Goodwill Industries supports policies that serve ex-offenders.
As one of the nation’s largest providers of job training services, Goodwill Industries leads the way in creating employment opportunities for the approximately 650,000 ex-offenders who return to their communities each year. In 2006, 97 Goodwills helped more than 54,000 current and former prisoners.
Local Goodwill agencies help these thousands of current and former prisoners through a variety of programs, including job readiness, mentoring, housing, job placement and retention services. Watch a video about these programs.
Through programs focusing on workforce training, housing assistance, substance abuse, and health/mental health issues, local Goodwill agencies help create new opportunities for former offenders returning to the community. The ultimate goal of these programs is to prevent prisoner recidivism, an all-too-common trend that results in an ever-increasing burden on our communities and our taxpayers.
Goodwill Industries supports policy initiatives that would reduce barriers to reintegration and assist ex-offenders transitioning back into society. In particular, Goodwill Industries supports the Second Chance Act, which would provide grants to states and localities to address drug and mental health treatment, job training, and educational opportunities. The Second Chance Act would also establish a task force on federal programs and activities related to the re-entry of offenders into the community.
Goodwill Industries also supports H.R. 623, the Second Chance for Ex-Offenders Act of 2007, which would permit the expungement of records of certain nonviolent criminal offenses in limited circumstances. This measure would codify under federal law the processes for court-ordered expungement; as well as set forth the requirements for individually based expungement petitions.
