Few ex-prisoners in the US manage to secure employment after their release – a prior conviction automatically disqualifies them. Homeboy Industries is working to change that
When
Vance Webster was released from prison three years ago, he was
determined to find a job, his first ever, and finally get his life
off the ground. He was 45 years old and had been in prison since he
was 16, serving out a 25 to life sentence for being an accessory
after the fact to a gang-related murder and robbery. Vance applied
for hundreds of positions, did over 80 interviews and finally, almost
miraculously, got a job in a warehouse. Seven months into that job, a
supervisor told him he was being let go for having lied on his
application. He had failed to tick the box that asked if he had been
convicted of a felony in the past seven years. Although he pointed
out that he hadn't actually committed a felony in 29 years, he was
fired and the job he'd fought so hard to get was gone and, so it
seemed, was his shot at a decent life.
Every
year, approximately 650,000
people
are released from prison with their time served and their debt to
society supposedly repaid. For most of them, however, even the most
minor of crimes can result in a life sentence of unemployment. In
most states, every job application form has a box that asks if you
have ever been convicted of a crime. It's safe to assume that when an
x marks the spot, most of the applications will not make it past the
first round. In addition to this huge hurdle to gaining employment,
former prisoners are routinely denied access to welfare, public
housing, educational funding and, of course, the right to vote.
Marilyn Austin-Smith, a member of All of Us or None, a campaign for
post-prison employment, said
it best
in a recent radio interview:
"They're
stopping you from feeding your babies, stopping you from making a
living and they wonder why there's so much crime in the world."
In
California, where Vance is from and where gangs thrive in low income
neighborhoods, the recidivism rate is close
to 70%.
Vance could well have ended up on the wrong side of that statistic if
a little organization with big aspirations calledHomeboy
Industries
had not found its way onto his radar. Homeboy Industries is the
brainchild of Father Greg Boyle, who realised that the answer to
crime in the economically disadvantaged neighbourhood that is his
parish was not more prison time, but more jobs. He quickly realised
how reluctant many employers were to hire anyone with a criminal
record, so he decided to find ways to get them working himself. With
the help of a small donation from a movie producer, Boyle took over a
rundown bakery. Now, 20 years later, Homeboy Industries has an
operating budget of $14.8 million andemploys
nearly 400 people
its bakery, the Homegirl Cafe, its Tattoo Removal parlor and other
enterprises. It also has its own line of products (such as Homeboy
Salsa),
which is the best-selling item in the deli section at the Ralph's
Supermarket Chain.
When
Vance walked into the Homeboy offices, he was given a job immediately
and that job has changed his life. Within three years, he has worked
his way up through the chain of command to the Leadership Committee
and now spends his days enabling other "homeboys" to escape
the trap of poverty and crime. Not everyone is so lucky, however. As
outlined in this report by the National Employment Law Project called
"65
Million Need Not Apply"
there are far more people with criminal convictions looking for jobs
than Homeboy Industries and organizations across the country like
them can possibly accommodate. The recession is making things worse
of course, but so is another factor that has emerged in the recent
past: the rise of online criminal databases. This ease of access to
criminal records on the internet makes it impossible for people to
ever escape their criminal past, even when their convictions are
decades old.
Lawmakers
across the country are slowly starting to realise that sentencing
people to a lifetime of unemployment, in addition a stint in prison,
is not the smartest way to go about reducing crime. Many
jurisdictions have implemented "ban
the box"
measures on job application forms for public sector jobs. But only
two states so far, Hawaii and Massachusetts,
have banned the box for job seekers in both the private and public
sector. This does not mean that a beleaguered employer will suddenly
find themselves with a dangerous criminal in their midst; criminal
background checks can and do happen further along in the process. It
simply means that a prior conviction does not automatically
disqualify an applicant. According to Homeboy's Emily Skehan, this is
actually good news for employers. Some of the industries they work
with, like the Iron Workers Union, now only hire homeboys because
they tend to make stellar employees.
"They
know how much they have to lose, she says, "for them it's not
just a job, it's their chance at life."
Sadly,
our current policies and practices ensure that millions of people are
denied that chance. This is unfortunate, because many people who end
up in the criminal justice system endure childhoods that read like
horror stories of deprivation and neglect, but in the "homeboy"
world are nothing special. Vance was rendered homeless at the age of
12 after witnessing his mother being beaten into a coma by an abusive
partner. He slept on the rooftop of a local McDonalds and survived on
leftovers the restaurant staff gave him. He spent his teenage years
in and out of juvenile detention, before copping his 29 year prison
term. Yet now, at age 48, he is living an exemplary life. The
potential to do so was always in him, it just required a little
kindling.
Many
other homeboys could benefit from a little kindling too. A far better
approach than our current one of heaping disadvantage on those who
have already had more than their fair share.
Isa
42:22- But this [is] a people robbed and spoiled; [they are] all of
them snared in holes, and they are hid in prison houses: they are for
a prey, and none delivereth; for a spoil, and none saith, Restore.
Psa
25:20- O keep my soul, and deliver me: let me not be ashamed; for I
put my trust in thee.
2
Esdras 2:20 Do
right to the widow judge for the fatherless
give to the poor defend the orphan clothe the naked
