If you thought that your life will be over after doing time for some mistake you made in the past, I assure you that there are at least 10 big companies that hire felons, giving them the second chance to start all over.
No matter what you were convicted for, people have a tendency to look at everyone that spent more than 24 hours in prison like the worst criminal that has to be avoided and kept away from the rest of the world. The majority of people are turning their head away when some ex-felon passes by even though they grew up together and they know that the thing that put him behind the bars might be just an accident. But since our race didn’t grow up enough mentally, people know that they will be judged based on the crowd they are hanging out with. But let the man that never made a mistake throw the first rock!
According to the statistics from the ObamaWhiteHouse, around 70 million US citizens have a file in the police, which means that every third member of the working population has a criminal record. This doesn’t have to be some mind-blowing crime like incest, cannibalism, murder, rape, or bank robbery, but even those felons might deserve the second chance to improve their life.
The problem is that people immediately assume that ex-felons will continue doing illegal business even when they get out of the prison, which is why they avoid hiring them in the first place. This is partially true, but not because ex-felons have criminal in their blood, but because they lack of job opportunities and most frequently, the only people that will hire them are people who are also on the other side of the law. And, let’s be real, everyone needs financial sources to survive. But what if someone would give them the chance to start all over?
There are many people charged and did time for murder, even though their action wasn’t previously planned, but it was the self-defense murder. Still, this meant that someone’s life was shut down by some other person, which means that the other man is automatically in the process. But, be fair, if your life was in danger, you wouldn’t think. You would just instinctively act, without previously thinking about the consequences.
In 2016, while Obama was still the head of the US government, he launched the Fair Chance Business Pledge, the nationwide call-to-action that was supposed to break the barriers and call for the help for big businesses and higher education institutions to help the community and hire individuals that have some criminal record behind them.
Companies that wanted to be involved in this organization had to meet some requests such as ensuring equal internships and job trainings for ex-felons and training the staff to treat them equally and judge them by the quality of work they do and not their past, banning the Box in job application regarding the criminal record history, and hosting a Fair Chance and Opportunity Job Fairs. Some of the biggest companies immediately jumped in front to get involved in Fair Chance and Opportunity Job Pledge, so let’s see what 10 biggest companies that hire felons are.
