{"id":6600,"date":"2012-05-17T06:10:08","date_gmt":"2012-05-17T11:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=6600"},"modified":"2012-12-27T13:33:52","modified_gmt":"2012-12-27T19:33:52","slug":"daunting-employment-barriers-await-oklahoma-felons-after-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2012\/05\/17\/daunting-employment-barriers-await-oklahoma-felons-after-prison\/","title":{"rendered":"Daunting Employment Barriers Await Oklahoma Felons After Prison"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Joe Wertz \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n

Released after 23 years in prison, Michael Howell-El faced steep fines, fees and housing issues before he could start his job search.<\/p>\n<\/div>

More than\u00a08 percent<\/a>\u00a0of Oklahomans have a felony background. Finding a job is key to breaking the cycle of crime and poverty, researchers and corrections official say. And a felony conviction often means inescapable employment obstacles.<\/p>

<\/p>

Felons continue to fill Oklahoma\u2019s prisons to\u00a0near capacity<\/a>. But at some point, most of them will be released and have to find jobs.<\/p>

When Michael Howell-El was released from prison last August, after a 23-year drug-related sentence, he found a completely different world.<\/p>

\u201cI was totally, \u2018Aw!\u2019 Looking at the cars and cell phones, you know, technology. Because I left with big, giant mobile phones like they use in the army. And now they\u2019re hand held with all this texting and all this old stuff,\u201d Howell-El says.<\/p>

He didn\u2019t have long to take it all in.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Joe Wertz \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n

Kelly Doyle, county director of the Center for Employment Opportunities in Tulsa.<\/p>\n<\/div>

\u201cWell, in 1987 I produced a child. In 1989, she passed on,\u201d Howell-El says. \u201cI didn\u2019t know. My family members all knew, but they didn\u2019t tell me, uh, that she was deceased.\u201d<\/p>

He owed two years of child support, due immediately. What little money he\u2019d saved up in prison was gone. There was a litany of other fees, and also the matter of a place to live and finding a job \u2026 as a convicted felon \u2026 without resorting to crime.<\/p>

\u201cWhere am I going to get this money from, I don\u2019t have a job? You know what I\u2019m saying? So, how is an ex-con supposed to pay this with no financing, period?\u201d Howell-El says.<\/p>

Kelly Doyle is the county director of the Center for Employment Opportunities<\/a>, which has offices in Tulsa, New York and California.<\/p>

\u201cIt is so much to take on at once,\u201d she says.<\/p>

CEO provides transportation to interviews, teaches ex-offenders basic life skills and places them in transitional jobs. The jobs don\u2019t pay a lot, but it\u2019s better than just cutting them loose.<\/p>

\u201cWe were proven to reduce recidivism upwards of 20 percent,\u201d Doyle says. \u201cAnd though it\u2019s 20 percent, it translates to millions of dollars in criminal justice savings.\u201d<\/p>

CEO Tulsa opened in 2011 and is on track to assist more than 150 recently released felons in its first year. About\u00a08,000<\/a>\u00a0Oklahoma inmates will be released in that same time.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Joe Wertz \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n<\/div>

Democratic State Senator Constance Johnson says the issue is paid little more than lip service at the state Capitol.<\/p>

\u201cWe talk about it. It falls on deaf ears,\u201d she says.<\/p>

There are dozens of services and professions convicted felons are in some way restricted from by state law.<\/p>

[module align=”left” width=”half” type=”pull-quote”]<\/p>

\u201cAnd every time we\u2019ve tried to bring a bill to change that, then you get into the licensure boards\u2019 lobbies and, \u2018Yeah, well, we need ours to stay this way.’ And so all the bills ultimately die.\u201d<\/p>\n

– Sen. Constance Johnson (D-Oklahoma City)<\/h6>

[\/module]<\/p>

Some make obvious sense: Bank officer, carrying a firearm. Some don\u2019t, like cosmetologist and funeral director. It can be difficult to even get a drivers license.<\/p>

Sen. Johnson calls the Justice Reinvestment Initiative signed into law earlier this month \u2018inadequate,\u2019 but Doyle says the measure could allow CEO to expand, through a new requirement that felons receive nine months of supervision.<\/p>

\u201cWe can\u2019t enroll people into this program unless they\u2019re on supervision, and less than half of the people in the state have supervision when they get out,\u201d Doyle says.<\/p>

That pleases Michael Howell-El, who was able to get a stable job at a Tulsa Mexican restaurant with CEO\u2019s help, can afford an apartment, and hopes to one day open a restaurant of his own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than\u00a08 percent\u00a0of Oklahomans have a felony background. Finding a job is key to breaking the cycle of crime and poverty, researchers and corrections official say. And a felony conviction often means inescapable employment obstacles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":6625,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[300],"tags":[223,371],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6600"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6600"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6647,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6600\/revisions\/6647"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}