MURIEL BOWSER TO ENACT "BAN THE BOX" IN DC TO REMOVE EMPLOYMENT BARRIER (ARREST RECORDS); ARRESTS DOESN'T EQUAL CONVICTIONS

MURIEL BOWSER TO ENACT "BAN THE BOX" IN DC TO REMOVE EMPLOYMENT BARRIER (ARREST RECORDS):

AN ARREST DOES NOT EQUAL CONVICTIONS AND MANY PEOPLE (ESPECIALLY BLACKS) CAN'T GET JOBS DUE TO VERY OLD ARREST RECORDS WITH NO CONVICTIONS.

WHITE JOB APPLICANTS WITH ARRESTS ARE STILL HIRED, NOT BLACKS.

REFUSING TO HIRE PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN ARRESTED WITHOUT CONVICTIONS IS A FORM OF DISCRIMINATION.

NOT EVERYONE CAN AFFORD EXPUNGEMENT.

IT'S TIME TO REMOVE SUCH BARRIERS TO EMPLOYMENT.


Sources: NBC News


****** DC Mayor Moves to Ease Process of Sealing Criminal Records



Mayor Muriel Bowser proposed legislation Thursday that could make it easier for D.C. residents to seal their criminal records.


DC Could Make It Easier to Seal Criminal Records


Mayor Muriel Bowser proposed legislation on Thursday that could make it easier for D.C. residents to seal criminal conviction records.


Bowser's plan proposes that arrest records that aren't prosecuted or end with a conviction be automatically sealed, wait times for record sealings be trimmed down and some convictions should be reviewed to be eligible for record sealing, according to a statement from her office.


"We know that when we remove barriers to housing, education and employment for some residents by giving them a clean slate, we are actually building a safer, stronger city for all residents," Bowser said in the statement."Through this legislation, we will give more individuals, more families, and more neighborhoods a fair shot at success."

Although sealed criminal records can't be accessed by potential employers during a background check, some employers, including those who work with children, law enforcement officials and courts can see them.Mayor Muriel Bowser proposed legislation Thursday that could make it easier for D.C. residents to seal criminal conviction records.

Bowser proposed that arrests that aren't prosecuted or don't end with a conviction automatically be sealed. The plan also calls for reduced wait times for record sealings, and a review of the types of convictions eligible for record sealing, according to a statement from her office.

"We know that when we remove barriers to housing, education and employment for some residents by giving them a clean slate, we are actually building a safer, stronger city for all residents," the mayor said in the statement."Through this legislation, we will give more individuals, more families, and more neighborhoods a fair shot at success."

Over 40,000 people are arrested every year in D.C., and only one-third of those people are prosecuted.

Brian Ferguson works in the mayor's office helping people who were released from prison assimilate back into regular life. He also was in prison for 11 years before having a conviction for homicide overturned. He said these laws could help people get back on their feet.

"Arrest records are holding them back from being able to potentially obtain employment, professional licensing, education or housing," Ferguson said.

Sealed criminal records can't be accessed by landlords, employers or other third parties during a background check. However, certain employers that serve vulnerable people, law enforcement officials and courts can see them.

Currently, under D.C. law, people must petition to have their records sealed by proving their innocence, which can take from six months to years.
According to Bowser's statement, more than 10,000 people annually ask for help to have their records sealed in D.C. Superior Court from the Public Defender Service.

REPARATIONS EQUAL FAIR OPPORTUNITIES FOR 21st CENTURY BLACK AMERICA (AFFIRMATIVE ACTION)

@Reparations

REPARATIONS EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR 21st CENTURY BLACK AMERICA:

BLACK VOTERS NEED TO ABANDON THE IDEA OF REPARATIONS & FOCUS ON FAIR OPPORTUNITIES.

~ Reparations are defined as Monetary Compensation from the Federal Govt for current BLACK descendants of previously enslaved BLACK Human Beings.

While it's true several other ethnic groups received types of Reparations from the U.S. Federal Govt due to centuries of Institutional Racism, it's highly unlikely 21st century BLACK American citizens will ever receive Reparations in monetary form.

The only in-kind type of Reparations awarded BLACK American citizens was via AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, which is a Federal program.

However considering the growing number of SCOTUS legal challenges opposing AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, it's clear this Federal program will soon become extinct.

So what can BLACK American citizens realistically expect to receive as a substitute for Reparations?
What about FAIR OPPORTUNITIES?

I'm referring to real OPPORTUNITIES.

Complete OPPORTUNITIES to receive a proper Education, to become gainfully Employed, to become Homeowners and Small Business owners without fear of unnecessary REGULATIONS & TAXATION.

Complete OPPORTUNITIES for real Legal Representation, and for Ex-Offenders to become Employed ("Ban the Box") immediately after being released.

When Human Beings are granted a true FAIR OPPORTUNITY to SUCCEED in life, they have no one to blame for Failure but themselves.~


*** Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Hits Bernie Sanders Over Slavery Reparations They Don’t Support

For social justice-minded liberals of a certain age, it has always been an impossible dream that something as politically radioactive as slavery reparations would ever become an issue in a presidential campaign, but here we are.

For good or for bad, insurgent Democratic primary candidate Bernie Sanders is feeling the heat over his offhand dismissal of reparations in a recent interview, and now, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton‘s campaign has surfaced the issue on national television as a means of attacking Sanders.

It all began about a week ago when Sen. Sanders was asked if he would support slavery reparations. He quickly responded in the negative:

No, I don’t think so. First of all, the likelihood of getting through a Congress is nil. Second of all, I think it would be very divisive.

I think the real issue is, when we look at the poverty rate among the African American community, when we look at the high unemployment rate within the African American community, the incarceration rate within the African American community, we have a lot of work to do.

So I think what we should be talking about is making massive investments in rebuilding our cities and creating millions of decent paying jobs, and making public colleges and universities tuition free, and working on child care.

Basically, targeting our federal resources to the areas that it is needed the most.

And where it is needed the most is in impoverished communities, often African American and Latino.
That response drew intense pressure from The Atlantic‘s Ta-Nehisi Coates, who penned a viral essay asking “Why Precisely Is Bernie Sanders Against Reparations?”

On Wednesday night’s All In, Coates explained why Sanders’ response perturbed him, and also why it took nearly a week for him to publish the piece:

When I see somebody just wave away reparations on pragmatic concerns, when your campaign itself is not based on pragmatism, when your campaign is based on, as I said before, what is politically imaginable. And that’s a really, really good thing, I’m defending that, by the way. I’m not against that. I’m for candidacies based on that.

That’s the tonal difference. It’s not that, hey, we have a bunch of great ideas here, but only some of them look like they can actually happen. or some look more likely to happen than others, so these are the ones we’re going to advocate.

First of all, they didn’t even return my numerous calls or my e-mail. So let’s start there, there was no even back, you know — back channel conversation about that at all. They just, you know, left it be and felt it shouldn’t be responded to. That’s fine, but then I have to write what I think about that.

The reaction from Sanders supporters has been vitriolic, and sounds an awful lot like the summation being given by unlikely Sanders defender Tucker Carlson on Fox News, who described someone named “Tah-Nah-HEE-zee Coates” as a “Clinton minion”:

How worried are they? They’re sending minions to make the case Bernie sanders is bigot.

There is piece of a Hillary minion saying Bernie Sanders is, in effect, a racist because he is not for reparations.

I don’t know many “Hillary minions” who would attack Chelsea Clinton in defense of Bernie Sanders, and of course, Coates said nothing to remotely suggest that Bernie is a bigot or a racist, unless that’s what “anti-racism moderate” means.

The timing of this brouhaha is bad for Sanders, but then it wasn’t Coates who gave that quick “no” and then refused to engage followups. As has been his pattern with Black issues, Sanders has handled this poorly.

Not content to just let the flaming tire around Bernie’s neck burn, though, the Hillary Clinton campaign decided that they were the right messengers to press this attack, and not because he’s wrong about reparations, but because it demonstrates a political weakness.

Here’s Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon on CNN:

"We’ll see over the coming weeks if he can explain these plans that he has laid out on health care.

He hasn’t said how he would achieve a single payer system. He couldn’t even get a public option with an entirely Democratic congress. When it comes to something like reparations, he dismisses it as completely unfeasible."

Now, aside from the fact that they are appropriating this serious issue to score cheap political points, which is, itself, not a good look for a campaign that has had to work hard to fight off an entire Samsonite showroom’s worth of baggage with Black voters (and largely succeeded), there’s also the inconvenient fact that Hillary’s position on this issue is nearly identical to Bernie’s.

When Hillary was asked about reparations, she managed to articulate almost the exact same position, but managed to make it sound like a “yes.”:

I think we should start studying what investments we need to make in communities to help individuals and families and communities move forward. And I am absolutely committed to that.

There are some good ideas out there. There’s an idea in the Congressional Black Caucus about really targeting federal dollars to communities that have had either disinvestment or or no investment, and have had years of being below the poverty level.

That’s the kind of thing I’d like us to focus on and really help lift people up.

Now, as Coates explained, there is a major qualitative difference between the two candidates’ responses, which forms the entire basis of his legitimate critique, but substantively, there is no difference.

That makes the Clinton campaign the wrong folks to press this attack, unless they want to explain why their position is exactly the same as Bernie’s.

They’d be better off sitting this one out, and so would those Hillary supporters who haven’t uttered the word “reparations” since they fried the starter in their Audi, but now behave as though this is a lifelong crusade.

They’re going to be put to the test when this issue becomes part of the debates, because if Clintonworld thinks Republicans are drooling to put Bernie in an ad with a hammer and sickle, they’ve got a steel cucumber in their pants over the prospect of Hillary in a red, black, and green dashiki.

As for Sanders, he ought to at least explain why he was so quick to dismiss reparations when he’s happily advocating for forty acres of health care and a college tuition mule, because on its face, it seems to indicate a real difference in the way these two candidates think about racial justice.

And Sanders’ supporters ought to ease up on Coates, because they’re not helping their guy. It’s not a “smear” to quote someone accurately and ask for an explanation.

It’s to his credit that he has begun a discussion about an issue he’s long championed, but unfortunately, that discussion will be more about how the issue of reparations makes candidates look than it will be about reparations themselves.


Sources: Mediaite, Racism Review, Youtube

EX-OFFENDERS DESERVE A 2ND CHANCE - BAN THE BOX

EX-OFFENDERS DESERVE A 2ND CHANCE - BAN THE BOX:

HOW CAN MEN PAY CHILD SUPPORT & BE FATHERS IF THEY CAN'T GET JOBS??

Granting Ex-Offenders a second chance in life by Hiring them to WORK and Expunging their Criminal Records, is good for America's economy.

Assisting Ex-Offenders to become gainfully EMPLOYED reduces Recidivism and Crime.

It will also help to rebuild Communities destroyed by Incarcerated Men who are FATHERS because those Men who are FATHERS will be given OPPORTUNITIES to Pay CHILD SUPPORT and actively engage in the lives of their Children.

~ BAN THE BOX: U.S. CITIES, COUNTIES, AND STATES ADOPT FAIR HIRING POLICIES:

Nationwide, over 100 cities and counties have adopted what is widely known as “ban the box” so that employers consider a job candidate’s qualifications first, without the stigma of a conviction record. 

These initiatives provide applicants a fair chance by removing the conviction history question on the job application and delaying the background check inquiry until later in the hiring.

Momentum for the policy has grown exponentially, particularly in recent years.

There are a total of 19 states representing nearly every region of the country that have adopted the policies —California (2013, 2010), Colorado (2012), Connecticut (2010), Delaware (2014), Georgia (2015), Hawaii (1998), Illinois (2014, 2013), Maryland (2013), Massachusetts (2010), Minnesota (2013, 2009), Nebraska (2014), New Jersey (2014), New Mexico (2010), New York (2015), Ohio (2015), Oregon (2015), Rhode Island (2013), Vermont (2015), and Virginia (2015).

Seven states—Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon and Rhode Island—have removed the conviction history question on job applications for private employers, which advocates embrace as the next step in the evolution of these policies.

Federally, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) endorsed removing the conviction question from the job application as a best practice in its 2012 guidance making clear that federal civil rights laws regulate employment decisions based on arrests and convictions.

The Obama Administration’s My Brother’s Keeper Task Force also gave the movement a boost when it endorsed hiring practices “which give applicants a fair chance and allows employers the opportunity to judge individual job candidates on their merits.”

Fair-chance policies benefit everyone because they’re good for families and the local community.

At a recent event in Oakland for employers to discuss reentry issues, one business owner spoke to the personal benefit he finds from hiring people with records. “I’ve seen how a job makes all the difference,” says Derreck B. Johnson, founder and president of Home of Chicken and Waffles in Oakland. “When I give someone a chance and he becomes my best employee, I know that I’m doing right by my community.”

This resource guide documents the states, Washington D.C., and the over 100 cities and counties—that have taken steps to remove barriers to employment for qualified workers with records. Seven states, Washington D.C., and 27 cities and counties now extend the fair-chance policy to government contractors or private employers.

Of the localities, Baltimore, Buffalo, Chicago, Columbia (MO), Montgomery County (MD), New York City, Newark, Philadelphia, Portland (OR), Prince George’s County (MD), Rochester, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington D.C. extend their fair-chance laws to private employers in the area.

A chart summarizing all the policies is at the end of this guide.

To support your state and local efforts to enact a fair-chance policy, check out NELP’s Fair Chance – Ban the Box Toolkit, which provides a step-by-step guide for advocates on how to launch a “ban the box” campaign.

Embedded in the Toolkit is a range of resources to draft a law, to build your network, to support your outreach, and even to develop your media outreach.

Post Sources: NELP, YouTube