You Serve Your Time, Earn Your Freedom, Then the Job Market Shuts the Door in Your Face
When I was in prison on a nonviolent drug offense, all I could think about was getting out, even though I had a life sentence without parole. I worked hard to learn welding and cooking, skills I was sure would help me find a job to support myself if I were ever released. I imagined that I would have a chance to build a new life, and after I’d spent 16 years behind bars, my dream came true. President Obama commuted my sentence.
In August 2015, I walked out into freedom. I was ready to get a job and start living. I’d heard that it’s hard for those who have served time to find work, but I was confident because I thought I had the skills I needed to get my life back on track and become a productive member of my community. I had no idea that the job market is barricaded against people like me.
After I left prison in Oklahoma, I was placed in a halfway house run by the federal Bureau of Prisons in Dallas for a year before I would be completely on my own. I wanted desperately to find a job. I felt confident about my skills and started to look.
The first place I applied was Whole Foods because I’d heard they hired ex-felons. I told a cashier that I wanted to talk to the manager about a job. The cashier said that if I wanted to apply for a job, I had to “go over there,” and he pointed to a wall. I didn’t see anyone, so I said, “Nobody is over there,” and he said, “I know, you apply through a computer.” All my enthusiasm about getting a job drained out of me because I didn’t know how to work a computer. When I went to prison in 1998, computers weren’t everywhere the way they are now. And the halfway house didn’t have any computers for residents to use.
I went over to the computer and tried, but I couldn’t figure it out. I left sweating and discouraged. But I kept going, walking into every business I could find. Every place was the same thing: computer after computer.
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