California says employment is path out of prison, then blocks the road | Opinion
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- California trains incarcerated firefighters and other prisoners for real-world jobs.
- Roughly half of 170,000 people released 2015–2019 had no documented job after release.
- Assembly Bill 2095 would tighten Fair Chance rules. It stalled this year but may return.
California trusts incarcerated firefighters to save our homes.
Every wildfire season, men and women in prison work alongside professional crews, cutting fire lines and risking their lives to protect California communities. They receive training, gain experience and prove themselves under dangerous conditions.
But after they complete their sentences, many discover they aren’t trusted to become municipal firefighters.
“People are welcoming them into their communities. They’re not saying, ‘Whoa! You’re an incarcerated firefighter. You can’t protect my house’,” said Genevieve Rimer, vice president of capacity building and technical assistance for the Center for Employment Opportunities. “But when they’re released, and there’s not a catastrophe, all of a sudden, it’s like, ‘Well, you were good enough then, but you’re not good enough now.’”
That paradox says a great deal about California’s approach to rehabilitation.
We tell people leaving prison that jobs are the key to rebuilding their lives. We invest millions in vocational education, substance-use treatment, college courses and re-entry programs designed to prepare them for employment.
Then we leave too many of them standing outside the hiring gate.
A new Public Policy Institute of California report tracked roughly 170,000 people released from California prisons between 2015 and 2019. Nearly half never found a documented job after release. Even among those who did work, the jobs were often temporary, low-wage and unstable. Only 19% earned more than the federal poverty threshold in at least one year after prison.
Those aren’t simply disappointing outcomes for formerly incarcerated Californians. They’re disappointing returns on public investment.
The report also offers reasons for optimism. People who worked before prison were far more likely to work afterward. People who held prison jobs were more likely to find employment after release. Longer job tenure inside prison mattered, as did participation in vocational training, college courses and substance-use treatment.
In other words, rehabilitation can work.
But preparing people for work is only half the job.
Rimer put it bluntly: “You can train someone all you want, but at the end of the day, the employer has the power to hire someone or not.”
State law requires most employers to delay background checks until after making a conditional job offer. But loopholes remain. One example is a “candor trap,” such as when an employer asks during an interview, “Is there anything I should know before I run your background check?”
If an applicant answers honestly, the interview ends. Their phone never rings.
Assembly Bill 2095, the Fair Chance Improvement Act, would have strengthened state law by barring employers from requiring applicants to pay for their own background checks and by closing loopholes that allow premature disclosure of criminal histories. The bill stalled this year but is expected to return next session.
California legislators should give it serious consideration.
This isn’t about eliminating every background check. Employers have legitimate responsibilities to protect customers, patients and co-workers. But neither should a decades-old conviction automatically disqualify someone from a job unrelated to that offense.
The state should also take a hard look at occupational licensing rules that unnecessarily keep qualified people from entering professions for which they have already been trained. California has more than twice the average number of employment regulations affecting people with criminal histories than other states do, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
In addition, many employers remain unaware of tools designed to reduce the risks of hiring returning citizens.
Tommy DeLuna, program manager for Sacramento’s Exodus Project, points to the federal Work Opportunity Tax Credit, which can provide employers with thousands of dollars for hiring people leaving incarceration and others with significant barriers to employment. There’s also the federal bonding program, DeLuna said, which provides free fidelity bonds protecting employers against losses from employee dishonesty during a worker’s first six months on the job.
PPIC researchers urged policymakers to explore other potential programs that reduce employers’ perceived risk, and improve taxpayer investment in rehabilitation.
“If you have a job, you can find stable housing,” DeLuna said. “If you don’t have a place to lay your head or even feel comfortable showering, you don’t want to necessarily go to work and stick out.”
But without a paycheck, DeLuna said, it’s harder to rent an apartment. These pieces of the puzzle must connect if returning citizens are to become self-sufficient.
Employers who take a chance on formerly incarcerated workers are often pleasantly surprised, DeLuna said.
They’re “amazed at how much harder we work than, say, somebody who has been working their entire life,” he said. “We’re chomping on the bit to actually earn any consistent paycheck because we’ve been in prison where we made pennies on the dollar.”
California has made real progress preparing inmates to work. Now it needs to become equally committed to helping qualified people get hired.
Rehabilitation doesn’t end with a certificate. It ends when someone earns a paycheck, rents an apartment, supports a family and no longer needs the government to carry them.
That’s the outcome taxpayers are seeking. California should make sure the road to employment is open.
This story was originally published July 6, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "California says employment is path out of prison, then blocks the road | Opinion."
