MORE FROM HUFFPOST
MORE FROM HUFFPOST
ex-cons
May 4th was a day I'd been anticipating for some time. That was the day Assistant Attorney General Karol Mason, who heads the Office of Justice Programs in the Department of Justice, publicly announced a new agency-wide policy directing her staff to stop using "disparaging labels" like "ex-convict" and "ex-felon" in all their communications.
After being refused several job opportunities because of his felony conviction White decided to apply for a pardon to highlight the plights a returning citizens encounter.
"We're giving second chances to things and to people."
WHAT'S HAPPENING
WHAT'S HAPPENING
Isidore Recycling, founded by Kabira Stokes, recycles E-waste and gives second chances to people who have come out of the prison system.
I spent a lot of time interviewing ex-cons for my latest book, Miss Brenda and The Loveladies. These women -- former drug dealers, prostitutes, addicts and even an attempted murderers -- are people I would have run away from, if I had met them a few years earlier.
If you've never been to prison, it's easy to be suspicious and dismissive of those who have. But people are getting out of prison and returning to our community all the time. Their return is inevitable; it's not whether people return from prison, but how they return -- successfully or unsuccessfully.We know that stable employment is an important predictor of reentry success and the best way to reduce recidivism. Yet people are being released every day with almost no chance of making it.