Here’s some info about the current Ban the Box campaign in Portland to put their criminal histories in context when they are searching for employment and to disempower the labels: “felon” and “criminal”.
Koin News: Oregon Campaign To Help Ex-Convicts Seeks To “Ban The Box”
“The ordinance would prevent Portland employers from asking about criminal convictions on job application forms.”
Jefferson Public Radio: ‘Ban the box,’ says felon with master’s degree
“Emmanuel Price: ‘I would oftentimes fill out applications for jobs or housing and as soon as I turned my application in, I could read the body language and I could see the look on their face and I could knew I would not either one, get that job or get that apartment. And that repeated itself for ten years over.’ Price is founder of a Portland-based non-profit called Second Chances Are For Everyone, which advocates for and offers support to ex-offenders.”
Second Chances are for Everyone: SCAFE.org
A screenshot from an amazing interview with Michelle Alexander (author of The New Jim Crow) touching on the broader impacts of, and reasons for, Ban the Box
Youtube: Moyers and Company, Michelle Alexander: Locked Out of the American Dream
