Back From Behind Bars

Dozens of job-training programs focus on life skills. Fulfilling a requirement of their release, inmates can cycle from one training program to another, never landing a job.

Many employers are reluctant to give ex-cons a second chance.

"If you check yes, they're not going to call you in for an interview. It happens all the time," said Lohren Robinson, 25, a cook who hasn't had run-ins with the law for the two years since he served time for convictions on stolen identity, breaking and entering and grand theft. He is unemployed but gets occasional temp jobs. "It takes away your ambition and your drive to want for something."

For a year, the D.C. Council has considered barring employers from asking applicants if they have a criminal history until after a job offer is made.

Opposition from business has been fierce. Business owners, colleges and security agencies say insurance premiums would rise, along with lawsuits from ex-offenders rejected for jobs. Some threatened to stop recruiting in the District. Business leaders said many emerge from prison lacking college degrees, certifications or training to qualify for jobs.

"While we will have some discrimination in our lives," D.C. Chamber of Commerce President Barbara Lang told council members earlier this year, "discrimination is not the major reason for the issue we are discussing today; preparedness for jobs is."

Sponsors said the measure is alive, although it has yet to come out of committee.

One hundred men and women showed up at a CSOSA job fair in June. A videolink was set up to Rivers Correctional Institution in North Carolina, where dozens of District prisoners were months from release. Agents for two construction companies were invited to offer tips on what to wear to an interview and how to create a good impression.

One audience member said he wanted to become a crane operator. Another, a man who had been sitting quietly, said, "I just need a job."

But Larry Barnes, a trainer in the D.C. Apprenticeship Office, which links District residents with employers in the skilled trades, said ex-offenders often sabotage themselves. "We show up late," he told them. "We're positive [for drugs] in our urine. . . . We got baby-mama drama. We rely on other people to get to work."

The Rev. Stephen E. Tucker, pastor of New Commandment Baptist Church in Northwest Washington, runs one of dozens of job-training programs for ex-offenders in the District. His is out of the church basement, mixing spiritual guidance with r?sum? writing and conflict resolution. The program forms partnerships with business owners who agree to interview and hire its graduates.

Since 1997, more than 1,000 have graduated. Eighty-five percent get jobs, Tucker said, and 90 percent keep them at least a year. Still, about half of those under CSOSA's supervision are without a job. Tucker said jobs, housing and drug treatment are parts of a whole.