Jobs for Felons: Beware of Career Schools

If you are at home in the daytime, I'm sure you have seen countless commercials from career schools promising  new careers and brighter futures for unemployed people.  If you don't have a job or have no idea where your life is going, these schools appear to the be the answer to a lot of prayers.

These career academies or adult education schools offer the hope of well paying careers as Cosmetology, the medical field, fashion designing, automotive repair, culinary etc.  They even offer help with financial aid (usually loans,) and job placement after you graduate.  I even saw one that claimed upon completion of their Medical Billing a Coding course, you would be able to do billing and coding from home.

I often get emails and letters from ex-offenders and felons asking if the investment in time and money would help their situations.  Before I answer this question, let's look at how these career schools work.

Jobs for Felons: Beware of Career Schools

As stated above, these schools train students for a variety of in-demand careers.  In most cases, these schools operate for a profit.  The exception to this are community colleges that offer career training.  Because vocational schools are profit oriented, the want to make their training very attractive to those who are serious about training for careers.  While many of these schools are reputable and do an excellent job preparing students and assisting them in getting placed, there are others who record is not as good.  To drive more students to their programs, they may offer misleading information about the need for qualified people to fill jobs, the earning potential or the ability to place their graduates.

I encourage ex-offenders and felons looking for jobs and careers to carefully explore all of their options for training before such a big investment of time and money.  First I suggest your local community college.  Many community colleges are committed to providing quality education and some include career and vocational education.  Community colleges also have very qualified financial aid, counseling and dedicated placement personnel.  If your local community college does not offer training in a field you are interested in, you may have to turn to a private career school.  Before choosing a school you have to ask some very important questions.

Is the school accredited?  Accreditation is an evaluation by a nationally recognized agency.  If a school is accredited , it means it has met certain quality standards and probably is a good school.  You can simply ask a school representative "Is you school accredited and by what agency?"

What is the total cost of the program and what financial aid is available?  You may require a loan to finance your training.  If you are unemployed, you may be eligible for assistance through your state's department of labor.  You can find a department of labor representative at your local One-stop Career Center.  You can find the center nearest to you here: www.servicelocator.org

 If you need a loan, I suggest government sponsored financial aid.  You can get information about federal financial aid and other financial aid options here: What Is Financial Aid and How Does It Work?
 
What is the school's placement record?  Ask about the school's placement record.  Find out what percentage of graduates in your field and the average have been placed and .  Find out what employers have hired the school's graduates.  This is very important.  You should contact these employers to see if they hire ex-offenders or felons.  You may also find out if a license is required and if your conviction would keep you from being licensed.

Choosing a career a great choice for felons looking to put criminal records behind them.  Choosing the right school can help them do it.

Jobs for Felons: Top 10 Awesome Jobs That Don’t Need an Education Degree

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Jobs for Felons: Beware of Career Schools

 Jobs for felons: Old conviction is a problem

Please Help! My boyfriend is a convicted felon. He was charged with his felony when he was 18 years old and served 28 days. He is off probation, he has never messed up since that day but everywhere he looks he sees a background check is needed. Every time I look for ex-offender jobs all I can find are jobs that are for felons just getting out of jail. He is 28 years old and makes $5 less an hour than his coworker and he has certificates for his job and his coworker does not.

He has had the same job for 9 years now and has not gotten a raise. He committed a crime barely after turning 18 and now it is haunting him forever. I don't know what else to do or where to look.

There has to be something he can do. Please help me.

  Jobs for felons: Old conviction is a problem

Hello,

ex-offenders and felons I deal with.  First of all, I'm not sure what it is he does, but it seems that he has a marketable skill.  Secondly, he has had the same job for nine years.  That means that he has at least nine years of practical experience.

The problem I believe your boyfriend is having is, he is thinking like a felon that has a job rather than a working person that happens to have a record.  He is letting his criminal record define who he is.  He will not find a job looking for "Ex-offender Jobs."  There is no such thing.  No one advertises that they hire ex-offenders and felons.   My suggestion is from now on he should stop thinking as if he has a mark of a criminal on his face.  He does not!  He should apply for every job he feels he is qualified to do.

His record is not going away.  He has to deal with it and deal with it in a positive way.  Never fear a background check.  Every job he applies for, he should be honest about his past.  When he gets an interview and the question comes up, he should speak briefly about it focusing on what he has done with his life since then.  He should talk about the positive things he has done to improve himself.  There are jobs for felons.  Felons get hired everyday.  The key is finding an employer who will look past his record (which should not be hard to do since it happened over ten years ago.)  There are many companies that hire felons.

Like I said, he should apply for every job he feels he is qualified for.  Finding a job is a numbers game.  The more jobs he applies for, the more interviews he will get.  The more interviews he gets, the greater his chances are of getting a job.

I hope this helps

Jobs for felons:  Where can Ex-offenders and Felons Find Jobs?

Ex-offenders and convicted felons can get jobs with Federal Bonding Program

Jobs for felons: Ten Simple Steps to Getting a Job with a Criminal Record

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   Jobs for felons: Old conviction is a problem

Eric Mayo

Felon wants to be a locksmith

I am wondering if u can help me with a question that i have. I live in Indianapolis, Indiana and I am a convicted felon. I would like to know if I can become a licensed locksmith? If I can then what do I need to do to become a locksmith? Any information would be very helpful.

Thank You.

 Felon wants to be a locksmith

Hello,

To my knowledge, the state of Indiana does not require locksmiths to be licensed. One thing I do caution self-employed ex-offenders and felons is to inquire if your conviction prohibits you from getting bonded.

A bond is an insurance policy that protects your customers from any type of loss as a result of doing business with you. I know ex-offenders and felons looking for jobs can be bonded through a program offered by the federal government. The program however does not extend to businesses owned by felons, only for felons who are employed or seek to be employed.

You can find more about the federal bonding program here:
http://www.bonds4jobs.com/

Jobs for Felons:  What is the Federal Bonding Program?

Jobs for Felons: How to Get a Federal Bond

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Felon wants to be a locksmith

Companies that Hire Ex-Offenders Can Get a Tax Credit, But Very Few Actually Claim It

By 

Chandra Bozelko - Barrons

April has been recognized as “Second Chance Month” since 2017 as part of a bipartisan effort to push criminal justice reform. This year, President Trump has announced that he wants to cut unemployment among ex-offenders—currently around 27%, according to the Prison Policy Initiative—to single digits within five years. The most efficient way to do that is to modify the Work Opportunity Tax Credit.

A job provides needed income and adds structure to a person’s day; it’s no surprise that studies have shown employment can reduce the chance of re-offending by about 20%. Jobs for ex-offenders benefit everyone in a community.

That’s one reason ex-offenders are included in the class of applicants employers are encouraged to consider by an incentive known as Work Opportunity Tax Credits. The Work Opportunity Tax Credit is a provision of the Internal Revenue Code that authorizes a tax credit for companies that hire from certain populations, like veterans, recipients of certain entitlement programs, and people with felony records. Employers submit eligible new hires to claim a tax credit equal to a percentage of an employee’s wages.

More than job training or education, the WOTC holds promise for people leaving prison whose applications may not be as competitive as others. It also encourages higher wages since the tax credit is a proportion of what employees are paid.

In its current form, the WOTC isn’t as effective as it can be. The law applies only to those who are hired within one year of the date of their conviction or release from prison, whichever is later. In that respect, it may limit eligibility only to first-time users of the program; no job applicant can be certified twice if they need another job after that first year.

But as many as 45% of released prisoners don’t have a job in that first year of release. According to a study completed by the Brookings Institution last year, only 55% of released prisoners have any earnings at all during the first year they’re home. Very often, by the time they land a job, their eligibility for the WOTC is gone.

This might explain why the WOTC appears to suffer from underutilization. For instance, Oklahoma, the nation’s leading incarcerator, certified only 1,465 people in fiscal 2018 in the “ex-felon” category. New York, a state with approximately 47,100 inmates and 36,410 parolees, certified only 1,534 people for the WOTC. In 2014, an average of 41,866 people were on parole in California, yet only 527 eligible felons were certified to give their employers the tax credit.

The Labor Department reports that, for fiscal 2018, only 85,796 people with criminal records were certified as eligible employees—and this among a sea of an estimated 626,000 people who leave custody every year.

While it’s possible that 500,000 of those released people are ineligible because they’re beyond the one-year cutoff for the WOTC, any underutilization may stem from the inherent conflict between two policies that have same overarching goal: to help disadvantaged individuals secure employment.

Employers aren’t allowed to know of an applicant’s criminal record and eligibility under “Ban the Box” statutes—laws that remove felony conviction checkboxes from job applications.

Awareness of the WOTC benefit needs to grow and may very well do so on its own if aspiring hires can disclose their eligibility; but they won’t disclose if they’re prohibited from doing so. Ban the Box advocates have been so busy hiding people’s records to remove a disadvantage in hiring that they forego leveraging an advantage. We don’t know how many people who weren’t hired because of the eventual disclosure of their criminal record would have been offered a job if the company knew of the potential tax benefit.

There is a way to protect people’s understandable desire to both hide their record and also signal to employers that hiring them can bring a tax benefit. It involves not banning the box but revising it; a box asking of an applicant is a member of the groups covered by the WOTC would hide a criminal record while also informing businesses of the tax credit if hired.

It true that the stigma of criminal conviction prevents many people from being hired. It’s unclear whether the WOTC is enough to overcome preconceived ideas about released prisoners. The little evidence we have on this, a survey of companies in Connecticut by a small nonprofit, the Malta Justice Initiative, says employers are likely to respond to expanded tax incentives. 73% of respondents indicated a tax credit would motivate hiring managers; subsidies would entice 76% of them.

The Work Opportunity Tax Credit is authorized through the end of 2019 through the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act. Its reauthorization process will now involve criminal justice reform insider Senator Chuck Grassley who is the new Chair of the Senate Finance Committee and Vice-Chair of the Joint Committee on Taxation. Grassley’s dedication to reforming the reentry process and his new positions prime him to optimize the tax code to help meet the president’s employment goal.

Amending the WOTC to expand eligibility beyond one year would likely go a long way in helping released prisoners secure employment as well as provide a boon to businesses.

Chandra Bozelko is the Vice President of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and writes the Webby award-winning blog Prison Diaries.

Introduction to the Work Opportunity Tax Credit

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Companies that Hire Ex-Offenders Can Get a Tax Credit, But Very Few Actually Claim It

The Truth about Background Checks

Which reputable company can I go to online or the most popular or common to do a background check on myself. I want to be able to know exactly what's on my record so I'll know what to put on my application when filling them out.

Thanks

Ex-offenders and felons looking for jobs should know what is in their records

That's a very good question.

I encourage all ex-offenders and felons looking for jobs to find out exactly what is in their respective criminal records. This will allow them to be honest when applying for jobs.

An employer may perform a background check through an investigative service or state or federal law enforcement agencies. The law allows public access to felony conviction records without consent of the person whose record is being checked. Local law enforcement agencies may provide this information for a fee.

The best and most accurate resource for criminal records is from the Federal Bureau of Investigations (The FBI)


Individuals can obtain a copy of their national criminal history record from the FBI by submitting a request to the address below.

In order to receive a copy of your FBI record for personal, employment, or international work requirements the FBI requires the following:

1) A signed written request with a brief explanation for the request and your complete return
mailing address.

2) Every request for records must contain two completed applicant fingerprint cards with all of the applicant's personal information (name, date of birth, place of birth, etc.) and a current set of 10 rolled fingerprints and eight flat finger impressions. Fingerprints and impressions must be taken by a local police department.

3) An $18.00 fee in U.S. currency by certified check or money order payable to the United States Treasury. This information is provided in compliance with the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.

FBI
CJIS Division
ATTN: SCU, MOD.D-2
1000 Custer Hollow Road
Clarksburg, West Virginia 26303
For more information, you may contact the FBI at 304-625-3878

An easier way to get an accurate copy of your criminal record is from your probation or parole officer. He/she can get it without a fee.

I hope this helps.

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The Truth About Background Checks

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Ex-offenders and felons looking for jobs should know what is in their records

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