Offer Funds for Employment Incentive and Opportunities

What You Need To Know

• The very presence of a drug arrest or charge can be an automatic barrier to getting a job and can also automatically disqualify people from getting a professional license for their trade, like trucking or barbering. *

• The disproportionate impact of drug war criminalization and related policies and practices on people and communities of color mean these communities are also most harmed by economic and employment disenfranchisement as a result of the war on drugs. *

• Because of the stigma associated with a conviction record, nearly 75% of formerly incarcerated individuals are still unemployed a year after release.

• Economists estimate that the gross national product is reduced between $78-$87 billion as a result of excluding formerly incarcerated job-seekers from the workforce.

Where to Go for More Information

• Uprooting the Drug War: Employment

• Back to Business: How Hiring Formerly Incarcerated Job Seekers Benefits Your Company

• Conviction, Imprisonment, and Lost Earnings: How Involvement with the Criminal Justice System Deepens Inequality

• Employer Guide to Second Chance Hiring Programs and Tax Credits

Programs To Know

• National H.I.R.E. Network

• Root & Rebound

• Federal Bonding Program

• Dave’s Killer Bread Foundation’s Second Chance Playbook

• Work Opportunity Tax Credit