MVOC seeks to give 'returning citizens' second chance

I believe most of us like to give people a second chance when they fall or fail.

I know I have been given another chance to become a better person, and I have extended that same grace to other people.

There are some people in our community who have committed crimes, have been found guilty and incarcerated and finally released once they have served their sentence.

Yet, many of these people, most of them black men, have not been given that second chance to become useful members of our society.

By second chance, I mean they don’t get an opportunity to find meaningful work in order to begin the process of contributing to a community rather than taking from it because of their criminal past.

We all know jobs are hard to find in the Mahoning Valley. Think how much harder it is to find work if you have a criminal record.

I am not excusing what these people have done. I am not saying we should forget how they possibly hurt you and your family. And I am not saying that they should not be held accountable for what they have done.

What I am saying, however, is that if someone truly desires to turn his or her life around and become a positive individual, why shouldn’t they get another chance to get it right?

The Mahoning Valley Organizing Collaborative plans to move forward in 2015 to engage in a comprehensive strategy of leadership development, civic engagement and voting power for returning citizens, to combat the complex issue of mass incarceration.

The MVOC uses the phrase “returning citizen” as opposed to ex-convict.

The MVOC was founded in 2008. According to its website, www.mvorganizing.org, the organization brings together neighborhood, labor and faith-based groups in Trumbull, Mahoning and Columbiana counties “to build the capacity necessary to create sustainable change in our community.”

I recently had lunch with Eartha A. Terrell, a communications fellow with the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, who told me that the OOC and the MVOC are trying to put an emphasis on rehabilitation, not incarceration.

The OOC brings together the same groups as the MVOC on a statewide basis to achieve the same goal.

She provided me with a four-page overview from the Ohio Justice & Policy Center in Cincinnati that contained several interesting facts about the state’s incarceration rates.

For one, though 12.5 percent of the Buckeye State’s residents are African-American, they represent more than 45 percent of people who are in Ohio prisons. Ohio currently ranks sixth in the U.S. for incarceration rates. Nationwide, recent surveys show that 1 in 9 black men between age 24 and 35 is behind bars.

The MVOC and OOC plan to push for passage of Ohio Senate Bill 143, which would expand criminal record sealing and expansion of Ohio’s RECLAIM program, which provides incarceration alternatives for youth offenders.

Youngstown and nine other cities and political subdivisions also are on board with a fair-hiring policy that doesn’t automatically disqualify a person for a public-sector job if they have been convicted and served their time for a crime. Youngstown’s policy removes questions about criminal convictions from city employment applications.

In November 2013, the Alliance For Congregational Transformation In Our Neighborhoods received two grants to help people who just got out of prison find work.

The Home For Good Re-Entry Referral Center at 20 Federal Place downtown houses the program, which helps returning citizens find the help they need to get employment and other services to get on their feet.

ACTION partnered with groups and providers such as the MVOC, Ohio Adult Parole Authority, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Mahoning-Youngstown Community Action Partnership, the Rev. Willie Peterson and the New Birth Project, the Oak Hill Collaborative, Flying High, Community Corrections Association and others.

Terrell said in 2013 alone, the MVOC hosted several public meetings, trainings and informational sessions that called for the need for policy reform in the criminal-justice system not only in Youngstown, but also across the state.

This fall, the organization hosted 310 residents at the “Breaking Chains and Building Hope” public meeting at Tabernacle Baptist Church, where the group received commitments from Mayor John A. McNally and 1,000 community leaders to go to the Statehouse in Columbus next month to demand a state budget that reflects the needs and concerns of the tri-county community.

You should not be forever defined by a mistake that you made. Who among us has not messed up or made a mistake? I am advocating that nonviolent offenders be given another chance to earn an honest living, and I applaud the MVOC, ACTION and other groups doing all they can to make that second chance a reality.

Ernie Brown Jr., a regional editor at The Vindicator, writes a monthly minority-affairs column. Contact him at ebrown@vindy.com