How arrest records become ‘invisible handcuffs’ that keep people unemployed

Judy Woodruff:

More than 70 million Americans have some sort of criminal or arrest record. And, for many, that can prevent them from passing a background check and getting a job.

Amna Nawaz is back now to profile one woman's fight to overcome her past and to prove herself at one of the biggest tech companies in the world.

It's part of our Searching For Justice series looking at the challenges after incarceration.

Amna Nawaz:

From days spent working from home, in sales for Microsoft, to evening strolls with her husband and dog, Shelley Winner's life here in California's Bay Area today is one she could've never imagined just a few years ago.

Shelley Winner, Microsoft Employee:

If someone would have told me when I was sitting back in my prison cell five, six years ago that one day I'd be working at Microsoft, I would have laughed in their face.

(LAUGHTER)

Amna Nawaz:

Her path to that prison cell, she says, began early. Winner grew up in Sacramento. Her mother, she says, was often absent. Her stepfather was in and out of prison.

Shelley Winner:

He told me the rule of the house was, if I wanted to do any hard drugs, that I had to bring them home and share them with him. And he was using and selling meth out of our home.

I didn't know what a hangover was, but, looking back now, I was definitely hung over at 11 years old.

Amna Nawaz:

As a teen, she began using crystal meth. In her 20s, her addiction eventually eclipsed everything else.

Shelley Winner:

I couldn't keep a regular job working eight hours. Drugs was more important to me. Lived that life for well over a decade, started selling drugs, and eventually got caught by the federal government.

And right after my arrest, that's when I found out I was pregnant.

Amna Nawaz:

Pregnant, fighting addiction, and facing a 10-year sentence, Winner decided to change. She entered rehab, got clean, and two months after giving birth to her son, reported to prison.

She served a year-and-a-half of a four-year sentence, and says that time was transformational, thanks to a number of programs available inside. When she got out in 2016, she was ready for a new life and knew exactly what she wanted to do.

Shelley Winner:

You know what funny is, when I was running and gunning, my favorite thing to do when I got high was build and fix computers.

Amna Nawaz:

Just a few months free, staying in a halfway house, she landed an interview for a retail position in a Microsoft store.

Shelley Winner:

Here I was, fresh out of prison, and now I'm interviewing with one of the biggest tech companies in the world. And I knew, if I could get my foot in the door at this company, that my life would drastically change.

Amna Nawaz:

Did you get the job after the interview?

Shelley Winner:

She hired me right on the spot.

Amna Nawaz:

Winner knew her record would show up in a background check, so she decided to be up front and lay her cards on the table.

Shelley Winner:

All of the certificates of rehabilitative classes that I took in prison, I had all of them. And so I scanned them all to my cloud drive, and I attached them to that letter, and I sent it off, because I wanted them to see that I wasn't lying.

Unfortunately, they came back and said, we are not going to move forward with your hire.

Amna Nawaz:

So, to go from that to having that offer taken away…

Shelley Winner:

Yes.

Amna Nawaz:

… what did that feel like?

Shelley Winner:

It was devastating. I felt like I was forever going to be punished for my criminal record for the rest of my life, that I was going to be wearing these invisible handcuffs for the rest of my life, and although I had paid my debt to society, it wasn't enough.

Amna Nawaz:

Shelley Winner had just run into the same barrier as millions of other formerly incarcerated people. But because this job was in San Francisco, Shelley had access to something most don't, a law that gave her the legal grounds to fight for that job.

In 2014, San Francisco's mayor signed the Fair Chance Ordinance, requiring employers to consider mitigating circumstances and evidence of rehabilitation for any job applicant with a criminal record.

It also requires employers to prove that criminal record is relevant to the job before turning down the applicant. On those grounds, Winner challenged Microsoft's denial in 2017. She was invited to reinterview, and, this time, got the job.

Shelley Winner:

I was so excited, all of that devastation and that hurt and that sadness gone. I mean, I was — I was just ecstatic. And I remember the recruiter, she says, wow, I have never had a response like this before.

(LAUGHTER)

Shelley Winner:

I say, girl, I have gone through it.

Amna Nawaz:

So, if this law wasn't on the books, and Shelley hadn't called you, what would have been her recourse?

Patrick Mulligan, San Francisco OLSE:

She wouldn't have had any direct recourse.

Amna Nawaz:

Patrick Mulligan Leads San Francisco's Office Of Labor Standards Enforcement, which implements that Fair Chance Ordinance.

Patrick Mulligan:

There's 70 million Americans, adult Americans, that have some sort of arrest or conviction history.

The employment is regarded as probably the number-one issue regarding recidivism in this country. So, I think issues that affect a third of the adult population, I think, are important for everybody.

Amna Nawaz:

Across the country, 37 states and more than 150 cities and counties have ban-the-box rules that prevent public sector employers from asking about incarceration on a job application.

But only 15 states and 22 localities require the same for private employers. And even fewer states, cities, and counties include laws for private employers that are as strong as San Francisco's.

There will be people who say, shouldn't employers be allowed to say who gets to work for their companies and who doesn't?

Patrick Mulligan:

They do. But there are some restrictions on that.

We already have laws in place around racial bias, discriminatory practices, and this really just falls among those.

Jason Ford, Microsoft Executive:

The systems are there to help vet and qualified candidates quickly and get you the right people, which is the right thing to do. The challenge is, is the system looking for people that can help your company change?

Amna Nawaz:

Jason Ford is a Microsoft executive who met Winner while she worked in the retail job.

Shelley Winner:

What if you were only known for the worst thing you would ever done?

Amna Nawaz:

He saw a TEDx presentation she gave in 2019 advocating for other formerly incarcerated people, and says he was immediately impressed.

Shelley Winner:

And the reason that I know this is because the worst thing that I'd ever done landed me in prison.

Ford wanted to promote her from retail to his corporate team. This time, when her background check raised concerns, Ford pushed back.

Jason Ford:

We are really focused on trying to be very thoughtful and inclusive. Sometimes, you have to push the systems to catch up to it, but, sometimes, the systems don't know that these communities are areas that we can tap into for talent.

And so it just takes, I think, a forceful perspective for people to lean in.

Amna Nawaz:

And that includes formerly incarcerated people?

Jason Ford:

Formerly incarcerated people are a huge population. They have to be contributing members of society. So maybe not all of them are going to be capable of doing some of the things that we're asking, or maybe not all of them bring the diversity that we would need, but there's no way that none of them do.

Amna Nawaz:

Earlier this year, Microsoft joined the Second Chance Business Coalition, a group of major corporations pledging to expand hiring and advancement of people with criminal records.

Winner's now 2.5 years into her corporate job, working in surface tablet sales to other businesses. Her latest fight is for full custody of her son, who's been with other family since she went to prison. Still, Winner says she's grateful for her second chances, and knows there are many more people out there who need them too.

Shelley Winner:

As formerly incarcerated, we tend to get beat down by society's stigmas and beliefs about us, and we tend to buy into those beliefs.

I wasn't going to do that. I was going to show society that I am a worthy person, that I deserve to have an amazing job. I deserve to be a productive member of society. This whole process, I have had a lot of fear, and there were times where I almost gave up, but I'm so glad I didn't.

Amna Nawaz:

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Amna Nawaz in Vallejo, California.