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Today, about one in every 31 people in the United States are under the supervision of the corrections system, either locked up or on probation or parole. The system unfairly punishes people of color, burdens taxpayers, and exacts a tremendous social cost. Sadly, African-American men who failed to finish high school are more likely to be behind bars than employed.
Employment helps people who feel hopeless and gives them a sense of fulfillment. Gainful employment may prevent someone from returning to prison or ever becoming entangled in the justice system in the first place by keeping them from making poor decisions to earn money. Minimum wage is far better than 50 cents an hour in prison, after all.
In 2017 alone, California taxpayers paid $11.4 billion dollars to oversee 129,000 incarcerated people and 44,000 parolees. The cost to the California taxpayer is $75,560 a year for each incarcerated person – more than the cost of tuition at Harvard for a year. Employing just 100 previously incarcerated people will increase tax contributions by $1.9 million and save tax payers millions annually by keeping them out of the criminal justice system.
A 2011 study of the formerly incarcerated found that employment was the single most important factor in decreasing recidivism. Recidivism rates were nearly cut in half for returning citizens who have full-time jobs compared with those who are unemployed.
About one third of all 30-year-old men who aren’t working are either in prison, in jail, or are unemployed ex-prisoners. In any given year in the decade prior to incarceration, only about half of prisoners had any reported earnings.
Growing up in poverty dramatically increases the likelihood of incarceration. Boys who grew up in families in the bottom 10 percent of the income distribution were 20 times more likely to be in prison on a given day in their early 30s than children born in top ten percent of families. Almost one in ten children born to families in the bottom 10 percent were therefore incarcerated at age 30. At the extremes of the family income distribution, the differences are larger: Boys from the poorest families were 40 times more likely to end up in prison compared to boys from the richest families.
The neighborhood you grow up in matters. Differences in incarceration rates can vary within cities by a factor of 30 between zip codes that are walking distance apart. Prisoners were disproportionately likely to have grown up in socially isolated and segregated neighborhoods with high rates of child poverty and in predominantly black or American Indian neighborhoods.
Poverty is strongly correlated with multiple arrests. Nearly half (49%) of people with multiple arrests in the past year had individual incomes below $10,000 per year. In contrast, about a third (36%) of people arrested only once, and only one in five (21%) people who had no arrests, had incomes below $10,000. The vast majority (88%) of people who were arrested and jailed multiple times had not been arrested for a serious violent offense in the past year.
Equal Justice Matters is very interested in decreasing mass incarceration in America. We believe a proactive approach is most beneficial for the community. Our goal is to decrease rates of incarceration by providing a safe environment for at-risk individuals to network with like-minded people, learn to type, learn basic computer and smartphone skills, compile resumes, acquire appropriate interview and work clothing, enroll in training programs, and apply for jobs. We are also working with the community to compile a list of potential employers that hire felons, but we are even more interested in employers that would be willing to train people without experience. We wish to connect people with a job and training BEFORE they consider committing a crime to make money. With this proactive approach, we aim to help connect young adults with employment before they have involvement with the justice system.
A similar program has been proposed in Detroit and would offer certain low-level, nonviolent offenders gainful employment instead of incarceration. Eligible participants would be matched with employers to work a good-paying job with benefits and skills training. The program reduces the burden on the criminal justice system and puts offenders on a permanent path to success. “Jobs can be the answer to many of society’s ills,” Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said. “Jobs create opportunity. Jobs create hope. Jobs create growth. Jobs create stability.”
We would like to thank The Brookings Institution, the Prison to Employment Connection, The Prison Policy Initiative, and the Detroit Free Press for the content.