The Alabama Fair Chance Employment Summit
Last week I was honored to give the keynote address at the Fair Chance hiring conference hosted by the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Alabama.
I spoke about crucial issues facing our country: How do we make our criminal justice system more fair, our communities and our brave law enforcement officers safer, and increase freedom and opportunity for all? We can achieve these goals by honoring the Bill of Rights and treating everyone in the system — victim, accused, convicted, incarcerated, returning citizen, and law enforcement — with dignity and respect.
Dozens of business leaders, and many community members and advocates, gathered at Wednesday’s conference to listen to presentations on how to help former prisoners find jobs and reconnect to their families and communities.
In the room of about 150 people I laid out Koch Industries’ vision for a freer and more just society, and a better criminal justice system. The fact is that approximately 97% of state prisoners will eventually be released, and there are hundreds of thousands more cycling through local jails every year. We need a shift in perspective on how society views previously incarcerated individuals.
How do we bring about such change? While our system needs broad reform, we can start by engaging as employers to ensure everyone gets a fair chance at employment. In fact, last year Koch Industries decided to “ban the box” on our employment application so that potential applicants with criminal records get a second chance to contribute — not only to our company — but to society as a whole.
At Koch, we do this because people should not be defined by what happened on their worst day. Since one in three American adults have some type of criminal record, it isn’t fair and it isn’t good for any business to potentially exclude a third of the applicant pool based on a single data point. We have found that getting to know the whole employee works for us and helps Koch hire the best people available period — not the best people with or without a criminal record.
The morning closed with thoughtful questions and debate about how the community can help, and I want to extend a huge thank you to the United States Attorney Joyce White Vance and her entire US Attorney Office of the Northern District of Alabama for inviting me to speak, and leading this very important conversation in Alabama on these important issues.
-Mark V. Holden, senior vice president and general counsel of Koch Industries
