Archive: What has the Prisoner Re-entry Initiative Accomplished?

We have collected all student research and work products associated with the Prisoner Reentry Initiative under the following three categories.

• "Ban the Box" advocacy materials
• Student work products, including presentations, brochures, and primary research
• Informative articles written by third-parties

Summary of Accomplishments:

ØBan the Box Campaign.                                                                                                                   

Throughout the partnership, A New Way of Life/All of Us or None conducted one-on-one meetings with members of Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and members of the Los Angeles City Council in support of the Fair Employment Resolution/Ban the Box Campaign.UCLA students prepared supporting documents and attended meetings when possible.

ØPanel Discussion on Reentry Barriers at UCLA (March 07).                                                                   

CRS students Priscilla Ocen and Betsy White organized a panel discussion at the Law School on Barriers to Reentry and Community Advocacy.A New Way Of Life Executive Director Susan Burton spoke on the panel about the work of A New Way of Life/All of Us or None and the Prisoner Reentry Initiative, along with UCLA Professors Noah Zatz, Gerald López, UCLA Professor of Urban Planning Michael Stoll, and Alex Sanchez, Executive Director of Homies Unidos, a community organization dealing with incarceration and deportation.

ØLegal Research and Educational Materials.

Seven UCLA Law students conducted research on civil rights law that pertains to former prisoners, including rights in the areas of employment, voting, and housing.They reviewed California statutes on the use of criminal conviction information, including federal and state disparate impact litigation.The research compiled by UCLA students was then used to publish educational materials including a PowerPoint presentation and two tri-fold brochures on employment and reentry—one directed at employers; the other at job seekers (see attached documents).

ØUCLA Students Present at All of Us or None Public Meeting (April 07)

Four UCLA students presented their preliminary research on reentry barriers and Civil Rights to an audience of approximately 40 All of Us or None community members.

ØPartnership meetings.   UCLA law students, CRS Faculty Partners, and A New Way Of Life staff met biweekly to assess research and campaign development, and to develop revised strategies and research questions.

ØPrivate Employer Outreach.      Two UCLA students and A New Way of Life staff met with the Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee of Los Angeles County (Nov 2007) to strategize ways to reach out to private employers and engage them on their policies with regard to hiring people with prior convictions.This discussion provided the partnership with a more complete understanding of the concerns of employers and the best strategies for reaching them.Further, UCLA students and A New Way of Life staff attended several local Job Fairs to survey employers about their hiring policies.Building on the student research from previous quarters, UCLA students also made phone calls to the Human Resource personnel of the top 20 employers in Los Angeles, to inquire about their hiring practices and collect contact information for invitation to our culminating event.

ØLaunched Prisoner Reentry-Employment Rights Clinic.  In summer 2007, two Critical Race Studies students (Joshua Kim and Ned Boehme) attended 5 free legal clinics in Los Angeles County organized by allied non-profit organizations in order to learn from their process and structure.Based on what they learned at existing clinics and from talking to representatives of the Public Defender’s office, they began to design and organize the Reentry Legal Clinic with the guidance of A New Way of Life staff.In mid-September, they trained 26 law students to provide service at the legal clinic and identified supervising attorneys for student training and clinic supervision.Student interns also developed customized forms and materials for the legal clinic, including intake forms, Frequently Asked Questions, an employment discrimination survey, evaluation form, etc.Simultaneously, A New Way of Life staff and members of All of Us or None conducted County-wide outreach for the legal clinic, including phone and email outreach, posting fliers in strategic locations, and presenting at local reentry and drug treatment programs. Our first clinics were held in south Los Angeles at the Watts Labor Community Action Committee in September and October, 2007, and March 2008.Throughout the partnership, we assisted more than 70 clients in the process of expungement, certificates of rehabilitation and employment discrimination advocacy.A New Way of Life also emerged as a leader in training volunteers to assist the public with expungements.Using our experience in training law students to volunteer at the clinic, UCLA graduate Joshua Kim, with the support of A New Way of Life staff, produced a 20 minute training video with accompanying materials that will be available on the CRS and New Way of Life websites.In July 2008, we conducted a 3-hour expungement training for 55 community advocates and attorneys, using the new video.

  

ØReached out to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.  UCLA students and staff reached out the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to explore the possibilities for enforcement of their guidance protecting workers with criminal convictions.CRS student Joshua Kim and staff of A New Way of Life and the National Employment Law Project met with the five District Directors of the EEOC and returned to the Los Angeles office to train EEOC staff and investigators on the scope of reentry employment issues in Los Angeles and how to use their guidance on workers with criminal convictions to recognize cases of discrimination.We have since continued to follow up with EEOC staff to learn how to best assist workers to file discrimination claims when they are unjustly denied employment based on past convictions.

ØCulminating Event- Job Fair and Reentry Employment Seminar.The Reentry Employment Seminar was a collaborative effort between A New Way of Life, UCLA School of Law, Watts Labor Community Action Committee (WLCAC), and the Southeast LA Work Source Center.The Job Fair convened over 500 job seekers and 75 employers.During the Job Fair, A New Way of Life Programs Director Melissa Burch and UCLA interns Claudia Pena and Liza Brereton conducted two seminars for employers and job seekers titled Hiring People with Prior Convictions: Social, Legal and Business Considerations.Topics covered in the seminar included complying with anti-discrimination law, negligent hiring and liability issues, ban the box, and tax benefits for employers.The seminar was attended by nearly 75 people, including representatives from the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.