The number of people with an incarceration, conviction, or arrest record – 70 million to 100 million, or one in three Americans – might surprise you. What might not surprise you is that for those who have interacted with the U.S. justice system, even in a minor way, finding a good job can be a challenge with lifetime economic implications.

Research out of the University of California, Los Angeles finds stigma in hiring. Employers “were less likely to hire applicants with convictions than applicants with the social media signal of the same underlying behavior.” Employers also expect those with criminal records to engage in undesirable behaviors at work.

Post-incarceration supervision can hinder successful reentry –  for example, by restricting travel for better employment opportunities and resulting in lower-paid jobs. Low wages create barriers to paying court-ordered debt, as well as providing financial support for families.

“As a general matter, employers are less likely to hire someone with a criminal record…and even prior arrests without convictions,” finds the LDF Thurgood Marshall Institute.

According to Statista, “There were over 7.55 million arrests for all offenses in the United States in 2023.”

“The overall employment rate over four years after a study population was released hovered between 34.9% and 37.9% – in other words, about two-thirds of the population were jobless at any given time,” according to 2022 data from the Prison Policy Initiative (PPI). The organization explains, in its research, joblessness is different than unemployment, which refers to people actively job seeking.

Employment or alternative interventions reduce recidivism rates amongst state prisoners tend to rise, according to data shared by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

In this article, WorkingNation takes an in-depth look at what is being done to provide greater access to economic mobility – training, educational, and job opportunities – for those impacted by the justice system.

‘Many reasons to support postsecondary education in prison’

Stakeholders around the country – including nonprofits, educational institutions, government agencies, and industry – are engaged in efforts to provide access to opportunity to people with justice system-involvement.

“Since 1961, we have continued looking to solve at a practical level, challenges that arise in the justice system that create major problems for individual people who are caught up in these systems,” says Ruth Delaney about the Vera Institute of Justice. “We’re looking, as an organization, to decrease the amount of contact and the frequency of contact that individual people are having with the justice system.”

As the initiative director of the Vera Institute’s Unlocking Potential, Delaney says there is a strong organizational focus on increased access to postsecondary education while in prison. “When Pell Grants were invented, they were accessible by incarcerated people. And then in 1994, that accessibility was ended by the omnibus crime bill.”

In July 2023, Pell Grant accessibility was restored to qualified individuals experiencing incarceration. Before that restoration, Delaney explains, the Vera Institute launched a pilot project in 2012 examining – if funds were available – would colleges want to teach in prison and, if so, the best way to offer that programming.

According to Delaney, college programming in prison has grown to more than 150 colleges in 48 states and the Bureau of Prisons in Puerto Rico. She says the programs include career and technical education programs as well as academic programs – and notes Pell-eligible credentials include certificates, associate, or bachelor’s degrees.

Delaney adds, “Some work that Vera is hoping to do going forward would actually be getting at that exact intersection to try to figure out what needs to happen for the programs that are offered in prison and the career advising offered alongside them to be attuned to the actual industries that people would be headed into for jobs and how do we get those employers excited about the idea of second chance hiring.

“There are so many reasons to support postsecondary education in prison. There’s no wrong reason to do it. What we see is that widespread access to postsecondary education makes corrections facilities safer for the people who live and work in prisons. It also improves students’ sense of self-worth and communication skills. It reduces the odds of recidivism. It increases graduates’ employment and earning potential, and it ultimately advances racial equity while saving taxpayers money.”

A Consortium of Learning

NJ-STEP (New Jersey Scholarship and Transformative Education in Prisons) is “an association of higher education institutions in New Jersey that works in partnership with the State of New Jersey Department of Corrections and New Jersey State Parole Board,  (a) to provide higher education courses toward a college degree for students while they are incarcerated, and (b) to assist in their transition to college life upon release from prison.”

The consortium of learning institutions – led by Rutgers University-Newark – “brought together a number of boutique programs, smaller programs that were happening across the state at different colleges and different prisons, and sewed together that work and tried to sew it together into degree-seeking programs and comprehensive degree-seeking programs as opposed to a class here or a certificate there,” explains Christopher Agans, NJ-STEP’s executive director.

The programming is currently available in three adult men’s facilities, one youth facility [for younger men 21 to 27], and the sole women’s facility in New Jersey. Pathways include an associate degree in liberal arts, and a bachelor’s degree in justice studies. Students who are released from prison and have yet to complete their four-year justice studies degree can transition to another degree program of their choosing.

In addition, Drew University – located in Madison, New Jersey – has crafted a master’s program at East Jersey State Prison. Agans says, “We have 10 students who have already earned a master’s certificate. They are literally halfway to completing that degree.

“Drew is currently working with their accrediting bodies and, internally, with their leadership to make sure that the degree that they’re offering is approved and that they have the full commitment of the university to finish that out.”

Agans says the consortium members provide career guidance and support, as well as direct referral and partnerships with specific employers.

He adds NJ-STEP has dedicated staff who, in some cases, are past program participants “that are providing individual specific support for students in perpetuity.”

“A number of our alumni are now working in spaces where they’re recruiters or where they’re starting their own agencies. They’re coming back to our community events to hire…and saying, ‘Hey, I want to make sure that these roles are open to system-impacted, formerly incarcerated employees’…and that those jobs are being advertised in the right spaces.”

Agans says, “We have employment partners who have worked with us over the years, but one of the most exciting ones is the State of New Jersey, itself. A good number of our students have moved into not just entry-level positions, but leadership positions in state agencies.”

It was recently announced that the New Jersey Office of the Public Defender launched a model to address individuals’ needs in the criminal legal system. “Three counties are now staffing, formerly incarcerated advocates who will work with clients to help address their more holistic needs and help them understand what the process is ahead of them,” explains Agans.

He continues, “I think that it’s really impactful, really powerful, and really important to say somebody who was in custody of the state was able to…earn a degree, grow their skills and credentials, and is now back in service of the state – and in some cases, looking at our justice system and how it can be more effective, more efficient, more humane.”

According to Agans, 476 people have earned associate degrees while incarcerated in New Jersey facilities – with additional learners earning that degree after release. About 60 have earned bachelor’s degrees while in prison with another 161 completing their degrees on the outside.

Job Seeking While Incarcerated

The California Prison Industry Authority (CALPIA) operates job training programs for individuals who are incarcerated in California’s 31 state prisons.

“Our primary focus is to help [these individuals] gain skills and abilities, and earn industry-accredited job certifications, apprenticeships, so that when they leave prison they can get a meaningful job, earning a meaningful wage, and not come back to prison,” says Bill Davidson, general manager for CALPIA.

Included among the 26 program offerings are health care facilities maintenance which is available at every state facility, as well as others that are offered in fewer institutions – optical manufacturing, food packaging, and CTE courses including computer coding and underwater welding.

Davidson adds CALPIA partners with trade unions, “We have a laborers program, a carpentry program, a roofing program, and they go through those programs and earn that industry-accredited [credential] or that apprenticeship in the program while incarcerated. When they’re released, they can go straight to their local union and apply.”

Each year, approximately 5,800 individuals participate in the job training opportunities.

Last year, CALPIA launched its Entry to Employment (E2E) program – which with the help of security software from Geographic Solutions, was able to create a job hunting bridge to California’s Employment Development Department (EDD) and CalJOBS.

“We had a method and means to provide training in a textbook format to our incarcerated individuals about how to apply things. But it was just a roadmap with no real life meaning and no real application,” explains Rusty Bechtold, assistant general manager of CALPIA.

He continues, “It’s like reading an encyclopedia and then telling them, ‘Once you’re released, go apply everything that you read.’ That wasn’t working for them.”

Bechtold explains that – with E2E – 150 days before release, “They can actually operate in a real-world environment without jeopardizing any security and create an account, create a resume, learn how to search for jobs, what careers are in my area, and business names and contacts.”

He points out that companies in the EDD system are required to check a box noting whether they are second chance employers.

Davidson says job seekers also have internal support from workforce development coordinators who work at the institutions – helping guide those who are in that period of transition prior to release.

Entrepreneurship as an Outside Pathway

The Prison Entrepreneurship Program (PEP) – based in Texas – operates programs in two facilities. Chip Skowron, CEO of PEP, explains the program provides character development through its Leadership Academy, entrepreneurship training, and business plan development. Participants who graduate from the program receive a certificate in entrepreneurship from the  Baylor University Hankamer School of Business.

This year, Skowron expects the in-prison program will graduate about 450 participants.

The aspiring entrepreneurs engage in a business pitch competition. Those whose ideas are selected become CEOs and the other participants act as their teams while business ideas are developed, and presentation skills are honed.

Skowron says the ideas are judged by prisoners and others who have been released from incarceration, as well as executive volunteers. He says that these executive volunteers also participate in mentorship and networking programs outside of prison.

“I would say 70% of our resources are committed to the reentry portion of our program. We have weekly classes that are volunteer-led and then have volunteer processing groups after our classes,” says Skowron.

He adds, “About 50% of our participants will move into our transition houses where they are met on Day One by a life caddy. We call case managers – life caddies. Those men are people who have gone through a program, and they meet the returning citizen, walk through with them – every minute, every step of their first 90 days. The first 90 days are a vital period when, quite frankly, about half of the men who wind up failing – i.e.: going back to prison or worse – are going to fail in the first 90 days.”

Skowron adds, “If they don’t have the support of a community to walk with them through those challenges, you’re probably only going to stir up the same kinds of reactions and behaviors that landed them in prison in the first place.”

The average time in a PEP transition house is four to five months but some stays can be one to two years.

Regarding small businesses that have come to fruition, Skowron says about 740 businesses have previously launched with about 530 still running. “We recognized early on that the banking sector was not going to be very helpful for our guys. So, we started our own Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) called Entre Capital that provides entrepreneurs with capital for their businesses if they’ve come home from prison. That is a way of basically increasing the probability of success for these businesses.

“We provide milestone grants for our budding entrepreneurs. If they have licenses or things that they need to put out capital for or certifications that their business needs, we’ll provide them with a loan. And when they get the milestone, when they get the certification, or the license or whatever they need, we will write them a grant that forgives the loan.”

Skowron says some participants choose to find employment instead of starting a business. Acknowledging employer partners, he says one company has hired 97 PEP graduates.

“What’s important to understand is the reason that a business would do that – it’s not charity, it’s good business. What we are adamant about is that we are preparing men for the workforce in a way that makes them, in many respects, better employees than other people who have not been through our program, whether they’ve been to prison or not.”

Introducing Stakeholders to Second Chance Hiring

“It’s work to really be able to get individuals, first of all, to paradigm-shift and see themselves as people that still deserve dignity and respect, and then also from a workforce development lens,” says Wylbur Holloway, manager of re-entry services, Employ Milwaukee – the local workforce board in Milwaukee County.

He adds, “We try to get them back into the world of work. Also intersecting with other areas that are happening in their lives, as well. So not only workforce, but housing, counseling, things of that nature. So more comprehensively and holistically looking at the person and how all those things contribute to assisting them with successful integration.”

Employee Milwaukee partners with the Wisconsin Department of Corrections to provide a pre-release program called Windows to Work, which works with individuals six to nine months before release and 12 months after release. This program helps with cognitive restructuring, employability skills, and reintegration planning.

Holloway explains an impactful initiative – reentry simulation – that takes employers, community members, and elected officials to prisons to experience reentry challenges. “’Today, you are Tanya. Tanya just came home from prison, and here’s what Tanya has to do. So, for the next couple of hours, you’re Tanya. You have to go here. You have to go to court to try to get your child back.’ It teaches how it is to walk in those shoes.

“We had a huge employer come to the reentry simulation and said, ‘Man, I’m totally blown away by this.’ Then they created a program within their organization to bring in individuals on a rotating basis.”

He says, “That’s not the expectation for every employer. We wish that would be, but we understand each employer is different. For some, ‘You need to go back to the drawing board and talk to your executives to find out is this something you’re trying to do? Because then there’s some internal changes that need to be done.’”

Holloway says the workplace environment is an important component when it comes to second chance hiring. “Sometimes the culture sucks. We’ve had that conversation with employers, ‘Hey, I appreciate that for these positions you’ve raised pay, but you’re still a revolving door because your culture is not an inviting culture.’ We want them to also be viable employees, so we don’t want them to be treated any differently.”

‘Diamonds in the rough’

Meanwhile, Mark Drevno ended up becoming a second chance employer – but not by design. He was running a business in northern California that was always looking for salespeople.

In 1999, he says a newspaper want ad was placed and a caller inquired, “I saw your ad and I want to apply for the job, but I’ve been incarcerated. I’m a recovered drug addict, and I want to make sure you don’t hold it against me.”

Drevno – appreciating the caller’s candor – says, “We hired him. He turned out to be a good employee. He did a good job selling. He had certain milestones that he wanted to accomplish in his life. He wanted to get married, have kids, buy a house. He did all that.

“I’d always think, ‘Gee, it’d be nice to hire someone else like him, like diamonds in the rough.’”

These days, Drevno is founder and executive director of Jails to Jobs. He says, “There’s a lot of trauma that goes with folks that have been incarcerated – previously to that. It’s a causes-and-conditions in one’s life. What I discovered through my own personal experience, going to the jail and talking to people, they’re really no different than I am. That really was quite a shift in my life.

“Over the years, my life is so much fuller and richer because I’ve allowed more people into it, people that I used to be basically just afraid of.”

Drevno’s organization offers the Second Chance Hiring Toolkit for Employers – which makes the case for second chance hiring. He points to unfilled jobs and the need for talent in sectors like skilled trades, manufacturing, transportation, housing, hospitality, and health care.

Drevno says, “If the six or 700,000 people that come out of prison every year, and the people that cycle in and out of jail – even if just 20% of those people got a job – hundreds of thousands of jobs over a very short period of time could be filled. It is very pragmatic. There’s tremendous potential there.

“I would just encourage employers to just go for it. Start with one hire. They’re going to be so happy that they did. It’s a workforce that’s dedicated, hardworking employees.”

Resources On the Outside

Recidivism Reduction Educational Programs Services, Inc. (RREPS) is a North Carolina nonprofit focused on supporting the successful reentry of individuals who have been incarcerated.

Kerwin Pittman, the organization’s executive director, says he founded RREPS in 2019 – a year after he completed serving 11-1/2 years. “When I came home, I was on the straight and narrow path, doing great for myself – advocating against social injustices, navigating reentry spaces.

“A lot of my friends [who were still incarcerated] would ask me, ‘Man, how are you able to do this?’ I realized that I needed to start something to help them on their journey, make it a smooth transition for them.”

Pittman explains that RREPS has a direct service branch, an advocacy and organizing branch, and a policy change branch. The range of RREPS’ supports includes:

• Job readiness, resume building, and interviewing skills
• Help obtaining ID, benefits, and housing
• Connection to mental health and substance abuse resources
• Digital literacy training
• Mentorship support
• Access to a call center – the Recidivism Reduction Hotline

In January of this year, RREPS launched the Mobile Recidivism Reduction Center – providing services to returning citizens via a traveling van. Pittman says, “It hit me that we got to bring the resources to the people. So, we quite literally meet them where they are. And we help with a lot of different assistance.”

He adds, “Our center serves as a mobile hotspot – 40 people can hook up to the hotspot. I put a digital equity component in there, as well. We have specialists on the Center who will assist these individuals. I merged that [call center] database – which is over a thousand reentry resources from across North Carolina and includes second chance employers, housing, education, a bunch of different resources.”

Pittman offers an example of the mobile center’s initial impact – serving 622 men and women over 20 days in the Raleigh area.

‘They’re not the worst thing that they’ve ever done in life.’

“In order to receive information and resources that can possibly help individuals, I think the first thing that comes to mind is that there has to be an increase in the level of trust,” says Terrell A. Blount, MPA, executive director of Formerly Incarcerated College Graduates Network (FICGN).

FICGN’s “mission is to promote the education and empowerment of formerly incarcerated people through collective community.” The nonprofit aims to support people who have experienced incarceration and are working toward or have completed their college education.

The organization’s members can build their networks by participating in events, workshops, and conferences. The platform also allows for job postings and job hunting.

Blount says, within the justice-impacted ecosystem, it’s crucial to use person-first language, “It’s important that employers, corrections, colleges, anyone working in this space to really be intentional about humanizing people who are a part of the system and who have experienced the system.

“Quite often we hear language such as ‘offender, inmate, or convict’ and there’s a strong push to move away from that language. It encourages the stigmatization of people with lived experience.”

Blount stresses it’s important to remember, “This person is not what they did. They’re not the worst thing that they’ve ever done in life.”

Recognizing an Overlooked Talent Pool

“Honest Jobs is a technology company that provides an online application where people with criminal records come to find jobs and resources,” explains founder and CEO Harley Blakeman.

He notes, “We are nationwide in the U.S. We have at least a thousand people using our service. We have over 162,000 registered users who have told us their name, address, phone number. They’ve given us their resume, their education, their work experience, their skills.” Job seekers can access the job postings for free.

On the employer side, Blakeman says Honest Jobs has employers from all 50 states – hosting about 300,000 jobs on average each day.

“It is free for employers to sign up and use our service. And then we have paid options for employers. If a company has a hundred job openings, they don’t want to manually post jobs with us. They want us to set up software integration so that we can get their jobs every day, keep them up to date in our system.”

As far as an inclusive workplace culture, Blakeman says, “What I’ll say is most companies are following what I think is the best practice – that is the smallest number of people in the company should know about the record, and many of the companies that are doing that best practice make it to where the person who interviews them doesn’t know they have a record.”

Blakeman knows the struggles of someone with a criminal record. When he was 18, he was convicted for possession with intent to distribute and sentenced to 14 months in prison in Georgia with another eight-plus years of parole.

While in prison, Blakeman earned his GED. Some months after his release, he says, “I got into community college, got almost straight A’s, transferred to The Ohio State University, got almost straight A’s there. Graduated with honors from the business school.

“I did everything. And when I graduated, I probably got rescinded offers from 60 companies. Every single company I applied for was impressed. They would make me a job offer, I’d accept it, and then they would take it away.”

Regarding hiring from this overlooked talent pool, Blakeman says, “We’re not going to try to convince every company to train their whole team to be fair chance hiring people because I don’t think that it will ever happen.

“So, what we say is, ‘Hey, you can post jobs with us for free. If you want us to help you with this stuff, you can pay us to do it. I’m happy to dive into the direction we’re going, but we are still a service that helps people with criminal records find jobs faster.’”

One company that is all in on second chance hiring is KeHE Distributors – an organic food distribution company. “One in three Americans has a criminal background, about 80 million Americans,” says Harris Rollinger, the company’s senior program manager for hidden talent.

“We can’t leave a third of the American workforce off the table when it comes to considering quality talent because we know that opportunity is not necessarily distributed equally or equitably across backgrounds, across economic statuses, across race and gender. And this is an extension of who we are.”

One source for KeHE employees is Honest Jobs. Rollinger says, “One of the things we love about Honest Jobs is their national reach. We are a nationally distributed company, so in terms of building relationships, we try to find organizations that have some of that national reach.”

He adds, “The impact been immeasurable. Word of mouth is really strong in the justice-impacted community. So, when you post on Honest Jobs, and you actually follow through, interview, and hire people – that carries a lot of weight.”

About searching for talent, Rollinger explains he was tasked with building a network and increasing the volume of applicants, “I always say we’re trying to lower the barrier and not the bar.

“What I mean by that is we’re trying to reduce barriers to employment but maintain the same quality of applicant. I’m not going to hire somebody because they have a record, they just happen to have a record. We’re going to consider them equitably the same way we would anybody else.”

He points out that, in addition to people who have been impacted by the justice system, ‘hidden talent’ populations at KeHE include veterans, adults with disabilities, and immigrants and refugees.

KeHE employs more than 7,000 people and has 19 distribution centers – 15 in the U.S. and four in Canada. 

One Man’s Second Chance Experience

“I have a history of drug and alcohol abuse. I’ve been in and out of the system when I was going through my troubles. I call it my ‘dark times,’” says Michael Taylor.

“When I was trying to get off drugs, one of the hardest things to do was find stable employment. I would lie on my resume. I would go to staffing agencies and say, ‘I don’t have felonies.’ I was just trying to navigate the world that I didn’t even know existed.”

A forced visit by his mother to attend a church service proved to be a turning point for Taylor. When the service was over, a family friend introduced Taylor to an executive from Cincinnati-based Nehemiah Manufacturing Company – with the hope of a job prospect.

“I remember the second day I was there, [CEO] Dan Meyer came up to me, shook my hand, and said, ‘Hey, I hear you’ve been through a lot. We’re here to help’ which was such a paradigm-shift from what I had experienced when I was trying to find a job,” recalls Taylor.

Fast forward more than 13 years and Taylor is now the company’s vice president of operations. Nehemiah partners, primarily, with Procter & Gamble  (P&G) to revive – what Taylor calls –”orphan brands” which he explains are smaller, sister brands of P&G’s major brands. He is in charge of production, blending, maintenance, production planning, and safety.

Regarding his 13 promotions, Taylor says, “I just kept challenging myself to try to be the person that they saw in me until I actually built the confidence to where I could do it myself.”

Meyer – CEO of Nehemiah – has more than 40 years of experience in consumer-packaged goods. He founded Nehemiah in 2009, “committed to bringing manufacturing jobs back to the inner city of Cincinnati to stimulate community development and economic growth.”

He says, “I like to say we knew the ‘why’ of the company before the ‘what and the how’ – the ‘why’ of the company is in the name Nehemiah. He’s an Old Testament prophet called by God to rebuild Jerusalem, one stone, one brick at a time.

“I wanted to come into the inner-city core of Cincinnati to make a difference. One person, one day at a time through sustainable employment because I knew it’s a tough neighborhood.”

Employees of Nehemiah are called “family members.” Meyer says the company employs about 250 people and approximately 170 of those are second chance hires, “The business case is very simple. You treat people the right way. You get twice that return and what’s that look like for us? Showing up on time, highly productive, and low turnover. Low turnover in an industry like ours could be 50 to 100%. Ours is 15%. It costs us $3,500 to onboard somebody.”

Taylor adds a second chance hire might be a mother with little work experience, but he notes, “Ninety percent are coming through the justice system or drug and alcohol addiction.”

Meyer says wraparound services for family members are a game changer. He says life can “spin out of control” due to a flat tire or a sick child. The company employs three full-time social workers to address workers’ needs.

He says the company also has an in-house support group because “our family members [may] have issues and need a safe place to just share their thoughts.”

And Meyer points out, the hard work of Nehemiah’s workforce does not go unrecognized, “Everybody in the family is working to the same end. At the end of the year, we share the profits. We make sure everybody’s got the bonus commensurate with what we’ve done.”

Taylor says, “I like to say that we built a $150 million company off the backs of those people that nobody else wanted. We’re such a large population of second chance hiring in every department. We don’t look at ourselves as second chance because we’re just family members.

“It’s taken me every bit of half of those 13 years to realize that I did a lot of really bad things, but I wasn’t a bad person. What does Nehemiah mean to me? It is my life now. It’s my passion, it’s my job.”