Sharing Human Resources best practices and facilitating access to well-paying jobs is the approach being developed at Long Beach City College (LBCC), where a college education program is offered for formerly incarcerated individuals.
Sara Rodríguez, current administrator of the LBCC Justice Scholars Program for formerly incarcerated students, is precisely one of those who benefited from a second chance at progress in life.
“In 2009 was the last of the three times that I was imprisoned,” Rodríguez told La Opinión. “In fact, I’m not the only one who works at the school.”
She likes to organize panel discussions and analysis on incarcerated people, with two types of people: those who don’t look like they’ve been to prison and, perhaps, are judged for having tattoos and who society would hope have not been to prison. college, and, college students who spent some time of their lives behind bars.
It does so through a series of symposiums called “Reimagining Reentry,” which focus on the issues and challenges people face in the community after being released from jail or prison and finding it difficult to obtain housing. and employment, mainly.
“It was hard for me to receive the opportunity I was looking for,” Rodríguez said. “When you go out, you just want a job; Now I have a career and I feel like I was able to regain hope and life, through higher education.”
But when the adventure began, he didn’t know if all his higher education would translate into a job.
She was hesitant.
“Would they hire me even if I have a serious crime on my record?” he recalled.
Monica was 28 years old when she started college and, in fact, in 2021 she graduated from UCLA, thanks to the program that she now administers and that has helped organize those who were formally incarcerated, and who previously walked through life, practically defeated and with the head down.
The Fair Chance Program
However, now they proudly share their aspirations and academic successes, and are asking for help to rebuild their lives, appealing to those who are still not willing to give them an opportunity, because of their past.
And, they could achieve it, thanks to the “Fair Chance” hiring program promoted since January by county supervisor Holly Mitchell, former Los Angeles Lakers basketball star Earvin “Magic” Johnson, Kelly LoBianco, from the Department of Economic Opportunities and community business leaders.
About 200 local companies were intended to commit to the ex-inmate hiring system, thanks to the allocation of funds from the federal American Rescue Plan Act.
Nowadays, once someone is hired, the question about criminal history arises after the job offer has been made, and then the background check. In the process, almost as a general rule they give the hired candidate a period of five days to present these documents.
Because time is insufficient, many people are disqualified from the hiring process. The bureaucratic process in issuing documents endorsed by a judge, the police or a court is delayed too much.
Despite the obstacles, Sara Rodríguez, as an example of someone who has been successful, now in the LBCC Justice Scholars Program that she administers, they have lawyers who are formally incarcerated, real estate agents and social workers like her.
In the coming years they will not only obtain their degrees, but also university master’s degrees.
“We are going to be competitive candidates in any profession, career and real job,” he assured La Opinión. “This is just beginning. “This is all new.”
In fact, annually the Cal State University (CSU) system graduates an average of 300 formerly incarcerated people with bachelor’s and master’s degrees. And, even if they are deprived of their liberty, people already receive financial help inside prisons, so that, when they leave, they will not only have a degree or a bachelor’s degree in their hands, but the opportunity to hope for professional success. .
ODR programs
Mónica Paraja Domínguez, administrator of the Human Resources office, assured that in the Office of Diversion and Reentry (ODR) in Los Angeles County, the percentage of people who reoffend in the commission of crimes, after having been released ” they have improved”.
“We are doing better in terms of the re-entry population when obtaining employment,[becausewehavechangedourfocustowardsthosewhofallundertheFairChanceinitiativeorthosewhobanthebox”Parajasaid
The ban on the box refers to the now eliminated box on job applications, where a job candidate had to note whether they had been convicted of a criminal offense, which immediately ruled them out of obtaining a job.
ODR programs serve to reduce the population of inmates in the Los Angeles County Jail who have mental health or substance abuse disorders. ODR gets people out of jail through various judicial interventions or through pre-arrest programs, or before they are booked. The office then provides community housing, physical and mental health care, and case management.
General data from Los Angeles County Health Services indicates that, among the 9,653 people released, a total of 3,001 are currently being served by the ODR office: (1,123 are African-American, 1,040 are white, and 886 are Hispanic). The misdemeanors and felonies committed range from sexual assault, murder, robbery, domestic violence and death threats; also, possession, purchase and sale of drugs, fraud, weapons or violation of probation.
The prison business
Cynthia Blake, outreach coordinator at the Rising Scholars Network at Cypress College reported that she and the university work with the Coalition Against Recidivism, where they have discovered best practices for getting people hired in a job when they leave the system California penitentiary.
For her, finding the opportunity to regenerate her life forever was more complicated. She had no history or work experience before being imprisoned.
“What I did was try,” he told La Opinión. “I closed that gap from the moment I was incarcerated and let the crimes go away.”
So, he started going to school.
But that fact did not give him the work experience he needed. So he learned to create a network of people and create a relationship with his teachers.
His life changed forever
That’s why Blake now helps others have the tools for success in life that she sought.
For this reason, he guides others who go to university, who, perhaps, do not understand financial language or how this aid works because they were in prison.
As of January 18, 2023, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) was responsible for the incarceration of 95,600 people: 91,300 men and 3,900 women, and 400 non-binary people.
Most of those people are held in one of the 32 state-owned and operated prisons: 29 for men, 2 for women, and one prison that houses men and women in separate facilities: Folsom State Prison.
Of those prisons, 23 were built, and 21 began operating since 1985, when the number of prisoners reached 129,000 people, according to a March 2017 report from the California Legislative Analyst’s Office. The vast majority of inmates were African American and Latino.
Blake was asked, is it big business to imprison people?
“Yeah. “It is a big business,” she asserted. “They are talking about closing the prisons, but when you enter them they are still full. You see them sitting there, they are people of color…, and you wonder what kind of injustice is this? What the hell is going on? Oh, and the lack of education too. That makes you understand why in certain areas there is especially too much poverty.”
According to the same Legislative Analyst’s office, CalMatters, each prisoner costs California $116,000 annually.
Fill job vacancies
Fred Verdugo, deputy director of the Human Resources Department of the city of Long Beach, informed La Opinión that they intend to be partners in the process of hiring workers for the LBCC Justice Scholars Program.
“The city [Long Beach] needs workers and to fill our vacancies, we have the opportunity to employ people who are part of the re-entry pool [carcelario]”, said. “We want to help the reentry community find employment.”
Verdugo specified that the authorities do not analyze anyone’s criminal record until a formal job offer is made, and then the city carries out an analysis of the person’s life and it is to him who is finally given a report of the person, where he evaluates the employment relationship with the job being requested.
“We do not look at the seriousness of a crime, nor the moment or how something happened,” he said. “We are not really looking to disqualify anyone, but rather to fill a job vacancy in the city of Long Beach.”
He noted that, in the last four years, they have probably hired about 4,500 people, of which 17 were people who had been incarcerated, but did not respond to letters sent by the city’s Human Resources Department.
In addition to garbage operators, the City of Long Beach has openings in administrative, classified and unclassified positions.
“Traditionally, communities of color have been the largest number of those that have been affected, and now with alternatives to incarceration, they can participate in secondary review initiatives and processes,” said Paraja Domínguez. “More members of our reentry community are being offered positions and opportunities for gainful employment.”