Job seekers with criminal histories thankful for expungement clinic

Assertive community treatment teams working through outreach-centered programs in Maricopa County have become an industry standard for treating those with persistent and severe mental illnesses who have recently been incarcerated. They provide a long-term approach, aiming to halt a cycle of incarceration and hospitalization by focusing on underlying issues such as what caused the police interaction and incarceration.

In Wisconsin, the Department of Corrections is tailoring their prison education programs to meet the needs of the job market, and it is benefitting former inmates as well as the economy. Milwaukee Area Technical College works to get inmates credentials, which helps them get jobs upon release from prison. The investment pays off. For every dollar spent educating inmates, the government saves $5 in the years after their release.

Street Outreach Court Detroit is a collaboration between the courts and service providers to waive legal and financial obligations post-conviction if a person makes a commitment to an individualized action plan. These plans can include steps such as substance misuse treatment, enrolling in a workforce readiness program, and accessing housing subsidies.

To continue serving tens of thousands of refugees stuck at the U.S.-Mexico border during the pandemic, shelters have collaborated on an improvised system to deliver food aid, emergency hotel accommodations, and legal aid via videoconferencing. The border buildup of recent months, a product of the “Remain in Mexico” asylum policy, became a far more complicated humanitarian mission thanks to COVID-19. After completely shutting down, some shelters are cautiously reopening with new protocols to serve a more socially-distanced clientele.

Freed from prison after serving at least 15 years, often much longer, for crimes committed when they were teens, a group of men holds twice-monthly Zoom meetings to lend structure and peer support to their lives during a time when COVID-19 restrictions foreclose other face-to-face meetings. Under Washington, D.C.’s Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act, 42 men have been released. At least 22 of them meet regularly to share leads on possible jobs, discuss their frustrations, and encourage each other to stay focused on the positive.

Frustrated by a tight labor market, two locally owned Grand Rapids employers discovered the virtues – economic, not just moral – of hiring formerly incarcerated people, whose gratitude for an opportunity translated into excellent performance and less risk of adding to rapid turnover. The employers helped guarantee success by paying for support services that made post-prison transitions easier. The employers then talked hundreds of other local employers into doing the same. Besides providing a business advantage, the program changes lives and is evidently contributing to much lower rates of recidivism.

New Hampshire's Rockinham County gives some people with extensive drug and criminal histories an offramp from the criminal legal system, in the form of housing at Cross Roads House and a drug court to emphasize treatment over punishment. But, while other cities in the state meet such needs with multiple programs, the second-most populous county in the state has a severe shortage of supportive housing and services. Such services can make the difference between prison and success, and even between life and death in a place with high rates of overdose deaths.

Domestic abuse of the staff in the households of the 1% is often overlooked or ignored. But foreign missions in the US that abuse their domestic staff are finally being held accountable.

The Defender Association of Philadelphia practices community-oriented public defense — also known as "holistic defense" — to connect clients with support services and resources that help address the root causes of crimes. The association works with social workers, investigators, and paralegals to get clients access to housing, food, jobs, and healthcare, as well as mental health and substance use treatment, with more than 150 people referred to treatment providers between September 2016 and January 2017.

The Returning Citizen Stimulus program provides temporary cash assistance to people recently released from prison, who face steep barriers to finding jobs and stable housing when transitioning out of incarceration. The payments started in 2020 and have helped more than 10,000 former inmates get on their feet, with 42 percent of recipients finding employment within five months of their release.