Normalize Opportunity
How you can help create alternatives for the poverty to prison pipeline.
If I pulled a gun out my car window and pointed it towards you right now, would you sit and wait to see what’s gonna happen next or would you run? Leroy Jones chose to run. It landed him a felony conviction for fleeing and eluding. Because, unbeknownst to him, the person with the gun was a police officer in an unmarked car.
“During that trial, I lost everything I was working towards for years,” Jones said. Including the funeral director career he’d spent the past two years in college studying anatomy and embalming bodies for.
Looking back, it was a miracle it took as long as it did for him to catch a felony charge, because if you ask him, his life was always pointed in that direction.
“My family had been in poverty for a long time,” recalls Jones. “Even while I was trying to finish high school, I was worried about surviving.” It wasn’t a foregone conclusion he’d finish high school, and making it to college, let alone through college, took a series of lucky breaks that pushed his path in a more positive direction.
“I met a guy named Mr. Goliath who ran Goliath Academy in Miami,” says Jones. “He enrolled me into his high school. When I finished, he connected me with Miami-Dade Community College and told me a career in funeral services could make me a lot of money that could help me save my family. It was icing on the cake that I got to study science, because my childhood dream was to be a virologist.”
He was excited for an opportunity to change his life, but that excitement quickly dried up when he failed his first semester. He didn't have books, financial aid, or any kind of guidance, and there wasn't a way for him to get any of those things on his own.
So, as he still does when he gets stressed out, he went for a run. “I sat on this bench to breathe and contemplate my life and this random guy showed up next to me,” recalls Jones.
That “random guy” turned out to be able to help him. “I told him everything that happened at school and he told me to meet him back in that spot tomorrow at 9:30am,” says Jones. The next day that man drove him to the college, bought all the books and supplies he needed, marched him up to the Dean’s office, negotiated his debt down to 30%, and paid it off right there.
“The only thing he asked me to do was pass my classes, and that’s exactly what I did for the next two years,” says Jones. But passing his classes wasn’t enough. He needed to pass the state licensing exam and he was ready.
Before he’d get the chance though, he’d get slapped with a felony. What for? Running when he saw a gun pointed at him from the window of a car, a car he didn't know was an unmarked police vehicle.
Weeks later when he sat for the practice test of the Funeral Director Licensing Exam, the requirements for the real exam read clearly “no felony convictions.”
Though the crime he was charged with had no relevance to his ability to perform as a funeral director, though it shouldn't be a crime to flee when you think someone's trying to kill you, Jones was handcuffed by a blanket ban on felonies in the Florida state licensure.
“I lost everything. I couldn't get a job. I couldn't get anything. My entire life was on pause for years,” says Jones.
The Problem
There’s this inherent assumption that if an employee has a past record, the workplace is less safe, but that’s just not true. No substantive research has ever been able to back up this misconception. Yet, employers and licensing agencies continue to conduct overly broad criminal record inquiries and enforce blanket bans.
After encountering the criminal legal system, regardless whether you’ve paid your debt to society or actually done anything wrong, you continue to be locked out of opportunities at every turn. And because we know the system disproportionately impacts people of color, the “collateral consequences” of having a record perpetuates racial disparities and exacerbates the wealth gap.1
Poverty is almost a prerequisite for incarceration. Incarcerated people are concentrated at the lowest ends of the national income distribution even before stepping foot in a cell.2 More than 80% of incarcerated people make less than $15,000 a year before they ever go to prison.3
The issue becomes more detrimental when you understand that not only are people being locked out of employment and licensing post-release, but while in prison, they’ve historically been barred from accessing higher education.
Contrary to what TV might show, people in prison aren’t just out here getting degrees and coming out as lawyers and civil engineers. The infamous 1994 “Crime Bill” made sure of that.
One less popularly discussed facet of the bill was revoking access to Pell Grants for the imprisoned. This led to over 700 college level programs specifically designed to support prison populations disappearing almost overnight. Within three years only eight college programs4 were left to serve the more than 1.2 M people imprisoned across the country.5
“Advocates have been working for the last 30 years to rebuild what was once a thriving ecosystem of educational opportunities,” says Rebecca Villarreal, Senior Director at Jobs for the Future’s (JFF) Center for Justice & Economic Advancement.
And it’s working.
“There are currently about 400 college or credential pathways scattered across the country,” explains Villarreal. As of July 1, 2023, eligible incarcerated people can now access federal Pell Grant funding for the first time in almost 30 years.6
This has led to renewed emphasis on not just creating pathways for education, but career pathways to give people opportunities for economic mobility.
“Someone who has been systems-impacted shouldn’t have to be the exception to have access to economic mobility,” says Villarreal. “We need to remove the barriers and create seamless pathways. So that opportunity becomes commonplace, as opposed to this kind of exceptional experience for a handful of people.”
This is where you come in. Everyday, people have the power to help “normalize opportunity” for all. How?
How You Can Help
1. Learn about fair chance hiring practices.
Even with their ability to access college in prison, the stigma of a criminal record will follow a system-impacted person wherever they go. So, we need employers who are willing to give formerly incarcerated people a fair shot at jobs they qualify for.
A simple way to do that is by advocating that gatekeepers in your workplace "ban the box."
Coined by All of Us or None, a project of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, banning the box is the act of delaying any inquiries into an applicant's criminal history until after you’ve extended a conditional offer. This allows employers or recruiters to evaluate offenses holistically once a candidate has proven their fitness for a job. A holistic evaluation takes into account: time passed since the offense, severity of the charge, and its relevance to the duties a person would be responsible for in their role.
2. Expand DEI work to include (J)ustice.
For organizations that have a diversity, equity, and inclusion stance, there’s an opportunity to cement that commitment by becoming trained as a second chance employer. Second chance employment takes fair chance hiring to the next level by enrolling HR and Operations staff into a program that trains them on best practices for integrating fair chance employment across the organization.
Jobs for the Future offers “a fairly intensive 12-week cohort experience, where employers come together and learn about how they change their policies and practices internally, and create a business case for being a second chance employer,” explained Villarreal.
The Jobs for the Future program is just one resource for employers to get started hiring and providing professional advancement to people with criminal records. You can also explore:
3. Get familiar with second chance legislation.
The truth is, until every employer is a second chance employer, the path of least resistance for the formerly incarcerated goes right back to prison.
“Poverty is what precedes a lot of the criminogenic activity, so we have to address that,” Phillip Cooper reminded us on the By Little podcast’s Second Chances Change the World episode.
Fair chance employment allows people with criminal histories to have the opportunity to move forward despite their record. But what if they had the chance to wipe their record completely clear automatically?
Across the country, advocates are working with legislators to enact “Clean Slate” bills in every state. These laws would mean:
Automated record clearance upon eligibility of the record (noting that eligibility varies from state to state).
Expunged arrest records.
Expunged misdemeanor records.
A strong recommendation for laws to include eligibility of at least one felony record.
According to the Clean Slate Initiative, providing second chances through automated record clearing enhances public safety by giving people access to fully participate in society, reducing their need to resort to crime to survive.
So when a person reenters society, access to gainful employment is a key factor for increasing the odds that they can find stable housing and provide for their families without breaking the law. The necessary first step to accessing employment is clearing records so people can get their foot in the door.
4. Disrupt the poverty to prison pipeline.
As Jones can attest, the pipeline starts well before the first arrest and continues well beyond release unless something disrupts its path.
After his conviction, he forged a new trail. He became a self-taught graphic designer and built a business, obtaining clients who never considered asking about his criminal record, because it had no bearing on his skill. After successfully exiting his design business, he taught himself skills in game design. He built 3D Dojo Studios, launching his first independent video game title DA PAPER BOY just this year. He even created a community of over 500 gaming creatives and teaches students around the world to create 3D art.
Jones has the talent, he has the skill, he has the drive, and the work ethic. All he needed was a couple people to give him the chance to prove it. There are countless people who have so much to offer, just like he does, who just need a chance.
If you're an employer, you can give someone a chance at your organization. If you're not, you can get involved with other organizations who are actively working to help people off the poverty to prison pipeline, like:
Free World, a tech-enabled nonprofit that aims to end generational poverty and recidivism by accelerating economic mobility for returning citizens.
Safer Foundation, an organization providing stabilizing support, employment, education, and advocacy that empower justice-involved individuals to achieve their true potential.
Café Momentum, a nonprofit restaurant and professional training facility that creates holistic, individualized plans for young people to begin addressing the issues they’ve had to confront throughout their lives.
It’s proven time and again that normalizing opportunity for the formerly incarcerated reduces crime. From higher education to safe housing to high earning, unionized jobs7, making the same opportunities available to all people, including the formerly incarcerated, increases safety for everyone. So, whether you choose to support a disruptor organization, advocate for legislation, fight for fair workplace practices, or simply help a distraught stranger after a run, you have the power to pave a new path towards a more safe and just community for all.
Experts Featured:
Leroy Jones is the Founder & CEO of 3D Dojo Studios, an Asheville, NC-based video game development company on a mission to reimagine an inclusive and equitable gaming industry. Leroy aims to true diversity in the industry by battling racial and gender discrimination and creating access to opportunity for Black and Brown creatives to thrive and be represented in video games.
Rebecca Villarreal is a senior director at Jobs for the Future. As a member of their Center for Justice and Economic Advancement, she is responsible for helping stakeholders change the narrative and remove structural barriers that systematically exclude the more than 70 million people with criminal records from opportunities for economic advancement.