One in four adults in Mississippi have a criminal conviction, and for one in 10 it’s a felony, Alesha Judkins, state director of criminal justice reform for FWD.us, told Columbus Rotary Club members Tuesday afternoon at Lion Hills Center.
FWD.us is a national nonprofit bipartisan advocacy group that pushes for criminal justice and immigration reform. The group was founded in 2013 by leaders in Silicon Valley, including Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook.
Mississippi’s state incarceration rate — which is the highest in the world per capita, with about 575 per 100,000 people currently in prison, or just more than 19,000 inmates — costs the state dearly in terms of its workforce, Judkins said.
“Not only do we have the highest imprisonment rate in the world, we also have the lowest labor force participation rate in the world at 54%,” Judkins said. “There is room for conversation there when it comes to our workforce and how we can grow it.”
The labor force participation rate refers to the number of work-age, able-bodied people in the state, whether or not they are seeking employment. The unemployment rate includes only people who are actively looking for work.
“A lot of our elected leaders say there are people who don’t want to go to work,” Judkins said. “… That may be true in some instances, but there is also an untapped pool of potential applicants who are being overlooked because of a criminal conviction in their past.”
About 660,000 people in the state have a criminal conviction of some kind, she said. The most common felony conviction, according to December 2022 data, is simple drug possession.
“That’s 660,000 people who, if they were looking for work, something would pop when an employer runs a background check,” Judkins said. “That means they probably won’t get a call back or an opportunity for an interview.”
Judkins said there are about 85,000 job openings in Mississippi, and only about 45,000 people who are actively looking for work.
“(People with criminal convictions) are a huge chunk of what’s missing (from our workforce),” she said.
People who are getting a second chance are often great employees, she said.
“What we find is that they are more dedicated, they are more willing to work hard because they know what it costs,” Judkins said. “They know what’s at stake if the opportunity doesn’t work out or if they don’t get a job.”
Businesses in Mississippi can do more to make the workforce welcoming to those who are trying to reenter society, she said. Nationally, groups such as the Second Chance Business Coalition, which includes JPMorgan Chase, Target and Walmart, put Equal Employment Opportunity Commission language on their web site or job application that simply having a conviction does not bar anyone from employment.
“Let them know they are not guaranteed a job, but they won’t get an automatic no,” Judkins said.
Employers can remove questions from job applications about prior felony convictions.
“That doesn’t mean you don’t do a background check, it just means it comes later in the process so applicants have the chance to put their best foot forward,” Judkins said.
The state’s high incarceration rate and long sentences also produce an economic strain on taxpayers, with the state’s prison spending currently around $400 million per year.
“Decades of research has shown that incarceration is the most expensive and least effective path to public safety,” she said.
“Incarcerating people does not address the issues that led them to make the decision that put them in prison. When money goes into education, health care, housing, data shows rates of crime go down.”
In 37 states, including Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas, both prison population and crime rates have been driven down by investing in those areas, she said.
“Texas, in particular, in the last decade has been able to close multiple prisons because of how they’ve driven down their rate of imprisonment,” Judkins said. “They have not seen an increase in crime.”
Brian Jones is the local government reporter for Columbus and Lowndes County.
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