Conflicting Approaches to Addressing Ex-Offender Unemployment: The Work Opportunity Tax Credit and Ban the Box
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Conflicting Approaches to Addressing Ex-Offender
Unemployment: The Work Opportunity Tax Credit and
Ban the Box
KATHERINE ENGLISH*
Each year, roughly 700,000 prisoners are released from their six-by-eight-foot
cells and back into society.' Sadly, though, many of these ex-prisoners are not truly
free. Upon returning to society, they often encounter several challenges that prevent
them from resuming a normal, reintegrated lifestyle.2 For many, the difficulties as-
sociated with reentry prove to be too much, and within a short three years of their
release, two-thirds of ex-offenders are rearrested, reconvicted, and thrown back into
the familiar six-by-eight-foot cell.3 Recidivism might appear to be entirely the ex-
offenders' fault, but ex-offenders are not solely responsible for these recidivism rates
or the solution to this problem. Society must also understand and confront the chal-
lenges of the reentry process to better serve prisoners, their families, their commu-
nities, and society at large.
The topic of ex-offender reentry is part of a much broader discussion of criminal
justice reform. Many people are dedicated to reforming the criminal justice system
as a whole. One example of criminal justice reform is the movement towards reduc-
ing mass incarceration and shifting away from the retributive focus of incarceration.'
There are also efforts to reduce the length of criminal sentences, as the recent reduc-
tion in sentences for some drug offenses demonstrates.' The House Judiciary
* J.D. Candidate, 2018, Indiana University Maurer School of Law; B.S., 2015, Indiana
University School of Public and Environmental Affairs. My sincerest thanks goes to my family
for giving me endless love and support; to my former boss Lena Hackett for introducing me to
the topic of ex-offender reentry; to Professor Deborah Widiss for inspiring the topic of this Note
and for assisting me throughout the writing process; and to the Indiana Law Journal staff for
providing valuable suggestions and edits.
1. See DAN BLOOM, JOYCE FOUND., TRANSITIONAL JOBS REENTRY DEMONSTRATION 1
(2009); MATrHEW R. DUROSE, ALEXIA D. COOPER & HOWARD N. SNYDER, BUREAU OF JUSTICE
STATISTICS, U.S. DEP'T OF JUSTICE, RECIDIVISM OF PRISONERS RELEASED IN 30 STATES IN 2005:
PATTERNS FROM 2005 To 2010, at 1 (2014); PAMELA K. LATTIMORE, SUSAN BRUMBAUGH,
CHRISTY VISHER, CHRISTINELINDQUIST, LAURA WINTERFIELD, MEGHAN SALAS & JANINE ZWEIG,
NATIONAL PORTRAIT OF SVORI: SERIOUS AND VIOLENT OFFENDER REENTRY INITIATIVE 1 (2004).
2. See AMY L. SOLOMON, KELLY DEDEL JOHNSON, JEREMY TRAVIS & ELIZABETH C.
McBRIDE, URBAN INST. JUSTICE POLICY CTR., FROM PRISON TO WORK: THE EMPLOYMENT
DIMENSIONS OF PRISONER REENTRY 1 (2004). To compare, Norway has one of the lowest recidi-
vism rates in the world at a two-year recidivism rate of twenty percent. Jessica Benko, The
Radical Humaneness of Norway's Halden Prison, N.Y. TIMES MAG. (Mar. 26, 2015),
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/29/magazine/the-radical-humaneness-of-norways-halden-
prison.html [https://perma.cc/TWP8-VWLB].
3. SOLOMON ET AL., supra note 2, at 1.
4. Id
5. See JAMES AUSTIN, ERIC CADORA, TODD R. CLEAR, KARA DANSKY, JUDITH GREENE,
VANITA GUPTA, MARC MAUER, NICOLE PORTER, SUSAN TUCKER& MALCOM C. YOUNG, ENDING
MASS INCARCERATION: CHARTING ANEW JUSTICE REINVESTMENT (2013).
6. What You Need To Know About the New Federal Prisoner Release, MARSHALL PROJECT](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/indana93&div=27&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Conflicting Approaches to Addressing Ex-Offender Unemployment: The Work Opportunity Tax Credit and Ban the Box
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