Second Chances
Dear <<First Name>>,
Everybody loves a good second chance story.
Remember how Bill Murray got second (and third and fourth) chances in the movie Groundhog Day until he learned how to be a better person?
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Remember how Ross and Rachel were given a second chance at their relationship after breaking up (or were they on a break?)?
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Remember how Tiger Woods won the Masters golf tournament in 2019, seizing a second chance at dominating his sport and rebuilding his life?
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And, of course, remember the best movie of all time (PROVE ME WRONG) – The Shawshank Redemption – which tells the story of two incarcerated men and their journey towards a second chance at life?
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We sure do love second chance stories.
Except …
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Still, while we embrace these second chance stories, we have been slower to embrace second chances for people with criminal records in the United States.
This disconnect was not clear to me until I got involved in the NYU Prison Education Program (NYU PEP) in 2016.
Through PEP, incarcerated students take several courses per semester, earning college credits towards an Associate’s Degree. The courses are taught by taught by NYU faculty like me who travel to the prison in upstate New York.
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When I first became part of PEP, I had never met someone incarcerated and I wondered what the students would be like.
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In my stereotype-soaked mind, people who were in prison were the ultimate “other.” A lifetime of explicit and implicit biases about incarcerated black and brown men lodged in my mind.
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But once I taught in a prison, I realized how wrong my stereotypes were. The one part I got right was that people of color are disproportionately arrested and imprisoned.
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That was about it.
Best students I have ever had
The students soaked up learning like dry sponges. And lest I take credit, every professor reported the same.
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I brought in authors like Jeff Wilser, Conor Grennan, Jeanne Theoharis, Panio Gianopoulos, and Josh Davis for optional book club discussions. The same thing happened.
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Below is what author Jeff Wilser had to say after spending three hours in discussion with students who had read Alexander Hamilton’s Guide to Life.
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Our students worked hard for every credit in an environment built to break them, not educate them.
These smiles in our spontaneous class picture (taken on a rare day when a camera was allowed in the prison) and graduation video are about as real as smiles get.
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Think my students were the exception? Hardly. Check out this.
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Then what?
Inspiring, right?!
But, what happens when they get out? Would they be given a second chance as returning citizens once they had paid their dues?
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To be clear, I believe that people who commit crimes, especially crimes that hurt people, should pay for it.
I also believe that once the punishment is over, we should maximize the odds that it will not happen again.
Which brings us back to second chances.
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Second Chance Employment
Recently, I attended the Second Chance Employment conference co-hosted by the Tamer Center at Columbia University.
The conference began with Justice through Code founder Aedan MacDonald speaking of his experience being released from prison and having every door shut in his face. He asked to consider how it would feel to watch someone we love go through this.
We were listening.
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Second chance employment refers to removing blanket barriers and stigma that make it difficult for people with criminal records - like Aedan - to find employment.
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For many jobs, a criminal background check is a standard practice; nine out of ten employers do it. Many ask applicants to “check the box” if they have been convicted of (or even just arrested for) a crime.
If the applicant’s criminal record comes up, it reduces their chances of a second interview by 50%.
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But the risk of recidivism declines the longer it’s been since a person committed a crime; many background checks don’t take time since conviction or the nature of the crime into account.
For these and many other reasons, efforts to "ban the box" have become more widespread.
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Voluminous data shows that racial biases are both formally and informally baked into the criminal justice system, making black and brown people disproportionately likely to have criminal records. Here are just a fraction of the excellent books on this topic.
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And, research by sociologist Devah Pager found that a white person with a criminal record is more likely to get a call back for a job interview than a black person without a criminal record.
Even ban the box policies are fraught, painfully. Underlying biases may still prevail where black applicants are penalized even more when there is no box, making this issue a devastating and layered example of racism in the United States.
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Second Thoughts about Second Chances
Back to what happens when people are released from prison. Over 650,000 people are released from prison each year; after one year, 60 percent of these returning citizens remain unemployed. Those who are working have low-wage jobs.
Here are 5 reasons why we want to think intentionally about second chance employment.
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1. This is not an isolated issue.
80 million Americans have a criminal record. That’s ¼ of the entire US population (327 million people, 258 million adults) and 31% of the adult population.
The majority are misdemeanors.
That’s the same number of Americans that have four-year college diplomas. This is not a marginal issue.
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2. Employment reduces recidivism.
Do we want a society filled with people unable to find work, no matter how hard they try? What would you do if that was your situation?
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During one particularly powerful panel at the Second Chance conference, three formerly incarcerated speakers made clear what a difference it makes to have a path forward through Aedan MacDonald's technical career development accelerator called Justice Through Code (JTC).
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Makeda Davis, an alumnus of JTC and a software engineer at Checkr who was incarcerated for nine and a half years said, “From my change, so many lives have changed." (Source)
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3. The system sets people up to fail.
A few years ago, my friend Professor Damon Phillips invited me to participate in a simulation hosted by the Columbia University Tamer Center and Osborne Association. It was designed to replicate the experience of being released from prison; participants like me were given identities and tasks to complete in the simulated city that was set up.
Damon knew I had done a little bit of teaching in prison and thought I would be interested. I was, but I was also skeptical as I felt pretty well-informed about the barriers already.
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Well-informed is not the same as "getting it." The well-designed simulation left me filled with rage at chicken/egg problems like I needed a government ID to open a bank account to get a bus pass to go to a job fair but I needed a bus pass to ... you get the idea.
And even if I did all of that somehow, and got to a job fair, I was not going to be considered due to my record.
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It quickly became clear that the odds of my being able to get a job while playing by the rules were terrible. I was set up to fail.
Before the one hour re-entry simulation was over, I (and many other simulation participants) had "broken the law." I saw no other plausible path to paying my rent. It was a punch in the gut to realize how slim my odds were.
I was starting to get it.
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4. Is criminal justice just?
The words “crime” and “second chance” are not as cut and dry as it seems. They presume a fair system, but massive amounts of data show that second chances are already built into the system for some.
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For example, surveys that show actual marijuana usage rates are not different by race, as reported in the The New York Times. However, “Hispanic people across New York City had been arrested on low-level marijuana charges at five times the rates of white people in recent years.
The imbalance was even starker for Black people, who in Manhattan were arrested at 15 times the rate of white people.”
And, the story is even more complicated now that marijuana is legal in the state of New York.
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In other words, the system already offers second chances for some groups of people that keep them from even having a criminal record.
No doubt, some people with records and in prison have committed crimes. And no doubt, some have not.
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5. The business case is strong.
I was especially struck by the business leader perspective at the Second Chance conference. One after another, companies like Verizon, JPMorgan & Chase, and NBCUniversal as well as Schnitzer Steel and PayPal shared their experience, as did the Governor of Oklahoma.
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Their conclusion: second chance employment was a solution to their talent shortage. Not only could they find the needed skills, they also found a highly motivated and loyal workforce.
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In fact, a recent study showed that 85% of Human Resources leaders and 81% of business leaders reported that individuals with criminal records performed the same or better than those without.
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Perhaps we are ready to give a second thought to second chances in the workforce. Be sure to check out and bookmark the Second Chance Business Coalition website for excellent resources.
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As promised in the last issue
Last month, I was a Featured Speaker at SXSW speaking about my new book, A MORE JUST FUTURE. The official Getty Images photos are finally here! See below...
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And check out the whole 45 minute video of my talk. I thought it went well though I haven't brought myself to watch yet so let me know!
Of course, I hope you will read my latest book as well.
Already read it? I would be so grateful if you would please leave a rating or review on Amazon - these really help more readers find the book.
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Please share with others
As always, my goal in this newsletter is to offer you free, bite-sized, evidence-based, action-oriented, zeitgeisty tips on how to be more inclusive (check out past issues here).
I hope to reach as many hearts and minds as possible so feel free to share and if you aren’t a subscriber, you can hit the subscribe button below!
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Photo Credits: Bill Murray, Ross & Rachel, Tiger Woods, The Shawshank Redemption , Prison images provided by NYU Prison Education Program, The Effect of Race ad Criminal Background Bar Graph image, The Business Case for Second Chance Employment conference images provided by Hannah Slow at Tamer Center for Social Enterprise | Columbia Business School, Racial Disparities in prison bar graph. Executive Summary image, Jamie Dimon quote, Personal images & SXSW Getty Images provided by Katie Perera. and taken by Keira Lindgren and Nicola Gell. Time to Think by Shahram Anhari on Unsplash Collage of books The New Jim Crow, Just Mercy, An American Marriage, The Sun Does Shine, Reading with Patrick, Marked.
Special Thanks: Anna McMullen, Sandra Navalli, Damon Phillips, Jeff Wilser.
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