Reducing recidivism, one job at a time

By Jamie Swinnerton
Tompkins Weekly

With the help of grassroots efforts like the Ban the Box campaign, issues that contribute to recidivism rates are now part of a larger conversation about the consequences of incarceration, and what life is like for a formerly incarcerated individual. Locally, numerous organizations are working across intersections of issues like housing and employment to try to lower recidivism rates in Tompkins County. Soon, these efforts will culminate in the first annual Beyond the Box network and job fair that aims to not only connect the formerly incarcerated with gainful employment but to connect employers with local services that will help them better understand and support the formerly incarcerated in their workforce, reducing recidivism.

“This organization that I’m with, the Ultimate Reentry Opportunity initiative, has been engaged in bringing folks together to work on systemic issues dealing with folks returning from jail or prison,” said Taili Mugambee, coordinator for URO, one of the many organizations organizing the Beyond the Box job and networking fair on May 29 at The Space at Greenstar. “We started out with focus groups, talking directly with folks who were formerly incarcerated and really looking at the issues that they felt were important to address.”

The issues included housing, employment, criminal justice reforms, transportation, health, and wellness. Employment was one area that Mugambee said the group felt like they could feasibly tackle. For about nine months this is what they have been focused on.

Last year a community reading of “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness”, by Michelle Alexander, sparked more local awareness of the issues that people face when re-entering society after having been incarcerated. Following the conclusion of the read Mugambee said, it was determined that having a reentry fair should be one of the actions steps that the community should take in order to address the needs of the formerly incarcerated who face barriers to successful reentry. After hosting a reentry summit focused on employment at the Collective Impact Summit at Cornell University in November, local agencies that work with people reentering life outside of incarceration decided to develop a reentry-friendly employer hub.

“We wanted to have that as an access, as a tool for folks who are coming out to know who to go to when looking for jobs,” Mugambee said. “We thought the best way to do this would be to not just call the employers but to make this a public event so that people know the issues and can chime in, and the public can be engaged in this and therefore we hope that change would come out of activities, and discussions, and dialogue.”

The Beyond the Box job fair isn’t just about pairing reentry individuals looking for jobs with employers looking to fill positions. It is also about connecting employers with the local organizations helping re-entry individuals in other ways, showcasing the support available to both the employer and their future employees.

“What we’ve done is brought service providers, folks who are working directly with the formerly incarcerated people – whether it’s employment training, whether it’s the mental health services that are available, you name it, we’ve brought these organizations,” Mugambee said.

The Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce, Women’s Opportunity Center, Tompkins Workforce NY, Hospitality Employment Training Program, Catholic Charities of Tompkins County, Challenge Workforce Solutions, Opportunities, Alternatives and Resources, Alternatives Federal Credit Union, Way2Go, Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County, and URO make up some of the local service providers presenting the first annual Beyond the Box job fair.

“We know it’s not an easy sale,” Mugambee said of making employers comfortable with hiring formerly incarcerated individuals. “But, we want to give them an opportunity to see that ‘Okay if certain things are happening I know I can call this agency or this organization and find solutions from folks who are trusted in the community who work with our target population.’”

By using these services and county resources URO found employers interested in coming to the fair to meet with the individuals looking for work. But, these connections were, at least in part, made by tapping into the network of businesses that work with the Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce.

The chamber often represents the business community in community initiatives and collective impact work such as this. Dominick Recckio, Member Relationship Manager for the chamber, said it was a natural fit for the chamber to be part of this work. Recckio said that earlier this year the chamber attended the collective impact summit that included discussions about re-entry initiatives, like employment.

“Some folks in the area, some real leaders in the space, had some great ideas around it and around a job fair, noticing that some of the holes there were the employers,” Recckio said. “That was something that we could bring to the table so I offered up the chambers network and our access to information to be able to reach out to folks.”

Tompkins County employers are always looking to fill positions across a spectrum of skill levels and areas, that’s one of the reasons the chamber is involved with the event. But that’s not why the event was created. Stable employment for formerly incarcerated individuals is one of several things that helps lower recidivism.
“That’s our number one objective here at URO,” Mugambee said, “is to reduce recidivism. We know that providing individuals an opportunity to have gainful employment and career opportunities is part of that puzzle.”

Securing housing and securing employment are two of the biggest challenges for formerly incarcerated individuals, said Dr. Paula Ioanide, associate professor at Ithaca College in the Center for the Study of Culture, Race, and Ethnicity. Mass incarceration is one of Ioanide’s areas of research and for almost 10 years she has been organizing locally for anti-jail expansion efforts.

Over the last 30 or so years, Ioanide said there has been an increase in background checks and employment applications asking applicants to divulge if they have ever been convicted of a felony. These questions and deciding how much to divulge about a criminal record can be intimidating to an applicant.

“More often than not that question has a major psychological impact,” Ioanide said. “Coming into the situation presuming that people are going to be biased against you, if it’s an applicant of color, which is often the case because in our states and jails black and latino and native people are highly, highly overrepresented compared to white people, and what ends up happening is that you end up facing potentially both racial discrimination and now the stereotypes that are associated with a felon or has been convicted of any type of crime.”

Ioanide said that often the employer won’t even take the response into consideration unless there is a suggestion for hire. The supervisors who make the ultimate hiring decisions may not even see the answer if the applicant has already been filtered out by Human Resources. So, applicants may choose not to even apply because of the question, and those that do may not actually ever meet the person doing the hiring.

Several years ago, a Ban the Box campaign in New York removed the question from applications for public jobs. This did not altogether remove the question, which might be saved for a later interview or after an offer is made, giving the applicant more time to demonstrate who they are beyond their criminal record.

Here in Tompkins County, there is no comprehensive data collection about recidivism rates from the local jail. But, that is soon to change. One of the first things that Dave Sanders, the new Criminal Justice Coordinator for the county, wants to do is define what recidivism means then start to collect data. Sanders started in this position in March of this year.

“There are quite a few different subcategories,” Sanders said. “And we, as Tompkins County through the CGR report, realized that we didn’t have an overall county recidivism rate. So, one of the new tasks for my position is to determine what that is.”

The report Sanders is referring to was conducted by a research firm, CGR, for the Tompkins County Criminal Justice and Jail Assessment Project to find ways to reduce the local jail population. Recidivism, how often people return to jail or prison, isn’t easy to measure because there are numerous variables. Over what time period should it be measured? Should people who were not convicted be counted?

“Basically, there is data in the many different areas but I don’t think anyone has been looking at it consistently to determine trends to see what’s going on,” Sanders said. “You have re-arrests, you have re-bookings, you have re-conviction, and you have actually violation for either parole and probation, and there are strategies and reasons to track all of them. But the capabilities probably not there.”

Sanders expects to present a plan to the county legislature and administrator in at least a year with more ideas, based on data, to reduce recidivism and lower the county jail population.

Transportation (another large factor in the recidivism and employment puzzle) for individuals who would like to get ot the event is being offered in several ways through local organizations.

“Ithaca Carshare and Bike Walk Tompkins are both part of the same organization, with a mission to enhance community access to transportation while reducing negative economic and environmental impacts,” said Jennifer Dotson, Executive Director of Ithaca Carshare. “Helping formerly incarcerated people with transportation fits squarely into this. What our support is looking like at this point is seeking LimeBike discounted/free use for those interested in attending the event.”

Norma Gutierrez, Way2Go Transportation Educator, said that individuals in need of transportation can contact Way2Go for information and support finding transportation.

“Way2Go offers information and referrals to individuals facing transportation barriers to work, medical trips and everyday needs,” Gutierrez said. “Way2Go expands access to transportation by connecting people to existing options, and helping develop new community solutions. We do this by working collectively with other local organizations, city and county transportation planners including TCAT and other service providers on identifying potential transportation solutions.”

Although the community read, and events like the job fair, are raising community awareness of the issues that people face during reentry, Ioanide said that it will take a complete shift in action, not just awareness, to fully address the issues related to recidivism and mass incarceration. In the meantime, URO and its partner organizations plan to make the Beyond the Box job fair an annual event.