(no subject)

[unusualmusic_lj_archive]

1.Part I: The American Post-Incarceration Crisis Part One

Welcome to America, where 2.3 million people are locked up, and each year 600,000 of those individuals will be coming home, often to communities near you. For the most part, they will leave prison uneducated, unskilled, unprepared, and angry at having spent years locked away in a warehouse. This is the legacy of the law-and-order movement and the prison boom of the 1990s: America is in the midst of an incarceration and post incarceration crisis.

This series of diary entries will:

(1) focus on the roots of this crisis
(2) argue that the current environment makes reform of American correctional policy more possible than it has been in years
(3) explain the need for federal involvement re state correctional policies
(4) explain how strategies related to building human capital and employability of incarcerated individuals can help remedy the current situation
(5) explain why federal efforts on employment of ex-offenders have failed and
(6) propose a series of national reformsMORE

2.Part II: The American Post-Incarceration Crisis

Although employment is only one component of an overall strategy for facilitating reentry and reducing recidivism, it plays a critical role in improving the outcomes of individuals leaving prisons. In order to better understand the relationship between incarceration and employment, it is helpful to examine the employment landscape both before and after prison.

The pre-arrest population is already at a disadvantage, characterized by low levels of education, high rates of unemployment, drug abuse, physical and mental health problems, and an erratic work history. When this same population exits prison, the difficulties increase, rendering ex-convicts a "significantly disadvantaged subset of an already-disadvantaged workforce." Although credible, empirical evidence on the matter is quite mixed, "the preponderance of it points to negative effects of incarceration on the subsequent employment and earnings of offenders."

A number of studies have suggested these negative effects, specifically, include a drop in hourly wages, decreased annual earnings, movement from full-time to part-time or temporary work, and forced transition into a secondary labor market.MORE

3.Part III: The American Post Incarceration Crisis

I theorize that one of the fundamental reasons why employer-side financial incentives have failed to improve the employment prospects of ex-offenders is the chronological position of such incentives along the prisoner reentry timeline. Incentives like the WOTC and the Federal Fidelity Bonding program only come into play – if ever – once an employer has received a job-seeker’s resume, interviewed the applicant, and is weighing the pros and cons of hiring that individual.

The problem with this fantastical timeline is that many individuals with criminal records never get far enough in the hiring process to realize the intended benefit – i.e. employment – of such programs. Some segments of the ex-offender population, particularly racial minorities living in urban areas, are almost uniformly cut off from the primary labor market: they do not receive callbacks, job interviews, or serious consideration as prospective employees, even with the added bonus of a tax credit. Barring a dramatic increase in the credit provided by the WOTC and the amount of insurance provided by the fidelity bonding program, it is unlikely that employers will changes their attitudes about hiring workers who have limited skills, erratic work histories, limited education, and criminal records. Additionally, it is worth noting that there are millions economically disadvantaged individuals who do not have criminal records. MORE

Comments

[jennem.livejournal.com]

Fascinating!

I'm bookmarking! Thanks.

I've been heavily involved in my school's Actual Innocence clinic, and it requires a prison visit every semester you take the clinic. From experience, I can tell you that anyone complaining about how "cush" prison is 1) has never actually been to prison and 2) is full of shit. :D

[unusualmusic.livejournal.com]

no prob. I really would like to bash ppl in the head who espouse that BS notion of prison being easy. The stupidity and cruelty and ignorance that such people are swimming in is vomit-inducing.