Employment

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Stable employment is critical to a successful transition into the community, but reentering individuals often encounter significant barriers in finding employment upon release from prisons and jails, including low levels of education, limited vocational (or marketable) skills and limited work experience. Reentry programs have demonstrated the overwhelming need for employment opportunities for people released from prison and jail, and the need to facilitate the creation of job opportunities for this population.

Key Resources

Employing Your Mission, Building Cultural Competence in Reentry Service Agencies Through the Hiring of Individuals Who Are Formerly Incarcerated and/or in Recovery, The Fortune Society and John Jay College of Criminal Justice (2011)
This toolkit addresses building cultural competency within reentry services by hiring formerly incarcerated men and women to reflect the experiences and realities of the reentry population and provide services more effectively.

The Joyce Foundation's Transitional Jobs Reentry Demonstration: Testing Strategies to Help Former Prisoners Find and Keep Jobs and Stay Out of Prison, MDRC (2009)
This policy brief describes an ongoing initiative, the Joyce Foundation’s Transitional Jobs Reentry Demonstration, that seeks to learn what works best to help former prisoners make a successful transition back into society.
"Redemption" in an Era of Widespread Criminal Background Checks, NIJ Journal (2009)
This report offers a preliminary model for providing empirical evidence on when an ex-offender has been clean long enough to be considered, for employment purposes, "redeemed."
Reentry Law Project Small Business Toolkit, New York City Bar Justice Center (2009)
This toolkit is designed to give New Yorkers an overview of legal issues that may come up for persons with criminal convictions who want to start a new business or move forward with a business they already have begun.
Serving the Employment Needs of Justice-Involved Juveniles and Adults: A Primer for Treatment and Recovery Support Service Providers, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (2008)
This guide provides information about legal and practical challenges that may hinder employment, training, and educational opportunities for people with criminal records as well as best practices that service providers may utilize to successfully connect justice-involved juveniles and adults to employment and educational opportunities.
Transitional Jobs: A Workforce Strategy for Cities, National League of Cities (2006)
This report highlights the workforce development strategies that cities and town across the nation are undertaking to provide people recently released from prison with transitional employment.
Good Jobs and Careers: What Communities Need to do to Train and Move Low-Income, Low-Skilled People into Good Jobs and Careers, Annie E. Casey Foundation (2004)
This document is intended as a guide to promote workforce development and should be used in conjunction with other resources, tools and promising practices from the field.
Myth about Federal Student Aid, Federal Interagency Reentry Council