Via: indystar.com
/ September 29, 2011
Written by
Erika D. Smith
Andrew King, an unassuming, almost geeky guy in glasses, is a manager at an Eastside plant that recycles electronic waste.
He's also an ex-con -- one who wasn't afraid to tell a room full of politicians and a few journalists about the weeks he spent living under a bridge weighed down by an ankle bracelet.
"I couldn't get a job as a dishwasher," he said Wednesday.
King is one of the 150,000 ex-offenders who live in Indianapolis.
That's right -- 150,000 residents, according to the National Employment Law Project. The conservative estimate is 135,000.
Either way, these are big numbers that we as a community can't ignore.
They mean that at least 20 percent of Indianapolis residents have a felony or a misdemeanor on their record. Most experts had thought the number was closer to 10 percent.
What's more, unlike King, most of these ex-offenders don't have jobs. Many companies are unwilling to hire them, and the jobs they get typically are low-paying and unstable.
Jobless ex-offenders are far more likely to commit other crimes -- sometimes to get money to support themselves or to pay court fees to stay out of jail -- and then end up back behind bars, costing taxpayers even more money.
This isn't a fringe problem anymore.
On Wednesday, several politicians, including Deputy Mayor Michael Huber and U.S. Rep. Andre Carson, D-Indianapolis, gathered at the Eastside RecycleForce plant to talk about potential solutions. And of all things, the green economy came up as the most promising.
That might make some people scoff, but think about it: Most green-collar jobs are revamped blue-collar jobs -- everything from sustainable construction work to retrofitting buildings to be more energy-efficient.
RecycleForce, for example, has a staff of about 50 ex-offenders who recycle electronic waste, such as old computers and TVs. Employees are even cleaning material gathered from the deflated RCA Dome, which local nonprofit People for Urban Progress uses to make messenger bags, wallets and shades for community gardens.
The company, which works with the city, recently got part of a $5.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor to help ex-offenders re-enter society with some sort of stability.
In addition, RecycleForce on Wednesday announced a partnership with Green For All, a national group with a mission of using green jobs to help break the cycle of poverty.
These are all promising signs.
But these also are hard times. The national unemployment rate hovers at about 9 percent. Many, many people -- not just people with criminal records -- need jobs.
Still, it would behoove Indianapolis to try to make economic self-sufficiency a priority for everyone, those with records and those without. With a population of ex-offenders at more than 20 percent, we can't afford to do anything else.
"I think it's pretty poetic that re- entry and recycling go so well together," King said. "Both ex-offenders and e-waste are thought of as trash."
But they don't always end up that way.