SOCIAL JUSTICE BLOG
Read and share extraordinary stories from the frontlines of social change
Being convicted of a crime has thousands of consequences besides incarceration – and some last a lifetime
One thing I’ve learned while researching criminal justice reform and teaching college classes in prisons is that the reason the transition to life outside the corrections system is so hard is that there are more than 44,000 indirect consequences of a criminal conviction. These restrictions, which the Council of State Governments tracks in great detail, can include everything like making it impossible to get a license to work as a barber, manicurist, plumber, driver, interior designer or midwife, to restricting where the formerly incarcerated can live, study and volunteer.