It's hard to find a job if you've been in jail. A new program in LA County is trying to fix that
LOS ANGELES — The tight job market has made it easier for millions of Americans to find work in recent years — unless they have a criminal record.
Take, for example, what happened to John Rodriguez after he was released from prison in 2017, having served nine years for shooting and wounding a man as a 17-year-old in the Venice neighborhood. After returning home, he got offered a job as his grandmother's caretaker, which he could do while taking classes in college. But the offer was rescinded when the employer found out about his criminal record.
Later, he said, the owner of a cafe hired him to work in the kitchen without running a background check, so she didn't know about his conviction. But it was a hard secret to keep, given that his parole officer could have dropped into the cafe at any time to check on him.
Those experiences made him realize that even though he'd served his term, he couldn't simply put the mistake he'd made as a teenager behind him. "It feels like you have a stamp on your forehead that you'll never be able to remove," Rodriguez said.
According to a more than half of unemployed men in their 30s had been arrested at least once. found.
