Conviction to Work

Since the late 1970s, the U.S. inmate population has increased more than fourfold. We still house one quarter of global inmates with only 5% of the world’s population. We still spend millions per inmate, keeping them on death row for years, for every death sentence our courts issue. Our recidivism rates remain absurdly high, and the employment prospects for those with criminal records are terrible. Even though there are cries against the some of the longest sentences on earth, movements towards rehabilitation on drug crimes, and even legislative efforts to ease these oppressive burdens, once convicted, most American criminals are shifted into a life path track that almost certainly pushes them back toward criminal activity.

The anger and bitterness amplified during incarceration doesn’t end with release; it simply simmers in frustration that life post-prison, for those who want to go straight, is a minefield of low expectations, low earnings and horrible prospects. It’s easier to find a reasonable-paying criminal economic path than to try and make it in the regular world. It’s almost as if we were begging these released inmates, who theoretically have paid their debt to society, to climb back into the criminal world just to survive.

Take the words of one convicted felon looking for work, 28-year-old Angel LaCourt: “Guys like us just want a chance to work and better ourselves, but that's not so easy when you've served time. Your record is public information; it's on Google. I have a lot of accomplishments to my name, but the first thing that people see when they look me up is my time in prison. You look around you at people who have no hope for a better life and it starts to wash off on you.” FastCompany.com, September 30^th.

“Three quarters of released prisoners are eventually re-incarcerated, over half within their first year of freedom. One of their biggest hurdles to reintegrating into society is finding a way to earn a living. Employers are hesitant to hire people with criminal records; former convicts are 50% less likely to get callbacks or job offers after an interview, even if they are well qualified. Without a source of income, many quickly return to a life of drugs and violence.

“This is something LaCourt understands well. He was first arrested in his late teens. After his release from the state penitentiary, he found it so impossible to find work that he ended up selling drugs to get by. He was back behind bars within a year, this time in a federal facility. Today, he's working hard to avoid repeating that mistake.

“What's clear to him is that traditional employment channels are unfavorable to men like him, so his survival will depend on being entrepreneurial enough to create a legitimate income stream for himself. He will need to deliberately seek people outside his crime-infested neighborhood to connect him to career opportunities or hire him as a trainer.” FastCompany.com. But how many folks who’ve served time would even know how to become entrepreneurs? And for efforts that require even a minimal investment to get a start, exactly where would that capital come from… legitimately? They need jobs… real jobs.

A number of former inmates have found some hope in athletic endeavors, from working in and helping to found gyms to becoming personal trainers. Donors and charitable programs can offer funding for efforts in this direction, and some former inmate entrepreneurs seeing underserved communities with a desire for a higher level of training in economically stronger communities have prospered, but this is the exception to the rule. This was particularly true in the tech area amidst Boston-Cambridge, where social activist Josh Feinman saw an opportunity to engage the services of super-fit former inmates and use the donations and financial support from tekkies open to “something different.” His gym in Kendall Square created just such an enterprise.

“The wealth gap in the United States is bigger today than any time since the Great Depression. Some scholars, like Erik Brynjolfsson, a management professor at MIT's Sloan School, believe that the technology sector is a main driver of this inequality. ‘It's the biggest factor,’ he told MIT Technology Review. He thinks the tech-based economy favors a small group to use their talents and make large amounts of money.

“By opening a gym in Kendall Square, Feinman is deliberately tapping into the wealth of tech workers. ‘The Kendall Square tech community is full of high-net-worth individuals and often, our clients end up becoming our donors,’ he says. And he's found that the Boston's tech community has been welcoming of [Inner City Weightlifting] and excited about contributing to its work. In fact, many people who come to the gym say they have been searching for opportunities to give back to their community, but have struggled to make sense of what the most pressing needs are.

“This can be a high-profile problem for tech philanthropists. Tech entrepreneurs donate significantly more than people in other industries, representing 49% of the $10.2 billion contributed by the 50 biggest donors in 2014. But where they choose to spend that money can and does generate controversy. Take Google, for example. The company is known for donating billions to charitable causes, but it has also been called out for focusing on problems in developing countries rather than improving the conditions in its own backyard, with Bay Area residents struggling with housing and transportation problems.” FastCompany.com.

With new money, new industries and new ideas, it would seem an obvious sweet spot for new mega-companies to fund and launch programs targeting what would otherwise become a recycle bin of criminals with growing rage and bitterness. And no, we cannot expect the recidivism rates to drop to zero no matter how good the programs might be. They have to be laced with caution but filled with hope. For those who enter such programs and prove themselves, society as a whole needs to purge the notion of a lifetime of punishment for those particular individuals who have served time.

I’m Peter Dekom, and cleaning up the criminal mess we have created for ourselves requires better neighborhoods, an efficient criminal justice system that actually benefits society, and the engagement of post-prison inmates into a world with hope.