1 in 3 americans has a criminal record. Thanks to the, in my opinion, glaring malfeasance that is the hiring policy for convicted felons (aka don't hire them) many, if not most, of these people return to prison again and again, given the difficulty of finding a legal job. My friend A has secured an IT degree and is working on learning C++ and SQL, two in demand languages. This comes after 15 years ago when, during when she was addicted to drugs, she committed a felony. Now, even though she is very well spoken and has been clean since, she is forced to work for very little at a car wash. many jobs have stopped accepting federal bonds for felons.
I think this is a tragedy. we need to incentivize companies to hire more felons (not just the federal bonding program) through tax options etc.