About one in three Ohioans have a criminal record. A criminal background can create a lifetime of barriers—called collateral sanctions—for individuals to housing, higher education, and certain careers. The Ohio Justice and Policy Center has identified about 1,100 collateral sanctions in Ohio Law. These sanctions prevent access to more than 1.3 million jobs for people with criminal records.
Ohio’s prison population has also increased from 14,000 in 1980 to 50,000 by 2018. Each year around 20,000 Ohioans come back to the community. Some returning individuals come home with job experience acquired while in prison.
Hiring practices and laws, however, are starting to change, and managers are now willing to hire someone with a criminal record as revealed in a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the Charles Koch Institute (CKI). In addition, in 2016, the White House created the Fair Chance Business Pledge, in which 19 companies across America agreed to give people with criminal records a second chance.
Another initiative, passed into Ohio law in 2012 and improved in 2018, is the Certificate of Qualification for Employment (CQE).
To find out more information about the CQE, click on the link on the right connected to this post.