Prisoner Re-entry Initiative

Overview

One of the goals of the CRS Program is to address the intersection of various forms of subordination and to increase our understanding of the role of law in this process.  American social policy and legal reforms since the 1980s have largely relied on incarceration as a public policy response to issues of crime and social dislocation.  These policies have been accompanied by legalized discrimination that strips formerly incarcerated people of various rights even after they have completed their sentences, including the right to vote, the right to public assistance, and the right to work in specific vocations.  A striking feature of this phenomenon in the United States, is the racially-ordered character of incarceration and its impacts.  The CRS community is committed to analyzing the interconnections between race and incarceration and to challenging injustices arising from that interaction, through the Prisoner Re-entry Initiative.  

History

In 2006, CRS partnered with A New Way of Life, a community based organization in Watts, to address employment discrimination faced by people with past criminal records. The Prisoner Reentry Initiative (PRI) began as a two year pilot program sponsored by the UCLA Center for Community Partnerships. Through the PRI, CRS students conducted legal research to support the community organizing and policy advocacy efforts of formerly incarcerated people to change laws and policies related to re-entry. The initiative also led to the creation of a new student-run legal clinic, which trains law students to expunge misdemeanor and felony convinctions, assist in the application for certificates of rehabilitation, challenge denials of occupational licenses, and identify potential claims of employment discrimination. Finally, the PRI led to these web pages as an online resource, which we hope will inspire and inform others working to address employment discrimination against former prisoners:

Context

A criminal conviction can lead to various obstacles that impede rehabilitation, collectively referred to as "collateral consequences" of a criminal charge or conviction. These include barriers to employment, housing, family union, health care, and political participation in government, to name a few. We focused on employment barriers to reentry, analyzing their implications and studying political and legal initiatives to lower these barriers.

An individual convicted of possession of controlled substances may receive and successfully complete a summary probation of two years. Nevertheless, the individual will likely be evicted from her Section 8 housing and may even be denied other forms of public assistance such as TANF, General Relief, and food stamps. Negative effects of these collateral consequences may be mitigated if the individual can obtain a decent job. Yet there are many barriers to her post-conviction employment that remain largely invisible to the general public and, more importantly, to the individual herself pre-conviction as well as to most actors in the criminal justice system who prosecute, defend, convict, and sentence her.

CRS students surveyed and found mixed responses from employers, both public and private, in the greater Los Angeles area regarding their willingness to hire someone with a criminal record. Research shows that too few employers are willing to help people with criminal records reintegrate into our society. This widespread reluctance showcases systematic discrimination that arises from the intersection of race, poverty, and the criminal justice system.  In addition to providing legal research and writing support to the policy advocacy and community organizing efforts, CRS students have supported A New Way of Life's educational advocacy related to  employer issues.  This has included "translating" current laws on the hiring of ex-offenders for materials that can be understood by employees and employers, conducting presentations at employment fairs, and conducting a presentation for staff of the local EEOC office in Los Angeles.