In a recent statement, Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office referred to ex-convicts as “justice-affected individuals” who will benefit from a $6 million grant that the state awarded to Los Angeles. The funding will support “a variety of comprehensive reentry efforts,” which include helping formerly incarcerated people find jobs.
“Los Angeles is the city of second chances — and people who have served time and are returning home deserve the opportunity to rebuild their lives, earn a good living, and break the cycle of incarceration and recidivism,” Garcetti said.
The grant was requested by the Mayor’s Office of Reentry — a department Garcetti said he created “to bring new hope to men and women who, in a great many cases, just need someone to believe in them.” The mayor launched the new division in 2015, then followed with “a series of City-led reforms to eliminate systemic bias against individuals who have completed their sentences in the criminal justice system.”
Such progressive ideas have caused many of Garcetti’s critics to accuse the mayor of being overly accommodating and too soft on issues involving unlawful activity. On high-wattage talk radio in Southern California, he’s often mocked as “Mayor Yoga Pants.” The moniker has stuck for several reasons, not limited to the “reentry” policies Garcetti has instituted the last 14 months.
On April 29, 2016, Garcetti signed an executive directive instructing City departments to prioritize hiring “people from communities that historically have experienced unemployment disproportionately,” such as “people with criminal records, including formerly incarcerated people.” That same day, the mayor introduced a new “alliance of private and public sector employers committed to providing opportunities for people who have been historically excluded from upwardly-mobile jobs.”
A month later, Garcetti’s Office of Reentry secured a deal worth nearly $9 million with the California Department of Transportation to provide “job training and a path to permanent employment” for “up to 1,350 formerly incarcerated men and women.”
Then last December, Garcetti signed the “Fair Chance Initiative” — legislation pushed by his Office of Reentry — which “restricts employers from asking job applicants about criminal convictions until after a conditional offer of employment has been made.” The law is also known as the “Ban the Box” ordinance, referencing the boxes that applicants are often required to mark if they’ve had a criminal history. In the private sector, the rule applies to any business with ten or more employees. Professions like law enforcement and child care are exempt.
During the early stages of Garcetti’s reentry advocacy, the mayor collaborated with the Obama administration. Last year, they teamed up and targeted the college admissions process.
As the Los Angeles Times reported in July 2016:
Garcetti stepped into the fray in May, when U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King, Jr. held a roundtable meeting at UCLA to announce the federal government’s stance. That day, the Education Department along with the Department of Justice released “Beyond the Box,” a guide to the best practices for colleges. In it was a letter urging colleges to “attract a diverse and qualified student body without creating unnecessary barriers for prospective students who have been involved with the justice system.”
According to the Mayor’s Office, about 25% of adults in California have “an arrest or conviction record.” As Governor Jerry Brown continues to implement shell games and other gimmicks designed to reduce the number of inmates in California’s state prisons, “justice-affected individuals” are welcome to seek solace in Garcetti’s L.A.
“When we invest in people, we don’t know where things will turn out,” Garcetti admitted last year. “But when people have paid their debt to society, our debt of gratitude should be, not just thanking them for serving that time, but allowing them a pathway back in.”
Audio of Garcetti from last year below:
Follow Jeffrey Cawood on Twitter @Near_Chaos.