Give ex-offenders a second chance at life
Harold Collins hadn’t been on his new job two days before he received his first customer request. Or rather, a plea for help. “I am having a hard time finding a career with my ‘background,’ (misdemeanor),” Collins said the email read.
“I have not been in trouble in 15 years. I am 36 years of age and it’s time for me to find a career path for myself and my family. But this is holding me back . ... “I need your help.” More people like that 36-year-old are out there, Collins said. People — and young black males in particular — who can’t begin new lives because they’re still paying for old mistakes. People who are barred from making an honest living because of dishonesty in their past.
But Collins, whom Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris recently tapped to lead the county’s Office of Re-entry, intends to work to change that.
“I got that email on the second day,” said Collins, a former Memphis city councilman. “Imagine what my staff has been getting all along.” There’s no need to imagine. According to “The Poverty Report: Memphis Since MLK,” more than 35 percent of African-American men are absent from the Shelby County workforce. That compares with more than 27 percent of white men not participating in the county workforce.
Combined with the reality that nearly twice as many African-Americans as whites are incarcerated in Shelby County, that means unless there’s a way for them to assimilate into the workforce, they, like the man who sent the email to Collins’ office, won’t be able to support themselves or their families.
And, for the past several years, the impact of that has been clear.
A major reason for the disproportionate incarceration rates is because the War on Drugs has largely been fought in black communities — places devoid of well-paying jobs where the drug trade filled in the gap.
“There is no doubt that the rate of incarceration of African-American males since the late 20th century has had a dramatic impact on the unemployment rate for African-American males,” the report reads.
“We can thus hypothesize that the removal of African-American men from the community has had a positive correlation to the increase in childhood poverty rates.” And that poverty rate, for AfricanAmerican children in Shelby County, is nearly 50 percent. A rate that won’t improve as long as men, like the 36-yearold emailer, can’t get a job to support his family.
That’s why it makes sense that Harris has prioritized revamping the re-entry office. Among other things, he and Collins want to create a stronger link between that office and WIN — Workforce Investment Network — to connect former offenders to jobs. They also want to focus on jobs that pay a living wage.
“He wants me to turn a Flintstone mobile into a Maserati,” Collins said.
But, Collins said, he’s up to the task — and Harris said that one aspect of this that the community must understand is that helping former offenders find jobs is all part of deterring crime.
“Re-entry is just as important as arrest and prosecution,” Harris said. “Almost everyone who is in prison now is going to come back to the community.” He’s right. Yet if a 15-year-old misdemeanor charge can impede someone from finding decent work, as Collins’ emailer claims, then it likely is exponentially worse for those who have committed felonies in the past.
So, Collins and Harris have a job ahead of them. They must not only persuade employers that they should give former offenders a second chance because it is the right thing to do, but because doing so will ultimately make those ex-offenders taxpayers instead of tax burdens.
Employers must realize that if they give those offenders a second chance, they can begin to make a dent in problems such as the obscene childhood poverty rate that mars Memphis and Shelby County’s reputation.
That’s important because if past mistakes continue to be used to hold back fathers and mothers and others who have paid for those mistakes, then Shelby County will struggle to move into the future.
A future where fewer children will grow up poor.