As labor shortages persist across the country, more companies are turning toward a talent pool many overlooked for years: people with criminal records. What's newer is that the employers already doing this are starting to organize.
Second Chance Tucson began as a reentry forum co-founded by a former mayor and a federal magistrate judge in 2014, and has since grown into a coalition of employers, nonprofits, faith organizations, and government agencies that runs job fairs, community forums, and a speakers bureau featuring formerly incarcerated people sharing their own reentry stories.
Nationally, organizations are building formal "Second Chance Employer Networks" to help companies that want to start fair-chance hiring learn directly from ones that already have — covering everything from writing a job posting that doesn't screen people out by default, to structuring onboarding and support once someone's hired.
The pitch to employers is increasingly practical rather than purely values-based: workers who are given a genuine second chance tend to be loyal, motivated, and appreciative of the opportunity — which, in a tight labor market, is exactly what employers say they're struggling to find.
Source: Jails to Jobs.
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