaid fees, theft for subsistence \u2013 impacting their ability to work and creating more desperation.<\/p>\n

The barriers to work for formerly incarcerated people are pervasive, according to Ken Oliver, executive director of background check firm Checkr\u2019s social foundation, who was formerly incarcerated himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are 4,800 legal barriers, laws on the books, that prevent people with criminal records from accessing basic services like employment, housing, other social services,\u201d he told\u00a0The Independent<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s a hold-over, this practice, this culture we built of second-class citizenry, of the king\u2019s England, the notion of civil debt. What happens is, people pay their debt to society, and then there\u2019s like this second life prison sentence that happens. Only you\u2019re free. It\u2019s like a scarlet letter.\u201d<\/p>\n

This also harms companies themselves, many of whom are desperately looking for employees during the so-called Great Resignation that has occurred during the pandemic, said Mr Arview, of Kelly Services.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey lose out on a tremendous amount of talent to fill all of the open roles we currently have across the nation right now if you use this blanket approach,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Despite these built-in barriers and stigmas, a new generation of companies has sought to leverage its influence to change hiring policies and open the workforce to more formerly incarcerated people.<\/p>\n

Background checking and staffing firms like Kelly Services and Checkr argue for a more individualised approach, considering whether a past crime or arrest is directly related to the job at hand, rather than a simple one-size-fits-all bar on justice-impacted people during the hiring process.<\/p>\n

success with this strategy with a high-profile pilot project at Toyota\u2019s Georgetown, Kentucky, plant, placing more than 600 people with criminal records at the company.<\/p>\n

The initiative expanded the automaker\u2019s applicant pipeline for the facility by 20 per cent, decreased attrition by 70 per cent, and increased diversity by 8 per cent, according to Kelly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe one thing that we realise, when you think about people who have some kind of a criminal background, we realised early on together that it can be anyone. That can be your brother or relatives or friends or aunt or uncle, et cetera,\u201d said Keilon Ratliff, a vice-president at Kelly. \u201cAs we started to dissect that, everyone became more open to the fact, hey just because someone has a criminal charge in their background, it doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re a bad person and they do deserve a second chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

This approach has attracted support from some of the biggest companies in the US, like financial firm JP Morgan Chase, one of the founding members of the\u00a0Second Chance Business Coalition<\/a>, which counts firms like AT&T, Walmart, and Visa as partners.<\/p>\n

Hiring practices that count out formerly incarcerated people are a \u201cmoral outrage\u201d rooted in \u201csystemic racism\u201d, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon\u00a0argued in\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0last year<\/a>, pointing to the disproportionate number of Black people who are arrested then struggle to get jobs once they\u2019re released.<\/p>\n

\u201cJobs bring dignity and lay a foundation for stability. Employment with a living wage leads to better social outcomes \u2013 stronger households, less crime and even better health and well-being,\u201d he wrote in the op-ed, adding, \u201cAn inclusive economy \u2013 in which there is equal access to opportunity \u2013 is a stronger, more resilient economy. That\u2019s something we should all get behind.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company is the latest to \u201cban the box\u201d and only inquires about someone\u2019s criminal background after a conditional employment offer has been made. It also partners with community organisations in Chicago and Columbus, Ohio, to offer job-seekers training and help with the often byzantine process in most states for clearing old convictions off their record \u2013 both steps it says are crucial to make hiring more fair.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven after someone has completed their justice system obligations, they\u2019re blocked from fully participating in the economy,\u201d Nan Gibson, executive director of JP Morgan\u2019s policy center, told\u00a0The Independent.<\/em>\u00a0\u201cThis is huge drag on the earning potential of millions of Americans. These are costs that are not only borne by the individual, but their families, their communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s effort has paid off: In 2020, 10 per cent of new hires at JPMC had a past interaction with the justice system, according to the firm.<\/p>\n

It has also sought to use its high profile to lobby for changes to financial industry rules around hiring, as well as push for so-called \u201cclean slate<\/a>\u201d laws, which use technology to automatically clear qualifying criminal records.<\/p>\n

As of late last year, four-fifths of the US population lives in a\u00a0jurisdiction that has \u201cbanned the box<\/a>\u201d and forbids the use of automatic disqualification because of a criminal background, according to the National Employment Law Project. And advocates have celebrated states like Pennsylvania, Utah, Michigan, New Jersey, Virginia, Connecticut and Delaware for passing bipartisan \u201cclean slate\u201d policies.<\/p>\n

But people like Jeffery Arview, the veteran and talent adviser, won\u2019t be satisfied until the societal stigma around those with a criminal charges on their record has lifted.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody has something they\u2019re not proud of in their life. I promised you,\u201d he said. \u201cThese people just want a second chance. You could be that second chance for that person.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2241,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,11,16,21],"class_list":["post-297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-bulbs","tag-energy","tag-lighting","tag-save-money"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/speirenua.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/speirenua.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/speirenua.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speirenua.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speirenua.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=297"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/speirenua.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2242,"href":"https:\/\/speirenua.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297\/revisions\/2242"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speirenua.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/speirenua.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speirenua.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speirenua.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}