Non-inclusive Employment Opportunities

“Formerly incarcerated individuals are unemployed at a rate of over 27% — higher than the total U.S. unemployment rate during any historical period, including the Great Depression. Our estimate of the unemployment rate establishes that formerly incarcerated people want to work but face structural barriers to securing employment, particularly within the period immediately following release. For those who are Black or Hispanic — especially women — status as “formerly incarcerated” reduces their employment chances even more. This perpetual labor market punishment creates a counterproductive system of release and poverty, hurting everyone involved: employers, the taxpayers, and certainly formerly incarcerated people looking to break the cycle.”

Systemic Barriers to Employment

Folks convicted of drug possession are often saddled with crippling court-imposed fines, fees, costs, and assessments that they cannot afford to pay. These can include court costs, public defender application fees, and surcharges on incurred fines, among others. They often come on top of the price of bail (if defendants can afford it), income-earning opportunities lost due to incarceration, and the financial impact of a criminal record. For those who choose to hire an attorney, the costs of defending their case may have already left them in debt or struggling to make ends meet for months or even years to come.

A drug conviction also keeps many people from getting a job, renting a home, and accessing benefits and other programs they may need to support themselves and their families—and to enjoy full civil and social participation. Federal law allows states to lock people out of welfare assistance and public housing for years and sometimes even for life based on a drug conviction. People convicted of drug possession may no longer qualify for educational loans; they may be forced to rely on public transport because their driver’s license is automatically suspended; they may be banned from juries and the voting booth; and they may face deportation if they are not US citizens, no matter how many decades they have lived in the US or how many of their family members live in the country.

Food Insecurity

Incarceration increases food insecurity. Some of the collateral consequences of incarceration include being partially or completely banned from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly the Food Stamp Program) and other social supports such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), affordable housing opportunities, Medicaid/Medicare, and Pell grants. In some cases these are lifetime bans. “ Not having access to social supports at a time when they most need them helps explain why 91 percent of returning citizens in a study by the National Institutes of Health reported 36 percent being food insecure when they were released. It also helps explain why their children are much more likely to be hungry or food insecure.

Limited Physical & Mental Health Resources

According to a recent study, individuals coming out of incarceration have at least one chronic problem with physical health, mental health, or substance use (Mallik-Kane and Visher 2008). These health problems make it harder to successfully reintegrate into the community after incarceration— affecting people’s ability to avoid offending and maintain employment, housing, family relationships, and sobriety. More than 90% of individuals did not have health insurance, impeding the receipt of care for chronic health conditions and leading to high levels of emergency room use.

Re-entry from incarceration is a difficult transition, and health management is often a low priority as people grapple with more basic survival needs (e.g., food and housing), reconnecting with family members, and finding employment (Mallik-Kane 2005).