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Serving People from Arrest to Reintegration

One Strike and You’re Out: How We Can Eliminate Barriers to Economic Security and Mobility for People with Criminal Records

  • Organization: The Sentencing Project
  • Document Type: Brief/Motion Papers
  • Date Created: Tuesday, December 09, 2014
  • Submitted: Tuesday, December 09, 2014
  • Attachment(s): LINK

Approximately 7 million individuals are under some form of correctional control in the United States, including 2.2 million incarcerated in federal or state prisons and local jails. Tens of millions have some type of criminal record. As Rebecca Vallas and Sharon Dietrich note in the report's introduction, a criminal background can present obstacles to employment, housing, public assistance, education, and family reunification. Moreover, poverty and homelessness are increasingly criminalized. Failure to address these links as part of a larger anti-poverty agenda risks missing a major piece of the puzzle.

"We have used our criminal justice system as our primary means of responding to socioeconomic problems in disadvantaged communities of color," said Marc Mauer. "We are well past the point of diminishing returns for public safety in incarceration."

 

The Sentencing Project partnered with Half in Ten and the Community Legal Services of Philadelphia (CLS) to produce a poverty and opportunity profile highlighting the barriers for individuals with a criminal record.

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