Reentry Employment Strategies
Reducing Employment Barriers for People with Arrest Records and Convictions - National Employment Law Project (NELP).
Please check out this powerful Power Point presentation from Michelle Natividad Rodriguez, National Employment Law Project, that addresses reducing employment barriers for people with arrests and convictions. Please click here for the presentation and click here for the NELP homepage
News! New rules regarding the hiring of the formerly incarcerated.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission voted to pass updated guidelines on the hiring of individuals with criminal records. The updated guidance provides employers with greater clarity on the fair use of background checks, in order to help the vast majority of employers who are often unaware of federal civil rights laws and how criminal record based discrimination can serve as a surrogate for race based discrimination. The guidance will also go a long way to educate jobseekers with criminal records who face tremendous challenges in navigating the expanded use of criminal background checks for employment in today’s competitive job market. Click here to read about the changes.
More than 92 million individuals have a criminal history on file in state databases, according to the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Having a criminal past can haunt a person's future, especially when it comes to seeking employment. Yet a new CareerBuilder survey shows that companies are open to giving people a second chance. According to the study, 51 percent of human-resource managers reported that their organization has hired someone with a criminal record. The study included 2,298 U.S. hiring managers and human-resource professionals and was conducted between May 14 and June 4, 2012. To read more, click here.
National HIRE Network
The National HIRE network has the objective of increasing the number of job opportunities that are available to individuals that have criminal records. Click here to access their webpage. Click here to read their "National Blueprint for Reentry" pdf file.
Center for Employment Opportunities
Findings from an independent, random-assignment evaluation of CEO programs show that people who enroll in CEO have significantly lower rates of recidivism on a variety of measures—including a 40 percent reduction in re incarceration for a new crime—two years after joining the program, an effect rarely seen in rigorous studies such as the one CEO underwent. They have a pdf file entitiled "The Power of Work", that you can download to view by clicking here Access their website here.
Smart Solutions for Employers
Information helpful for employers, who may be considered hiring formerly incacerated persons. Click here for the PDF
Employment specialists for the "formerly incarcerated" UPDATED 1/08/2013
Click here to get a pdf file of North Carolina local and state branch offices for former offender specialists / Employment Security Commission.
Can Employers Play a Major Role In Prisoner Reentry?
Click here for a 17 page pdf file that describes the barriers, as well as possible remedies, towards the hiring of the "formerly incarcerated". This is a good report not only for employers, but for those seeking employment with criminal records.
"Ban The Box" - removing barriers to employment for the formerly incarcerated.
Click here for our new webpage.
National Employment Law Project (NELP)
Criminal records and employment. Click here to access their website.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons and the Department of Labor
The Inmate Transition Program Branch (ITB) serves to strengthen existing Federal Bureau of
Prisons (BOP) programs and to establish new ones designed to enhance the post release
transition of federal prisoners. This employment information handbook provides prisoners with
contacts and other information that can help them to prepare for release. Free information has
been gathered from a variety of sources including, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Internet web
site, and you may freely copy, share, and use these materials. Click here to download this file.
Busisnessman's Good Reasons for Hiring Formerly Incarcerated Persons
Clcik here to view the webpage.
Why I Hire Former Convicts and Gang Members
Click here to read this interesting webpage at bnet.com!
North Carolina Dept of Commerce Former Offender Work Search Guide.
Click here to download the 2012 updated pdf file.
Making favor with desserts
DURHAM - "Thirty-six-year-old Keijuane Hester is one serious man who's on an amazing journey, and cake baking makes it a sweet walk. "We don't play no games. We are making cakes around here," said Hester as he proudly looks around his new "baker's" kitchen." Read about his amazing return to the "Real World", at the Triangle Tribune website by clicking here.