LOS ANGELES – Assembly Member Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) carried legislation earlier this year to allow individuals with criminal records to receive licenses for professional vocations. AB 861 stalled in the Legislature with a promise the issue would be further examined during the Legislature’s interim period.

On Tuesday, November 1, the Assembly Business and Professions Committee, Chaired by Assemblymember Gloria Negrete McLeod (D-Chino), is conducting the first of two special hearing on barriers to employment for individuals with criminal records and the growing recidivism rate in California. The Committee will explore the relationship between barriers to employment and the fact that California has the highest recidivism rate of any state in the entire nation.

Reintegrating ex-offenders into their communities has attracted growing attention as the nation’s prison population has swelled and unemployment ranges from 30% to 50% after a person has been out of jail for several months, according to the Urban Institute. A Little Hoover Commission report also notes that nearly one of every five people on parole in this country lives in California – with two out of three California parolees returning to prison before completing parole.

The Committee will examine what California is and should be doing to reduce the recidivism rate through addressing the barriers to employment that contribute to the failure of ex-offenders to successfully re-enter their communities.

Invited to Testify:

Secretary Rod Hickman – Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR)
Representative – Prison Industry Authority, CDCR
Representative – Division of Adult Parole Operations, CDCR
Dean Borg – Adult Operations and Programs, CDCR
Jean Bracy – Correctional Education Division, CDCR
Cindie Fonseca – SEIU Local 1000
Maurice Emsellem – National Employment Law Project
Margaret Richardson – East Bay Community Law Center
Kim Carter – A Time for Change Foundation