African-American Men With Criminal Records Need Our Help!
Tags: BlackLivesMatter, Social Justice, Discrimination, Prison Reform, Social Change

Introduction

The objective of this study is to determine what interventions are available for assisting in the obtainment of jobs after being incarcerated for low-income, black men. Employers hold a negative stigma against individuals who have done time in jail or prison, which is only exacerbated when adding in a racial stigma against the black community (Pager et al., 2009). The ability to acquire a job is a necessity for law-abiding citizens in the United States to be able to pay their bills, taxes, and to buy other life essentials. Without the ability to secure a job after being released from prison, the risk of recidivism is bound to increase. This is due to the individual needing to find another source of income besides a legitimate job in order to survive.

Every year in the United States over 10 million people are arrested and serve some amount of time behind bars (Freudenberg et al., 2005). Out of these arrests, 40% of the men that are held in incarceration are black, but only 6% of the United States population is comprised of black males (Hartney & Vuong, 2009). Due to the trends over the last three decades, it can be expected that one out of every three black males born in the United States will end up spending some amount of time in prison (Mauer, 2011). The disproportionality of black males in prisons is directly related to the policies and laws implemented in order to prevent crack and cocaine from circulating around the United States (Warde, 2013). The police decided to enforce these new laws in economically disadvantaged, black communities, even though according to Mauer (2011), it was evident that blacks were using these drugs at only a fifth of the rate that whites were using these drugs.

Individuals who find steady employment opportunities have much lower chances of being re-arrested (Lopoo & Western, 2005). However, obtaining a job becomes much more complicated when faced with a minority status and a criminal background. Employers are less likely to interview applicants with these stereotyped negative attributes and may be bias during the interview thus providing less opportunity for the applicant to prove his worth and competency (Pager et al., 2009). A research study was performed in NYC by Pager et al. (2009) to determine the impact of a criminal record on hiring outcomes for black and white individuals who all had exactly the same resumes. The results of this study showed that blacks with criminal histories were penalized almost two times as often as whites with criminal records throughout the hiring process.

The emotional toll of being incarcerated impacts the ability to locate and maintain employment after being released from prison. While spending time incarcerated, inmates are exposed to various infectious diseases, stressors, and violence. Correctional institutions provide a cesspool for HIV and Hepatitis C because of the frequent use of injectable drugs, tattoos, and unprotected sodomy (Nowotny & Kuptsevych-Timmer, 2018). Prisons undoubtedly produce high levels of stress which can lead to negative long-term health conditions including cardiac issues, depression, dizziness, headaches, and problems sleeping (Nowotny & Kuptsevych-Timmer, 2018). Inmates are also at a much higher risk for suffering from trauma related to physical or sexual victimization. Studies consistently show that 10–20% of prisoners experience personal physical victimizations; with a much larger quantity observing these physical altercations (Nowotny & Kuptsevych-Timmer, 2018). Sexual assaults are highly underreported in prisons, but Wolff et al. (2007) determined that African Americans suffer from sexual victimization at much higher rates than white inmates. These traumatic experiences can lead to serious mental health concerns including PTSD. Formerly incarnated men often engage in unhealthy behaviors likely due to decreased social status, social interactions, and financial stability. These factors often lead to depression, anxiety, alcohol and drug abuse, and overall life-dissatisfaction (Nowotny & Kuptsevych-Timmer, 2018) which can lead to unemployment and a higher risk of recidivism.

After being released from prison, black men returned to their impoverished communities with less odds of attaining a job than before they were incarcerated. Individuals are being released from prisons more quickly than they are being admitted. Doleac (2020) observed that about 66% of the individuals released will be incarcerated again within three years, while Langan and Levin (2002) found that upon being released, 72.9% of black ex-inmates were incarcerated again. This rate is significantly higher than the re-arrest rate of white ex-inmates (Jung et al., 2010). According to Holzer et al. (2003), black men with criminal records had to battle against greater levels of discriminations from potential employers. In order to enter society successfully after being released from prison, black men faced greater barriers than white men, increasing their chances of being recidivated (Reisig et al., 2007). The increase in odds of being re-arrested perpetuates the cycle for the inability to claim legitimate jobs.

This is an important focal point since black men make up a majority of the incarcerated population and obtaining a job decreases the odds of ending up back in prison (Doleac, 2020; Gubernick, 2017). Less funding would need to be wasted on the criminal justice system if there were better interventions for helping black men get jobs after being released from custody. As social workers, we are obligated to prepare individuals for release from imprisonment and to aid individuals in readjusting to a normal life outside of bars, including finding employment, to increase the probability they will not return to prison. Not only that, but we must strive to prevent both racial and economic oppression in our judiciary system. This leads us to question, what interventions are presented to black men who have criminal records with the aspirations of securing a stable job?

Focus

Most of the studies aim to test the validity of the legal implications by sending out fictitious job applications to observe the effects between the new laws and interview rates of black individuals with criminal records. This literature review will focus on three comprehensive literature reviews and one field study experiment concerning the legal implications involved with providing black individuals with criminal records access to jobs after release from prison. The major themes presented in these articles are the ineffectiveness of the legal implications and the positive contributions relevant to the addition of positive credentials. These articles are lacking information concerning both pre and post confinement rehabilitation programs.

Literature Review

Civil Rights Act

The 1964 Civil Rights Act was the first federal civil rights act that attempted to remove the structural racism ingrained into the hiring process for people with criminal records (Gubernick, 2017). Title VII made it illegal for employers to discriminate against applicants because of their race, ethnicity, religious beliefs, and their gender. This law required employers to prove that their hiring methods were based on genuine business needs and on the applicant’s ability to perform the job. The applicants who believed they were being discriminated against would file a claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) which would agree to either work on the case or issue permission for the individual to file a lawsuit themselves. During the next two decades, the EEOC successfully helped applicants win disparate impact claims against employers who refused to hire individuals based on prejudice. During this time federal judges had a large impact on determining the breadth of disparate impact liability and enforcing the ambiguous standards written in the law. After the momentum during the Civil Rights movement dissipated, judiciary philosophies became much more conservative and started rejecting applicant’s challenges to the employer’s discrimination policies (Gubernick, 2017). This shift in attitude of enforcement policies shifted the responsibility of these discrepancies from systemic discrimination to individual fault.

During the same time period arose the tough-on-crime political mindset which cascaded into new laws restricting employment opportunities for people with criminal records barring ex-convicts from working in more than eight hundred various occupations (Gubernick, 2017). When felony charges were added to less serious crimes, the general laws preventing felons from working became more severe for a greater percentage of the population than they were intended to be (Gubernick, 2017).

Legal Interventions

In a 2009 survey 92% of employers reported including criminal background checks as part of their hiring process and another study in 1996 found that 66% of employers would not hire a person with a criminal record (Gubernick, 2017). Employers believe that ex-offenders are less desirable employees because they are more likely disrupt safe work environments and increase the legal liability if a crime is committed during work (Dewitt, 2020). Another hindrance that ex-offenders experience while attempting to find work is that, on average, they are less educated and have less job experience than nonoffenders (Doleac, 2020).

In an attempt to increase employment opportunities for individuals with criminal records, the United states began implementing “Ban the Box” (BTB) policies in 2004 (Gubernick, 2017). The objective of this policy was to increase the employment of people with criminal records by allowing job candidates to keep their criminal histories secretive until later on in the hiring process by preventing the employer’s ability to ask about convictions on the job application. This would allow these individuals to present their qualifications for the job without the negative stigma that aligns with having criminal records and increase the likelihood of being extended interviews. Ban the Box does a great job of conveying the discrimination of people with criminal backgrounds but does not directly target the racial disparities experienced by minorities with criminal records (Gubernick, 2017). When Ban-the-Box first started, it was successful in improving employment opportunities for people with criminal records, but there was no data concerning the impact directly on minorities (Gubernick, 2017).

The removal of the box revealed the insidious racial biases encompassing criminality perceptions in the United States. Employers overestimated the correlation between race and criminal history because of statistical discrimination (Agan, 2018). The policy exacerbated the problem for the employment of black people due to the employers making assumptions about an applicant’s criminal history based on various racial indicators (Gubernick, 2017; Agan 2018; Doleac 2020; and DeWitt 2020). Before BTB was implemented, white applicants received 7% more responses to applications than black applicants with similar backgrounds, but after BTB this gap grew to 43% (Agan, 2018). Another study showed that young, low educated black men are 5.1% less likely to be employed after BTB was implemented and that there was no significant effect on white male employment upon implementation of the policy (Doleac, 2020). These conclusions suggest that employers assume black applicants have criminal histories.

In order to test if employers were using rational statistical discrimination when making these assumptions instead of racist stereotypes, a study examined the significance of an applicant having a GED instead of a high school diploma because having a GED is a more powerful predictor of criminal history than race is (Agan, 2018). This study showed that there was no statistical significance when comparing GED vs high school diploma applicants, but when black and white applicants were compared, there was a 23% more likely chance that whites would receive a call-back (Agan, 2018). Credit check bans reduced black employment opportunities by 7–16% showing consistency with statistical discrimination and drug tests actually increased employment of blacks by 7–30% further showing proof of statistical discrimination (Doleac, 2020). The study also compared employers who implemented BTB policies and employers who continued to screen their applications using the box and found that employers without the box were 10 times less likely to call black applicants for an interview than white applicants (Agan, 2018). Since the ban-the-box policy was written using race neutral diction, it did not directly aid in addressing the systemic racism in the hiring process for ex-offenders in minority groups.

Positive Credential Strategy

It is predicted that by providing additional information about job applicants with records instead of concealing their criminal history, that employment rates for minorities will increase without the negative effects from statistical discrimination (Doleac 2020; DeWitt 2020). The utilization of positive credentials accounts for both ex-convicts’ capabilities and for potential employers’ interests. In a study, it was shown that black applicants with a drug conviction felony were able to significantly improve their ability to get a job interview by showing a reference letter from a previous employer (DeWitt, 2020). Other positive credentials aided in alleviating the negative perceptions of a criminal record but did not completely mitigate them. This shows that the obtainment of positive credentials by individuals with criminal histories can help outweigh the negative effects of the criminal history. The major concern with this strategy for improving job attainability is the difficulty applicants experience in obtaining the necessary credentials for their first job after being incarcerated that will allow them to have a reference letter to give to future employers.

Limitations

Agan and Starr (2018) stated that their limitations included applicants of only Caucasian and African American ethnicities and that their applications were only sent to chain employment opportunities, so the study does not represent the private job sector. The largest limitation in this study was that only call-back rate was considered, so actual hiring procedures were not observed (Agan, 2018). The literature reviews did not contain any limitations, but rather suggested ways to improve legislature in the future.

Recommendations

Based on the literature reviewed in this study, there are two major areas of implication for improving the disparity between African American ex-convicts and Caucasian ex-convicts. The first is the implementation of race-specific dialect while creating further legislation in an attempt to directly mitigate the hardships that African American ex-convicts face on a daily basis (Gubernick, 2017; Agan, 2018; and Doleac, 2020). The second implementation that can improve the lives of African American ex-convicts is to provide them with the support, either while in prison or after prison, necessary to gain positive credentials in order to improve the ex-convict’s chances of getting a job after being released from prison (DeWitt, 2020).

The Critical Race Theory can be used to explain the importance of using precise wording while attempting to improve laws such as Ban-the-Box. Ban-the-box failed to improve the job obtainment rates of African American ex-convicts because it neglected to include the actual reasoning behind the law (Gubernick, 2017; Agan, 2018). The purpose of this law was to improve the opportunities for minority job applicants by removing the box that must be checked when an individual has a record on a job application. Since the law was implemented using race-neutral diction, the disparities that the African American ex-convicts faced actually got worse. While reviewing job applications without the knowledge of their criminal histories, employers assumed that all African Americans had criminal records. This led to an even greater employment gap between the African American and Caucasian work force. In order to improve these disparities, the next law after Ban-the-Box that tries to implement institutional level change has to explicitly state in the law that the reasoning behind the legislation is to improve employment outcomes for minorities with criminal records, not for individuals with criminal records (Gubernick, 2017; Agan, 2018).

The second area that can help improve these inequalities is the implementation of programs that allow prisoners to grow their resumes while in prison or at least create a program that allows for newly-released convicts to take some kind of course that allows them to obtain a credential so they are more likely to attain a job and be removed from the perpetuating cycle of getting arrested and getting released. Dewitt (2020) states that the negative stigma carried with a criminal record is easily diminished with the obtainment of a positive credential. Since getting a job after being released is nearly impossible to achieve on their own, there are no methods allowing these individuals to gain positive credentials.

A program that allowed prisoners to gain an education whether in a trade or an actual profession could allow prisoners to stop wasting their time while locked away and start improving the quality of their lives. Prisons would become more like reform camps than human cages enhancing the prisoners’ capabilities of obtaining a job or even a career after being released. The increase in job obtainment would help decrease recidivism rates and simultaneously decrease the expenses of the judicial system over the long term. The decrease in recidivism rates could also keep more families together and financially stable. This could lead to a decrease in criminal activity in future generations because it would increase the odds that children have parental guidance, offering more stability to their lives and helping them stay out of the foster care system.

If the judicial system could not justify spending the money on providing positive credentials to current convicts, then there should be non-profit companies providing newly released prisoners the opportunity to obtain positive credentials allowing them more opportunity to get a job. Even if these non-profits cannot give these ex-convicts an actual education or a certificate, they could at least have the ex-convicts work for them temporarily while searching for another job so that they can have a positive letter of recommendation upon re-entering the work force.

Discussion

While searching for literature, I utilized the comprehensive USC library search engines using all databases. I searched the terms, “black men,” and “criminal record,” and “employment” in my initial search, which brought up only a few useful articles. This initial search brought my attention to the Ban-the-Box policy, which I used as a search term by itself in order to find the remaining articles. I did not set any limitations on timeframe, subject, or the material type. This was not a very difficult process and nearly all of the articles that I wanted had access to the full PDF file online through EBSCOhost and University of Chicago Press.

Conclusion

Criminal records continue to interfere with an individual’s job accessibility, especially for the black community. Since the black community makes up such a large percentage of the population with records, blacks are more largely impacted by the societal discrimination experienced when applying to jobs in America. The government has attempted to enact various laws to mitigate the institutional racism but has failed to directly acknowledge the problem as a racial concern, exacerbating the negative racial perspectives from employers. Since the only proven way to help mitigate racial disparities concerning employment of ex-convicts is to obtain positive credentials, prisons need to set up a program to help inmates gain skills and positive letters of recommendation upon being released from prison.

References

Agan A, Starr S. (2018). Ban the box, criminal records, and racial discrimination: a field experiment. The Quarterly Journal of Economics. 191–235.

Dewitt S, Denver M. (2020). Criminal records, positive employment credentials, and race. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency. 57(3), 333–368.

Doleac J, Hansen B. (2020). The unintended consequences of ban the box: statistical discrimination and employment outcomes when criminal histories are hidden. Journal of Labor Economics. 38(2) 321–374.

Freudenberg, N., Daniels, J., Crum, M., Perkins, T., & Richie, B. E. (2005). Coming home from jail: The social and health consequences of community reentry for women, male adolescents, and their families and communities. American Journal of Public Health, 95(10), 1725–36.

Gubernick L. (2017). Erasing the mark of cain — an empirical analysis of the effect of ban-the-box legislations on the employment outcomes of people of color with criminal records. Fordham Urban Law Journal.44(4) 1153–1215).

Hartney, C., & Vuong, L. (2009). Created equal: racial and ethnic disparity in the US criminal justice system. Oakland: National Council on Crime and Delinquency.

Holzer, H.J., Raphael, S., & Stoll, M.A. (2003). Employment barriers facing ex-offenders. Washington, DC: Urban Institute.

Jung, H., Spjeldnes, S., & Yamatani, H. (2010). Recidivism and survival time: racial disparity among jail ex-inmates. Social Work Research, 34(3), 181–199. https://link-gale-com.pallas2.tcl.sc.edu/apps/doc/A236162755/PPNU?u=colu68650&sid=PPNU&xid=e56397cd

Langan, P. A., & Levin, D.J. (2002). Recidivism of prisoners released in 1994 (Special Report NCJ 193427). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Lopoo, Leonard M., Western Bruce. (2005). Incarceration and the formation and stability of marital unions. Journal of Marriage and Family, 67:721–34.

Mauer, M. (2011). Addressing racial disparity in incarceration. The Prison Journal, 91(3), 875–1015.

Nowotny K & Kuptsevych-Timmer A. (2018). Health and Justice: Framing incarceration as a social determinant of health of black men in the United States. Sociology Compass. https://doi-org.pallas2.tcl.sc.edu/10.1111/soc4.12566

Pager D, Western B, Sugie N. (2009). Sequencing disadvantage: barriers to employment facing young black and white men with criminal records. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 623(1):195–213. doi:10.1177/0002716208330793

Reisig, M. D., Bales, W. D., Hay, C., & Xia, W (2007). The effect of racial inequality on black male recidivism. Justice Quarterly, 24, 408–434.

Warde, B. (2013). Black male disproportionality in the criminal justice systems of the USA, Canada, and England: a comparative analysis of incarceration. Journal of African American Studies 17, 461–479. https://doi-org.pallas2.tcl.sc.edu/10.1007/s12111-012-9235-0

Wolff, N., Blitz, C. L., & Shi, J. (2007). Rates of sexual victimization in prison for inmates with and without mental disorders. Psychiatric Services, 58, 1087– 1094.