Freedom to Achieve Pathways and Practices for Economic Advancement After Incarceration

The researchers focus on two distinct but interrelated solution sets to addressing the challenges of people who have been incarcerated relative to the traditional workforce development model: (1) based on what is known about best practices that help people effectively transition into employment and prosper and in the post-COVID economy, the researchers describe pivotal workforce development strategies and highlight examples of these models that are applied to people who have been incarcerated, and (2) look at anti-racist strategies to end disparities in workforce development and employment.

By identifying promising practices utilized by individual workforce practitioners serving this population, the researchers documented the types of programs and strategies needed to meet the unique needs of people with criminal records:

• Utilization of transitional education and training to support stabilization and prepare for rapid attachment to the labor market, as well as coaching to develop a clear, feasible plan for moving from transitional jobs to permanent full-time employment and then to higher-wage jobs with potential for career advancement.
• Provision of education and training to position people who have been incarcerated with skills and postsecondary credentials that equip individuals for jobs that pay a living wage and offer career advancement potential.
• Offering of paid work-based learning opportunities that enable people who have been incarcerated to earn while learning on the job to demonstrate competencies in multiple industries.
• Provision of comprehensive and structured support services—including financial assistance—to enhance people’s resilience as they work toward securing self-sustaining employment while navigating the maze of structural bias and institutional barriers facing people who have been incarcerated
• Assurance that workforce system stakeholders are accountable for equity in practice and outcomes.
• Mitigation of collateral consequences that emphasize criminal status over competency and policies that criminalize people at the intersection of race and poverty.

(This report is 40 pages long.)

The researchers provided the following recommendations:

• Ensure that people who have experienced the justice system—and specifically, incarceration—are core stakeholders in all aspects of workforce redesign efforts. People who have been incarcerated and others impacted by the consequences of a criminal record are shaping solutions, nationally and in their communities, which create conditions for economic advancement.
• Establish cross-sector collaboration to ensure policies, resources, and best practices for talent development are aligned across the systems responsible for providing education and training for people with records. Multiple systems—including corrections, postsecondary education, workforce development, and human services —provide education and training and social supports for people reentering the community. These systems need to align their resources, policies, and best practices to ensure the integrated pathways for returning citizens have shared standards and the resources and policy conditions for sustainability.
• Integrate evidence-based models into a transparent, navigable, and equitable workforce development ecosystem that positions people who have been incarcerated for economic advancement. Most communities have programs and services for returning citizens. Unfortunately, these are usually siloed, making it challenging for individuals to identify which programs meet their needs, navigate the transitions between programs to secure necessary supports, or scaffold education and training as they learn and advance.
• Ensure inclusive and equitable practices promote access, retention, and advancement in education pathways and employment. Education and training institutions and organizations need to examine and eliminate or mitigate practices that constrain access, such as questions about convictions at the application stage.
• Increase investments in pathways and practices that promote economic advancement for returning citizens and people with records. There are simply not enough quality programs to meet the resulting demand for education and training, and programming gaps include supports designed for women or to address recidivism challenges for young adults. Getting to scale will require an increased investment from public funding and private philanthropy, and could include allocating federal or local workforce development funding to developing education and training programs for people with records.

• Last Updated:
• Created:
• Resource Publication Date: 2021
• Author(s): Murphy, L., Soricone, L.
• Funding Source: Ford Foundation
• Resource Availability: Publicly available
• Posted by: Long Dang
• Posted in: Workforce System Strategies