--- title: Maybe John Legend: We Must Help Former Prisoners Get Jobs description: Releasing 6,000 inmates is a historic step—now let’s allow them to move forward canonical: https://time.com/4068377/ban-the-box-prison-reform/ author: John Legend article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-10-12T16:14:29.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:04:54.026Z article:section: Ideas og:title: John Legend: We Must Help Former Prisoners Get Jobs og:description: Releasing 6,000 inmates is a historic step—now let’s allow them to move forward og:url: https://time.com/4068377/ban-the-box-prison-reform/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3e333863f97a2248/69885bb2f887dc5b45e91733/unknown1.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: John Legend og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: John Legend: We Must Help Former Prisoners Get Jobs twitter:description: Releasing 6,000 inmates is a historic step—now let’s allow them to move forward twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3e333863f97a2248/69885bb2f887dc5b45e91733/unknown1.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # John Legend: We Must Help Former Prisoners Get Jobs > Sponsored content. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=196fb77f-eaea-4a72-bcd8-c9a517a335c5&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) ## Video: From Prison to Parole: An Ex-Con's Transition [Watch (HLS stream): From Prison to Parole: An Ex-Con's Transition](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/qcbgUZ6e.m3u8) (4:51)  _Published 2010-12-07. Chris Carney, an ex-convict, rebuilds a life in the real world after landing a job as a building superintendent_ by [John Legend](https://time.com/author/john-legend/) ## John Legend Oct 12, 2015 4:14 PM UTC  John Legend in the Travis County Correctional Complex in Austin, TX, on April 16, 2015. John Legend in the Travis County Correctional Complex in Austin, TX, on April 16, 2015. Eric Ryan Anderson by [John Legend](https://time.com/author/john-legend/) ## John Legend Oct 12, 2015 4:14 PM UTC The U.S. is the most incarcerated country in the world. The past 40 years of criminal justice policy have yielded crowded prisons and broken lives. The sentences have gotten longer and harsher, and too often we’ve chosen criminalization and incarceration over investment in our communities and human development. As a result of these policies, [nearly 1 in 3 Americans](http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/cc%5FHiT%5FCriminalRecords%5Fprofile%5F1.pdf) have a criminal record that shows up on a routine background check. Workers remain the backbone of our nation, but for the about 70 million Americans with a criminal record, finding employment can be especially difficult. These individuals are required to check a box that immediately disqualifies them from consideration, before even an interview or a background check, permanently shutting them out of the workforce. The “[Ban the Box](http://bantheboxcampaign.org/)” campaign, led in large part by formerly incarcerated people and their families, aims to give people with criminal records a fair shot at a second chance. For the majority of people who have contact with the criminal justice system, crime is not a first choice but a last option. We can change those options by asking employers to choose the best candidates based on job skills and qualifications, instead of tossing their applications because of past convictions. Since I began the [#FREEAMERICA](http://letsfreeamerica.com/)[ campaign](http://letsfreeamerica.com/), I’ve heard firsthand from people in prisons, jails and juvenile detention centers about the barriers they face when they try to re-enter “the world.” When people with records try to access health care, apply for housing and jobs, or exercise their right to vote, they face wall after wall. The lifelong purgatory people with convictions face is a form of double jeopardy that never allows them or their families to finish serving their time. The inability of the formerly incarcerated to get a job after they have paid their debt perpetuates a cycle of crime and incarceration. Between Oct. 30 and Nov. 2, the Department of Justice will [release about 6,000 federal prison inmates](http://time.com/4063277/justice-department-6000-prisoners/) in the largest one-time releases of prisoners in U.S. history. The inmates will be released as a result of changes implemented by the U.S. Sentencing Commission, which voted unanimously last July to retroactively apply amended sentencing guidelines. The changes in these sentencing guidelines could bring home another 46,000 drug offenders, nearly half of the [100,000 drug offenders](http://www.dallasnews.com/news/headlines/20151006-6000-drug-offenders-to-be-freed-from-federal-prisons.ece) in federal prison. These sentencing reforms go a long way towards ending discriminatory mandatory sentencing that for decades was the backbone of “[War on Drugs](http://time.com/3965245/john-legend-mass-incarceration/).” While I applaud President Barack Obama and the Department of Justice for this bold step toward ending mass incarceration, without a federal executive order banning the box, we leave those newly released and millions more with records little hope of ever truly re-entering and rebuilding themselves or their communities. If issued, millions of job opportunities would open up to those who have served their time and inspire the private sector to follow suit. No talk about reducing prison populations makes sense without plans to reintegrate the millions of people caught in a cycle where true transformation remains just out of reach. That’s why I’m joining families across America in [asking President Obama to use an executive order](http://www.LetsFreeAmerica.org) to clear the path to re-entry immediately; and for Congress to include a permanent fix in the bi-partisan bill being discussed now. Prohibiting people from a fair shot at jobs, housing, education and civic participation means a weaker society for us all. ## Transcript >> You know when you're incarcerated it's all you dream of to have is a good cup of coffee, not the instant stuff. You know what everyday something will remind you of being in prison. It can be the silliest things from the commodities in prison which is cigarettes, sugar, and coffee to getting up in the morning time with my girlfriend and my stepdaughter and I look and the coffee is running low and I'm like yes, I gotta stock up on some more coffee and it reminds me of hoarding coffee in prison and things like that. I can't lock any gates. You get all eyes on you everywhere. You know today putting the lock on the gate, you know, made me think about being in prison. My name is Chris Carney. I'm 41 years old. I'm originally from Boston, Massachusetts by way of New York, you know, being a felon there's not many employers that will employ somebody and put the keys to a multimillion dollar building in their hands. >> All the windows have a little that you can open on the top. >> Here I am enrolled as superintendent. I've got 114 apartments, an 11- storey building. We have affordable housing in the building and we have formerly incarcerated living within the building and the nice thing to say what do I see with the interaction, I see there is no barriers. >> And I'm as big are them. I don't care how small the critter is and you have to see me try to get up because it was when I was like oh no. >> You tell them get back to your garden and get out of my apartment. I picked up a gun on a Friday night. I knew a bookie that you could place bets with in the city who ran a spot out of a liquor store on the lower East side and I rolled in, robbed them. In a couple of minutes of not thinking and committing a crime, I almost put myself in prison for the rest of my life. >> Yes. >> Okay. You look just like the woman in that new apartment and that's the stuff we'd-- >> Right. >> You know I didn't advertise my history when I was meeting people, but I have some different things in the building with my picture up from different things I was involved with. I've had people pull me aside and asked me Chris, were you incarcerated? It's getting over the scare factor, you know. You don't wanna say listen. I'm your super. I was formerly incarcerated and you know I'm the guy with the keys who's gonna be coming and doing repairs at your apartment. You can't come at them like that. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. >> It's one showing them who you are, you know. I live here with my family. My family, my daughter plays with the kids in the building you know. We're all in the same building. We're all neighbors. People that were formerly incarcerated make better employees. >> Hey, Chris. Are you with Ms. Page? >> No. Ms. Page is just separated-- Why? Because they have more to lose. They've been through it as far as knowing that they're at a stage of their life they need to keep employment. Somebody who is incarcerated, who has the ability to take job training, to take college classes, that is a person that when they get out is going to be a successful person. That is a person that is going to be a taxpayer. That is a person that is not gonna be in the front page of the paper who is reoffending going back to prison. Going up. >> Up. >> All right. >> What's up? >> You know and they look at me and they say that's one of the guys, he's never done a day in prison, you know. And I might not tell them at first when I mention that to them and you know we got something in common. We came from the same place. >> The shop. That's what I used for all of it. >> You are a success story until you have either relapsed, failed, or something's happened. So you know I don't wanna be that, you know. We used to have this super Chris here and, you know, he was doing a good job and something happened. I'm trying to do the right thing and it's basically, you know, getting up every day, you know, and realizing that I'm free. I'm out. 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