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    agfsrhs655uhw5ejhytJay Hathaway
    11/09/15 1:36pm

    I think it may be worth noting that they were in jail on a non-violent offense, but that does not mean they are a non-violent offender.

    Also, these are federal prisoners, so I wonder what their non-violent drug related offense was - simple possession or distribution and/or sales related? I’m guessing the latter.

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      nosleepdreamsagfsrhs655uhw5ejhyt
      11/09/15 2:33pm

      Does their offense meaningfully matter to the conversation at hand? Does the fact that someone sold drugs immunize them from empathy and the right to a productive and safe life? To engage in such speculative discussions focused on the past crimes of inmates or the recently released is to perpetuate belief systems that dehumanize incarcerated populations- their status as human becomes second to their status as criminals. By posing the question you did you implicitly worked to construe criminality as the limit of empathy and societal belonging. Drug crimes do not exclude someone from the right to live a life free from structural hurdles and unfair disadvantages. Implying that their level of offense somehow effects the validity of that simple claim is unsound and uncaring.

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      agfsrhs655uhw5ejhytnosleepdreams
      11/09/15 2:39pm

      Part of the narrative has been that these guys are non violent offenders, I’m pointing out that may not be the case. They may in fact be violent and they may in fact be more heavily involved in criminal activities than the authorities are suggesting.

      People have to live with their past and their choices, that’s life. A potential employer probably has dozens if not hundreds of applications, why take the chance on a felon?

      Of course their life is going to be more difficult, reputations are hard to change.

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    CAPTAINOHJay Hathaway
    11/09/15 1:55pm

    Jesus Christ. I can’t even. The whole video is worth it if you have the time.

    GIF
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      johnbeaverCAPTAINOH
      11/09/15 2:45pm

      You couldn’t even? Wow, that’s very, very serious. It must have been positively harrowing for you, sweetheart.

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      Richard M TysonCAPTAINOH
      11/09/15 3:13pm

      Too bad Newsroom isn’t worth the time, even if you have it.

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    IllogikusJay Hathaway
    11/09/15 1:42pm

    so let me get this straight...if you commit a crime and go to jail..life will be harder for you? OH..thought so. Fuck you John Oliver.

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      EvanrudeJohnsonIllogikus
      11/09/15 1:56pm

      John Oliver must really appreciate this Jerry Jones dude. Jones was kind enough to give this one criminal a second chance. And no one around these parts really cares if their Uber driver has some kind of criminal record.

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      taitertotIllogikus
      11/09/15 2:06pm

      The first person featured in the story was exonorated....he didn’t commit a crime but went to prison.

      Fuck you, you spoiled NIMBY.

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    asucksJay Hathaway
    11/09/15 2:44pm

    Convicted felon here. I spent time in federal prison in 2005 for some fraud charges (I was making fake IDs for my friends and I at 20 years old so we could get drunk).

    I did my time 2 states over and was given a bus ticket, a sweatshirt and sweatpants, underwear, a pair of shoes, and $28 in cash upon my release (I was actually given a little over $100 in cash, but the rest of it was mine from my commissary account).

    Thankfully, I come from a pretty good family and had a great support system when I got out. I had a bed to sleep in. I had meals. I had no kids or wife to support. But pretty quickly I learned that finding a job was nearly impossible. Even though I was a college educated, white male in his early 20s, no employer would touch me. Eventually I got a job as a barista for a local, non-chain coffee shop with an understanding owner, but I was making minimum wage plus tips. These types of jobs don’t come with benefits either, so I was pretty much paycheck to paycheck with no health insurance. A little stressful.

    Probation was a nightmare. Even though I had been drug tested for a year leading up to my trial by pre-trial services (once a week), and been tested regularly during my prison sentence and NEVER failed, I was tested once a week again for the entirety of my probation. This wouldn’t have been such a big deal if it wasn’t completely random days, and only Monday through Friday, 9am to 5pm. I was given a number to call every day, and if my “color” was said on the recorded line, I was to be tested the next day. The testing center was 45 minutes away with no traffic, and getting tested would take another 30 minutes or so because the place was completely understaffed. This meant I’d be taking 2 hours out of my day to get tested once a week on a day that I was more than likely working. It’s hard to ask your boss for time off EVERY week to go get drug tested in the middle of a work day. I pleaded with my probation officer to work with me on this, but she wouldn’t budge. They monitored my finances. Any purchase over $200 needed to be approved. Failure to get approval could result in being sent back to prison on a violation. I was spending 2-3 hours a week writing reports to a probation officer about my activity on top of time spent dealing with drug testing; time that could have been much better spent on being a productive member of society.

    After a year with her, she got a promotion and I was assigned someone new who pretty much saved my life. He took a look at my case, realized I was doing the right thing then and immediately laxed my drug testing to once a month. He told me that if I absolutely had to miss a drug test because of work, I could let him know and he’d personally have me test with him the next day. He supported me further when I told him I was tired of working a shitty job and wanted to start my own business. I showed him my business plan before I showed anyone in my family.

    Here we are, 10 years later and my little business is still chugging along. All but one of my rights have been restored (but apparently the NRA has pushed hard to allow non-violent offenders to regain their 2A rights, I just don’t care enough to make it happen). I like paying taxes and don’t do anything remotely illegal now (my ladyfriend makes fun of me for always going the speed limit). I had pretty much EVERYTHING going for me when I got out and it was still a struggle to make things work with a felony record. I can’t even imagine how anyone under any sort of duress could meet the conditions of probation and its a shock to me that recidivism rates aren’t higher.

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      Macaquesnackasucks
      11/09/15 3:11pm

      I am also a convicted felon. Non-violent, victimless crime. Thankfully I only had to serve 21 days in county and then 2 years probation, of which I was release after only a year for good behavior.

      That was 6 years ago. Before I was convicted I was a college graduate and being groomed to lead the gen. tox department at one of the top 3 contract research organizations in the country. In other words, I was a quality employee who wouldn’t struggle to find another job if I were to lose that one.

      Then I did something stupid and became a felon, which cost me my job as well. At that point I couldn’t get an interview shoveling horse shit at the county fair (true story). Thankfully, I also had a pretty great family who helped me through those times while I built up my own little business. It was a struggle, and honestly still is in many ways. If I wouldn’t have been able to make a go with my business I almost certainly would have had to turn to criminal activity to survive because as I’ve witnessed for the last 6 years, the only place for a convicted felon in America is behind bars. It doesn’t really matter what you did or how long ago it was. If you have a record, the workforce doesn’t want you.

      And when that’s how your population treats people who have “paid their debt to society,” it’s hard to blame people for returning to the very things that landed them in jail in the first place.

      Also, congrats on pushing through. Life after conviction is trying to say the least, but it seems like you’ve made the best of a bad situation.

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    SoapBoxcarWillieJay Hathaway
    11/09/15 3:54pm

    As terrible as the situation is, there isn’t a whole lot of political will to actually do anything about it. Few legislators want to be “responsible” if someone that “should have been in prison” commits a violent crime. Any reduction of the burdens imposed on prisoners after they’re released will likely be very minor, and Federal legislation won’t help the prisoners released from State penitentiaries.

    Perhaps they could change the rules that prohibit felons from even visiting a family member in public housing, and receiving federal aid, but I’m not holding my breath.

    The only hopes we have are executive action by a politically courageous Presidential administration, and favorable rulings from the Supreme Court. And really, the Supreme Court holds most of the cards here. They have the power to bring about sweeping change by declaring things like collateral consequences and other penalties that persist after a person has completed their sentence, to be unconstitutional as cruel and unusual punishment. They might also be able to argue that the requirement of listing criminal convictions on a job application is discriminatory.

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      MacaquesnackJay Hathaway
      11/09/15 2:42pm

      The prison system in this country sucks.

      However, I really wish that people would stop focusing only on the “released from prison” part of the population. This problem is so much bigger than that.

      Most felony cases are tried at the state level. According to the most recently available data, only 41% of felony convictions in state courts end with prison time. Another 28% result in local/county jail time (this typically means a year or less). The remaining 31% of convictions result in no jail time.

      The one thing that all three of these populations have in common is that they are now felons for life. That essentially takes them out of the workforce for the rest of their lives. As soon as you check that “convicted of a felony” box, you may as well throw your application in the trash. If you happen to be lucky enough to live in a “Ban the Box” state, you’ll only feel lucky until your prospective employer performs their background check. At that point you will almost certainly be taken off the shortlist for employment.

      Re-entry isn’t only a problem for people who have served hard time. It’s a problem for every person who has been convicted of a felony, even if they never spent a day behind bars. Lack of employment opportunities is the biggest issue felons face when it comes to reintegrating into society, and it is an issue for everyone with a felony conviction, not just those who were incarcerated for years.

      There is a simple way to start fixing this part of the problem — make criminal records available only to those in law enforcement — but no politician is going to stand up and say that’s what we need to do.

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        BlatheringJay Hathaway
        11/09/15 9:34pm

        It’s a great system for the people that set it up. Offenders become lifelong “criminals” who can't get solid jobs or stable housing. And when one reoffends because there aren't jobs or housing, those same authorities get to claim there is a (racial) criminal subclass who must be dealt with even more harshly.

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          ThatGuy524Jay Hathaway
          11/09/15 5:09pm

          The link to the fox news article was actually pretty fairly covering it from both sides. I didn't see anything about America should panic. I do generally agree republicans will play this up during debates and whatnot but that was just a bad example for the point you were making.

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            Mr ClutchJay Hathaway
            11/09/15 2:57pm

            As personal experience I can tell you the system sets you up to fail. A long time ago I got into trouble, which I won’t get into details here. Basicaly I had to go through nine months of intensive probation before I got probation.

            It went like this, I had to show up on a Tuesday at 10:30am every tuesday for nine months. If I missed a day or showed up late, I would do a year in jail for messing up and then did 10 years for the mistake I made. Every week I went, I had to pee in a cup for drug testing. Get grilled by a probation officer and show my pay stubs. And I had to maintain a job or else I violated my terms. Lucky for me I got a job a couple of months before my arrest and the boss I had was understanding of my plight.

            The job I had was a really good one payed good money. I got paid every two weeks at first they were not happy, but my lawyer took care of any issues they had of that. I remember when I bought in my first pay stub of $2200, the PO could not believe it. She took me into a supervisors office claming that these were not real pay stubs, after a call to my lawyer she got real quiet real quick. Not all my paychecks were that big but enough to see her pissed off look on her face every time. I know that she was pissed that a guy who just got arrested makes as much or more than her.

            I was extremely lucky the way this all played out, a lot of people are not as fortunate as I was. If things were different I don’t know how the outcome would have been. or where I would be today And even with an F on my record I still make good money and live a comfortable life style.

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              WaldosAkimboJay Hathaway
              11/09/15 2:46pm

              My mother was released from prison around a year ago...Her finding a job after that has been next to impossible unless it’s been under the table work by someone she already knew.

              It’s no wonder why so many of the people she was with relapsed and began using again just months after getting released. On some level there’s a degree of “what-else-can-you-do?”

              And with the fact that all of your bills when you’re away still need to be paid and that prison itself is incredibly expensive (Between phone calls and commissary money, my brother and I spent close to $1000 for a 10-month sentence, not counting her rent and other bills), if you don’t have someone covering those costs you’ll have some nice debt waiting for you when you get out.

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