A wide range of legal and logistical obstacles affect the ability of a person released from prison or jail to maintain successful employment. (See Policy Statement 21, Creation of Employment Opportunities, for an extensive discussion of legal and policy barriers to employment for offenders.) Community-based services, such as legal aid offices and employment services organizations, are available to help releasees identify and remove logistical and legal barriers to employment. Many offenders are unaware that such resources exist, however, and the resources that do exist are limited. Accordingly, probation and parole officers can help their supervisees surmount these obstacles to employment both by referring supervisees to outside agencies and by providing them with informal counseling.

Community corrections officers can refer probationers and parolees who are seeking to have a conviction removed from their records to legal services providers, including state bar associations. In some jurisdictions, people with criminal convictions are eligible for pardons three to five years after release. Although pardons may be relatively easy to obtain in some areas, few people are aware of the process or seek to apply for them. Other jurisdictions provide opportunities to have certain kinds of convictions set aside or expunged from a record. The hearing process may be lengthy (possibly including a waiting period of a few years) and detailed, and the requirements vary by state. A chance to wipe the record clean, however, could have powerful implications for a probationer or parolee seeking to find and maintain employment. Oregon law (Or. Rev. Stat. § 137.225) provides a statutory right to apply to have a criminal record expunged or sealed. Once a motion to set aside, expunge, or seal a conviction is granted, an individual has the legal right to answer "no" to any questions (including those on a job application) that inquire about a history of arrests or criminal convictions.

Given the relative rarity that a conviction is set aside or pardoned, the network of community-based One-Stop Career Centers may be the best solution to the logistical impediments to employment for releasees. (See Policy Statement 22, Workforce Development and the Transition Plan for more information on One-Stops.) One-Stops are already designed to provide universal access to a wide range of services for job seekers and employers (who benefit from gaining skilled, supported workers, especially as the labor market tightens). Jurisdictions should continue to push at the state and federal level for full integration of services and resources through One-Stop Career Centers, centralizing job development services.

Aside from One-Stop centers, many community service organizations already provide general employment support and training for people released from prison or jail, regardless of whether they are still under community supervision. If someone in prison has not been connected to community-based employment support, community corrections officers should facilitate linkages between their supervisees and these organizations. Ideally, these employment services organizations will continue to work with people even after their term of community supervision is complete. Unfortunately, such programs do not have the capacity to meet the needs of all the unemployed workers who could benefit from their services. Accordingly, such programs should be expanded so that all workers, including people with criminal records, can have access to their services.

Example: Delancey Street Foundation (CA)

The Delancey Street Foundation acts as a residential education center that assists individuals released from incarceration, former substance abusers, and people who were formerly homeless to acquire basic and employment-oriented skills and to achieve economic independence. The residents of Delancey Street live and work together, pooling all of their income earned through a variety of business schools. Using the principle of "each one, teach one," Delancey Street has developed over 20 enterprises run completely by formerly unskilled people.

Example: Developing Justice in South Brooklyn, Fifth Avenue Committee (NY)

Parole officers are one source of referrals to this program, which provides one-on-one assistance to individuals returning to South Brooklyn after at least one year in prison. Program counselors, who themselves are former prisoners, assist each participant in achieving their individual reintegration goals by connecting them to Fifth Avenue Committee employment and housing services, support groups and counseling, and by serving as a broker for other needed services like substance abuse treatment.

In addition to referring probationers or parolees to such community services, community corrections officers themselves can play a key role assisting releasees who are struggling with logistical hurdles that make it difficult for them to obtain and retain employment. For some less specialized areas of need, community corrections officers can pick up where transitional planners have left off, offering basic logistical aid to the individuals on their caseloads. For instance, transportation can be a major hurdle for a person returning to a community, especially after many years of incarceration. Accordingly, the supervision officer should ensure that the probationer or parolee has an understanding of how he or she will arrange transportation to arrive promptly at his or her workplace. Community supervision agents should also provide information on the community's system of public transportation, including bus routes, trains, and subways. Such basic information can greatly enhance a person's ability to integrate back into the community.