Restoration of Rights Project – Georgia Profile
Guide to restoration of rights, pardon, sealing & expungement following a Georgia criminal conviction
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- New occupational licensing laws in 2021 (6/10/2021) - In the first five months of 2021, seven states and the District of Columbia enacted nine separate laws improving opportunities for people with a criminal record to obtain occupational licenses. This continues a four-year trend begun in 2017 that has seen 33 states and the District of Columbia enact 54 separate laws regulating consideration of criminal record in the licensing process. Our report on new legislation in 2020 noted that “[o]f all the criminal record reforms enacted during this modern reintegration reform era, no other approaches the regulation of occupational licensing agencies in terms of breadth, consistency, and likely efficacy.” Laws enacted during this four-year period have "transformed the licensing policy landscape across the Nation and opened opportunities in regulated professions for many thousands of people." The only period of law reform that rivals the present one came during the early 1970s, when many of the laws now being revised and extended were first enacted. The effectiveness of advocacy efforts by the Institute for Justice and National Employment Law Project in influencing this trend cannot be overstated. So far during 2021, the U.S. jurisdiction to have enacted the most ambitious and comprehensive licensing scheme is the District of Columbia, and its new law (described in detail below) is one of the most progressive in the nation. New Jersey, New Mexico and Washington had not previously legislated in this area for many years, and all three extended and improved laws first enacted in the 1970s. Arizona, Georgia, Ohio, and Tennessee extended recently enacted laws, with Arizona legislating for the fourth time in this area in as many years! The nine new laws are described below, and have been added to the state profiles and 50-state charts of the Restoration of Rights Project. Comprehensive licensing scheme enacted by the District of Columbia Act A23-0561, signed by Mayor Muriel Bowser on January 15, 2021, imposed a detailed regulatory scheme on many occupational licenses issued by the District of Columbia, including health-related professions. The new law is one of the broadest and most comprehensive in the country in the judgment of both CCRC and the Institute for Justice. The 2021 law provides that no one may be denied a license based on conviction of a crime unless it is “directly related” to the occupation for which the license is sought. (Under prior law a license could be denied if a conviction “bears directly upon the fitness” of the person to be licensed.) References to “good moral character” in prior law were struck. The new law also prohibits a board from inquiring into or considering an applicant’s criminal conviction until after the applicant is found to be otherwise qualified. After such inquiry, it may not consider a conviction that has been sealed, expunged, vacated, or pardoned, a juvenile adjudication, or non-conviction information, or one that whose elements are not found by “clear and convincing evidence” to be “directly related” to the occupation. In making this determination, a board must consider specific factors relating to the circumstances of the offense, the individual’s other record, evidence of rehabilitation, and “the District’s interest in promoting employment opportunities for individuals with criminal records.” Before denying a license based on a conviction a board must notify the applicant about the reasons for denial and offer a hearing, describe the information that may be provided to demonstrate rehabilitation and fitness, give the applicant an opportunity to respond, and issue a final decision within 45 business days after it receives a response. The board must also provide information on legal resources along with a hearing notice. The 2021 law also establishes a pre-application petition process for individuals to determine their eligibility based on a criminal conviction, which must be completed within 90 days. (The law does not state whether an affirmative conclusion at this preliminary stage is binding on the board.) This law applies to licenses issued by D.C.'s Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs and Department Health, but not occupations regulated outside of these agencies, including attorneys, teachers, notaries, taxi drivers, funeral directors, boxers, commercial drivers, and insurance agents. The Mayor must submit a report to the Council by January 1, 2022, identifying the statutory and regulatory collateral consequences of criminal records and recommendations for their mitigation or elimination. And, by January 1 of each year, the Mayor must submit to the Council a report with data relating to each board regulating health-related and non-health-related occupations. Significant revisions of existing general licensing laws 1. Arizona As modified in 2021 by HB 2787 (the fourth licensing law in three years), standards for disqualification now provide that an agency may refuse licensure to a person based on their criminal record only if a conviction “specifically and directly relates to the duties and responsibilities of the occupation” (except for offenses involving moral turpitude defined to include serious and violent offenses) and “the person, based on the nature of the specific offense that the person was convicted of and the person’s current circumstances, including the passage of time since commission of the crime, “is more likely to reoffend by virtue of having” the license than not. The 2021 amendments also require that certain records may not be considered: non-conviction records, including record of participation in a diversion program; a conviction that was sealed, expunged or pardoned; a juvenile adjudication; and a non-violent misdemeanor. 2. Georgia Existing law allowed licensing boards to deny licensure where a person was on community supervision, without requiring the person’s crime to be “directly related” to the occupation for which licensure was sought. SB-114 added supervision status to list of dispositions for which direct relationship is required. The new law does not apply to those on supervision for a felony crime against a person, including battery or assault, or for a crime requiring sex offense registration. 3. New Jersey Until 2021, New Jersey’s 1970’s-era law governing licensure by dozens of state licensing boards (most health-related licenses, accountants, architects, engineers, cosmetology, and many others) provided that boards could deny or suspend licensure upon conviction "of a crime of involving moral turpitude or relating adversely" to the regulated occupation. P.L.2021, c.81 (S942), modified the standard for denial or suspension of licensure by these state licensing agencies to "a direct or substantial relationship to the activity regulated by the board or is of a nature such that certification, registration or licensure of the person would be inconsistent with the public's health, safety, or welfare . . . ." 4. New Mexico The 1974 Criminal Record Employment Act in force prior to the 2021 amendments prohibited licensing boards from considering non-conviction records. As amended in 2021 by SB2, NM’s licensing agencies are precluded from considering convictions that have been sealed, dismissed, expunged or pardoned; juvenile adjudications; or convictions for a crime that “is not recent enough and sufficiently job-related to be predictive of performance in the position sought, given the position’s duties and responsibilities.” In addition, while "misdemeanors not involving moral turpitude" were omitted from the list of crimes that may never be considered, misdemeanors were also omitted from the provision allowing convictions to be considered if "directly related" to the license in question. The revisions leave open the possibility that a misdemeanor could be grounds for denying licensure as a teacher or child care provider only if they involved drug trafficking or child abuse. The 2021 amendments also omitted an alternative basis for disqualification based on insufficient rehabilitation. 5. Ohio Ohio’s existing law required licensing agencies to list crimes that mandate disqualification. As further amended in 2021 by HB 263, boards must list convictions that "may" be disqualifying, and other convictions and non-conviction records may not be grounds for denying a license. Vague terms like “moral character” and “moral turpitude” may not be used. If a conviction is on the list of those “directly related,” the board must still consider certain standards linked to an applicant’s overall record that are linked to public safety and may not deny after a period of either five or 10 years depending on the offense. In the event of denial, a board must provide procedural protections including written reasons and a hearing. These new features supplement the provision for a binding preliminary determination enacted by Ohio in 2019. 6. Tennessee The 2018 Fresh Start Act was amended in 2021 by SB768 to provide specific criteria governing a licensing board in determining the fitness of a person for licensure based on their criminal record, including the relationship of the crime to the ability performs the duties of the occupation, and evidence of the person’s rehabilitation. (The FSA already included a “direct relationship” standard.) The 2021 Act also deleted “a rebuttable presumption that the prior conviction relates to the fitness of the applicant or licensee” if the conviction was for a Class A, Class B, or certain Class C felonies, or if the felony conviction required registration as a sex offender or animal abuser. 7. Washington A 2021 law provides that each licensing agency shall allow potential applicants for a license to receive a "preliminary determination" as to whether their criminal record will be disqualifying. See 2021, ch. 194 (HB1399). No fee may be charged. This determination must be made within two months, and if it is negative must be accompanied by a statement of reasons. Another provision of HB1399 states that a licensing agency "may disqualify an individual from obtaining a professional license, government certification, or state recognition if it determines the individual's conviction is related to the occupation or profession unless the individual has requested and received a [Certificate of Restoration of Opportunity (CROP)]." See Section 3 of 2021, ch. 194 (HB 1399). It is not clear whether this law was intended to lower the "direct relationship" standard in § 9.96A.020(2). Another 2021 law gave new protections to employees of long-term care facilities, setting forth time limits beyond which certain theft and assault convictions will not be disqualifying. See 2021 Ch. 219 (HB1411). The CROP law was also amended to give protection to these employees.
- “Certifying Second Chances” (3/24/2021) - This is the title of a provocative new article by Cara Suvall, Assistant Clinical Professor of Law at Vanderbilt Law School, and Director of the Youth Opportunity Clinic. The article, forthcoming in the Cardozo Law Review, catalogues and analyzes the costs and burdens that deter people from accessing certificates intended to enhance employment opportunities. Professor Suvall focuses particular attention on certificate programs in Tennessee, Georgia, and New York, which vary widely in eligibility criteria, administration, and legal effect. She highlights the learning, compliance, and psychological barriers that limit effectiveness of existing certificate programs, and describes proposals to lower those barriers. Here is the abstract: Policymakers around the country are grappling with how to provide a second chance to people with criminal records. These records create collateral consequences—invisible punishments that inhibit opportunity in all facets of a person’s life. Over the past seven years, states have repeatedly tried to legislate new paths for people trying to move on with their lives. State legislators passed more than 150 laws targeting collateral consequences in 2019 alone. But what happens when these paths to second chances are littered with learning, compliance, and psychological costs? The people who most need these new opportunities may find that they are out of reach. A major problem, I argue, is the administrative burdens involved in accessing these remedies. Because of these hurdles, people with fewer resources—the population that would most benefit from the help—are the ones most likely to find these second chances out of reach. The Article closely examines one increasingly popular type of second-chance program: certificate laws that remove employment barriers. Building on recent research identifying the low usage rates of petition-based second-chance programs, this Article catalogues and analyzes the costs and burdens placed on people attempting to access employment certificates. Of particular concern is not only these low usage rates themselves, but also the identity of those least likely to access these interventions. Second-chance programs like employment certificates that provide a way forward for people with greater resources while leaving behind those without may be more harmful than helpful when placed in the larger context of mass criminalization and social change, even if they help the small number of individuals who do access them. In contrast, a well-designed second-chance initiative that appropriately considers administrative burdens and the way that interventions like employment certificates fit in to the broader picture of social change could provide short-term benefits to people with criminal records while also bolstering larger-scale reforms to the criminal legal system.
- New research report: Four Years of Second Chance Reforms, 2013-2016 (2/8/2017) - Introduction Since 2013, almost every state has taken at least some steps to chip away at the negative effects of a criminal record on an individual’s ability to earn a living, access housing, education and public benefits, and otherwise fully participate in civil society. It has not been an easy task, in part because of the volume and complexity of state and federal laws imposing collateral consequences. To encourage employers and other decision-makers to give convicted individuals a fair chance, some states have enacted or modified judicial restoration mechanisms like expungement, sealing, and certificates of relief. Others have extended nondiscrimination laws, limited criminal record inquiries, and facilitated front-end opportunities to avoid conviction. In partnership with the NACDL Restoration of Rights Project, the CCRC maintains a comprehensive and current state-by-state guide to mechanisms for restoration of rights and status after conviction. As a part of keeping that resource up to date, we have inventoried measures enacted and policies adopted by states in the past four years to mitigate or avoid the disabling effects of a criminal record, and present it here as a snapshot of an encouraging national trend. Summary of findings Between 2013 and 2016, forty-two states and the District of Columbia adopted significant reforms of various types. The most common of these reforms are ban-the-box laws and policies that prohibit employers from inquiring into an applicant’s criminal history during the initial stages of the application process. Twenty-one states banned the box in public employment, and eight (CT, DC, IL, MN, NJ, OR, RI, and VT) expanded their ban-the-box prohibitions to cover private employers as well. Expungement and sealing authorities were also expanded in a significant number of states. Arkansas, Indiana, and Minnesota enacted comprehensive new expungement/sealing schemes that grant many individuals an opportunity to have their records sealed from public view and/or rights restored for the first time. Additionally, California, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Missouri all expanded existing expungement/sealing laws to make certain felonies eligible. Maryland, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota enacted entirely new authorities limiting public access to misdemeanor records. Another fifteen states expanded existing expungement or sealing opportunities, either to increase the number and type of eligible offenses and dispositions, or to broaden the protections afforded to, or rights restored by, an expunged or sealed record. Unfortunately, stiff filing fees in states like Louisiana and Kentucky will inevitably discourage people of limited means from taking advantage of these new authorities. Judicial and/or administrative “certificates of relief” were also made available in nine states for the first time. These certificates adhere to a “forgiving,” as opposed to “forgetting,” model of criminal record mitigation. The new certificates with the broadest application and effect are those in Ohio and Vermont, both of which are modeled after provisions in the Uniform Collateral Consequences of Conviction Act (UCCCA) that authorize courts to completely remove specified mandatory collateral consequences imposed by law, allowing individuals to be considered for employment or licensing opportunities on the merits. Colorado's new "order of collateral relief" provides relief from mandatory consequences specified in the order, with exceptions, but is only available for non-prison sentences. The new certificate authorities in most other states either protect employers and/or other private entities from negligent hiring or retention claims based solely upon their agent’s conviction, or prohibit employers or licensing bodies from denying applicants “based solely upon” their conviction. The effect or availability of pre-existing certificate authorities were expanded in another three states. Another notable trend was the expansion of the effect and availability of deferred adjudication and diversion mechanisms, which allow individuals to avoid conviction altogether following successful completion of probation or other conditions. Five states (AL, CA, DE, GA, NJ) enacted legislation explicitly authorizing expungement or sealing of deferred adjudication records for the first time, while Colorado and Illinois enacted entirely new deferred adjudication authority. These programs provide a great benefit to those who can take advantage of them, but, in many states, prosecutorial control of these programs can result in disparate treatment and costly relief. >>View the full report below or download here<<
- Georgia high court extends Padilla to parole eligibility (5/14/2015) - The Supreme Court of Georgia has extended the doctrine of Padilla v. Kentucky to a failure to advise about parole eligibility. In Alexander v. State, decided on May 11, a defendant sentenced to a 15-year prison term for child molestation sought to set aside his guilty plea on grounds that his defense counsel had not warned him that, as a recidivist, he would not be eligible for parole. The Georgia high court agreed that this failure constituted deficient performance under the doctrine of Strickland v. Washington, overruling its 1999 precedent holding that the Sixth Amendment did not require a defense lawyer to advise a client about this "collateral consequence" of conviction. The Georgia court distinguished its 2010 post-Padilla decision declining to find a warning by the court necessary, finding a clear constitutional distinction between defense counsel's Sixth Amendment obligation to advise a client considering a guilty plea and the court's due process obligation to warn a defendant in the same situation. At the same time, the court declined to approve a lower court's earlier extension of Padilla to sex offender registration, reserving for another day the question whether this consequence is "a drastic measure" that is "intimately related" to the criminal case. Most of the post-Padilla decisions involving parole eligibility have rested on the dubious pre-Padilla erroneous advice exception to the collateral consequences rule, an exception that the Alexander court firmly rejected.
- Georgia becomes first state in South to ban the box (2/25/2015) - Goergia Governor Nathan Deal has signed an executive order making Georgia the first state in the South to ban the box in public employment. As reported on the "Inside Politics" blog of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "Job seekers applying for work with the state of Georgia will no longer need to disclose prior criminal convictions on their initial applications." The order provides that this new policy "will allow returning citizens an opportunity to explain their unique circumstances in person to a potential employer." The order requires state agencies to offer qualified applicants the chance in a follow-up interview to “contest the content and relevance of a criminal record” and provide information that demonstrates rehabilitation. It carves out exceptions for those seeking “sensitive governmental positions” in which a criminal history would be an immediate disqualification. That includes jobs such as prison guards or security officers. The initiative was recommended by Deal’s criminal justice reform council in January 2014. The council’s report said that the question asking applicants to report a criminal record on an initial employment application is a barrier to employment that could exclude individuals from consideration even if they are qualified for the job and the conviction has no bearing on the work. The council urged instead a requirement that the applicant disclose any criminal history during a face-to-face interview with the hiring agent. Deal has long suggested he would sign an order banning state agencies from including the question as part of broader criminal justice changes aimed at helping released inmates transition more smoothly back into society. “If they can find employment, if they can find a place to live, I believe many of them will work hard to earn their place in society,” Deal said in an April 2013 speech outlining the next phase of his criminal justice reform plan. Georgia joins 13 other states that have adopted a ban-the-box policy, including New Mexico, Delaware, New Jersey and Minnesota. While the City of Atlanta has had a ban-the-box policy since last fall, the state-wide order makes Georgia the first state in the South to implement the initiative.
- Is pardon making a comeback? Probably not, but law reform may be (1/21/2015) - A recent issue of Governing Magazine reports that pardoning is "making a comeback" after decades of neglect. It would be nice if it were true. But the evidence of comeback is thin. Almost all of the jurisdictions where pardoning is thriving today are the same ones where it was thriving a decade ago. In a dozen states, including Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Nebraska, South Carolina and South Dakota, pardon has never been neglected, much less abandoned by responsible officials. In these jurisdictions and a handful of others, pardon has deep roots in the justice system and is supported by accountable institutions of government. It is certainly true that Pat Quinn of Illinois and Jerry Brown of California have made generous use of the power of their office after years in which the pardon power in their states languished unused. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia is a newcomer to the small group of governors who evidently feel that pardoning is a responsibility of office. All three are to be commended for it. But three swallows do not make a summer. For the most part pardoning in the United States remains a timid exercise in tokenism, and the vitality of pardon in most jurisdictions still depends on the personal predilections of the particular elected chief executive. Most are not very interested in an activity that has few rewards and many pitfalls. Our President is a case in point. A number of current governors have refused to use their pardon power at all, some invoking bogus separation of powers arguments (Scott of Wisconsin), others making empty promises (Hickenlooper of Colorado). The Marshall Project recently published an article asking if pardon was still the third rail of American politics. Apparently most governors think it is, whatever changes there may have been in the public mood. Legislative alternatives to pardon It seems to me that if governors and presidents are reluctant to use the power of their office to temper what Alexander Hamilton called the "necessary severity" of the criminal code, they have an obligation to see that the legal system addresses the needs pardon serves. Ohio Governor John Kasich did that when he supported legislation to authorize courts to issue "certificates of qualification for employment" to help people with convictions overcome legal restrictions that bar them from certain jobs. Governors in Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota and Vermont have also recently signed legislation giving courts the power to do what they are evidently reluctant to do themselves. That is an acceptable alternative approach to governing, both in theory and in practice. Indeed, pardon was never supposed to be a substitute for law reform, and courts or administrative agencies are likely to be fairer and more accessible than an elected official. Unfortunately, there is no indication that the Obama Administration is interested in supporting legislation that would ameliorate the adverse effects of a criminal record, though this is one of the few areas in which there is bipartisan support for reform in Congress. The President's failure to give criminal justice reform more than a passing mention in the State of the Union address, and only in the context of police/community relations, was discouraging. Many U.S. jurisdictions are attempting to deal with the problems created by mass incarceration, by reducing the number of people who go to prison and by improving social services to keep those who do from going back. Mass conviction has produced a separate and less tractable set of problems, including proliferation of collateral consequences that discourage rehabilitation, and creation of a permanent class of second class citizens defined by their criminal record. The laboratories of democracy have not yet produced a single legislative solution that can command consensus. Reform efforts in some jurisdictions involve limiting public access to criminal records through expungement or sealing, an approach that has both practical and theoretical drawbacks. Other jurisdictions have adopted the more transparent judicial certificates recommended by the 2010 Uniform Collateral Consequences of Conviction Act and the 2014 Model Penal Code: Sentencing. Indiana's approach combining the two may be the wave of the future. With a clear problem demanding a legislative solution, the recommendation of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers looks appealing: The three branches of government, on the federal, state, and local levels, should undertake a comprehensive effort to promote restoration of rights and status after conviction. This is a major effort that requires a multi-faceted approach. It should include enactment of laws to circumscribe or repeal existing collateral consequences, and a resolve to stop enacting new ones. More fundamentally, government entities, the legal profession, the media and the business community must promote a change in the national mindset to embrace concepts of redemption and forgiveness, including a public education campaign to combat erroneous and harmful stereotypes and labels applied to individuals who have at one point or another committed a crime. As a cornerstone of this movement, the United States and the states and territories should establish a “National Restoration of Rights Day” to recognize the need to give individuals who have successfully fulfilled the terms of a criminal sentence the opportunity to move on with their lives. This will take leadership at a national level. Given the support for collateral consequences reform in Congress and in governor's mansions across the country, perhaps we will get it.
- Discipline for schoolgirls differs by race and skin tone (12/11/2014) - The New York Times this morning describes data from the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights showing that African-American girls tend to face more serious school discipline than white girls. "For all the attention placed on problems that black boys face in terms of school discipline and criminal justice, there is increasing focus on the way those issues affect black girls as well." Black girls who get in trouble at school are also more frequently referred to the criminal justice system, where they can incur a criminal record that sticks with them into adulthood. The article tells the story of 12-year-old Mikia, who was charged with a crime after she and a friend wrote graffiti on the walls of a gym bathroom at Dutchtown Middle School in Henry County, Georgia. The incident was a surprise to her parents, since Mikia was a good student who had not been in any trouble before: Even more of a surprise was the penalty after her family disputed the role she was accused of playing in the vandalism and said it could not pay about $100 in restitution. While both students were suspended from school for a few days, Mikia had to face a school disciplinary hearing and, a few weeks later, a visit by a uniformed officer from the local Sheriff’s Department, who served her grandmother with papers accusing Mikia of a trespassing misdemeanor and, potentially, a felony. As part of an agreement with the state to have the charges dismissed in juvenile court, Mikia admitted to the allegations of criminal trespassing. Mikia, who is African-American, spent her summer on probation, under a 7 p.m. curfew, and had to complete 16 hours of community service in addition to writing an apology letter to a student whose sneakers were defaced in the incident. Her friend, who is white, was let go after her parents paid restitution. Michael J. Tafelski, a lawyer from the Georgia Legal Services Program who represented Mikia in the school disciplinary hearing, said his office had filed a complaint with the Justice Department claiming racial discrimination and a violation of the Civil Rights Act: “I’ve never had a white kid call me for representation in Henry County,” Mr. Tafelski said. “What kid needs to be having a conversation with a lawyer about the right to remain silent?” he said. “White kids don't have those conversations; black kids do." A study conducted by Villanova sociologists shows that skin tone also affects the rate of school discipline. Among a cohort of African Americans, girls with darker skin tone were three times more likely to be suspended than girls with lighter skin tone: There are different gender expectations for black girls compared with white girls, said Lance Hannon, a Villanova sociology professor who conducted the analysis. And, he said, there are different expectations within cross-sections of black girls. “When a darker-skinned African-American female acts up, there’s a certain concern about their boyish aggressiveness,” Dr. Hannon said, “that they don’t know their place as a female, as a woman.” The long-term damage done by school disciplinary practices is aggravated when it is perceived as unfair: Catherine E. Lhamon, the assistant secretary for civil rights at the Department of Education, whose office published a report on school discipline in March that offered recommendations for how to improve disciplinary practices in schools, said the discrepancies in disciplinary practices were not lost on young girls of color. “The felt experience of too many of our girls in school is that they are being discriminated against,” she said. “The message we send when we suspend or expel any student is that that student is not worthy of being in the school,” Ms. Lhamon said. “That is a pretty ugly message to internalize and very, very difficult to get past as part of an educational career.” When school discipline results in a criminal record, it is difficult to get past as part of life in general.
- The New Southern Strategy Coalition works on criminal records reform in the South (12/2/2014) - “I don’t know why everyone is talking about the New Jim Crow; in the South the old one never went away.” – 2013 New Southern Strategy Coalition conference participant Introduction The New Southern Strategy Coalition is a collaborative network of Southern advocacy groups and their national allies, originally convened in 2011 and dedicated to reducing the negative consequences of a criminal record in the South. Because the South has always been seen as a region resistant to criminal justice reform, many national groups do not have a presence there, and state-based advocacy efforts are generally underfunded and understaffed. The voices of those most affected are missing from southern state capitols, and the region is often left out of the national dialogue altogether. NSSC addresses these challenges by providing opportunities for southern organizations to network and share information about regional best practices to minimize legal barriers to reentry. The premise is that state-specific reform efforts in the South will be supported and magnified by the Coalition’s collective goals operating across a unified landscape. NSSC holds regional conferences to discuss effective reform strategies, provides training and materials, ensures that the voices of directly affected individuals are included in a meaningful way, and uses web-based and social media tools to leverage reform efforts. NSSC hopes to lay the foundation for a stronger movement for the reform of reentry policies, both in the South and nationally. While the Coalition recognizes that minimizing interactions with the criminal justice system is the ultimate goal, we have chosen the lens of reentry and collateral consequences as an effective reform tool in a region that has not dealt with its legacy of racism, and which unabashedly declares support for “law and order” policies. Opening the dialogue with efforts to reduce recidivism paves the way for a broader conversation about drug policy and front-end criminal justice reform. NSSC’s vision is that all people throughout the nation have American citizenship rights to fair and equitable opportunities to thrive and succeed politically, socially and economically. Our mission is to be a diverse, Southern-based catalytic force for change, working with national allies and people directly impacted by the criminal justice system and their families, to remove the barriers they face to full participation in society, using direct services, education, organizing, advocacy, and litigation. The Need for a Southern Coalition The Coalition is particularly important for two reasons. First, the South has been ground zero in the build-up of the U.S. prison population. Overall, the United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, but it is the South that has led this growth trend. Nationwide one in 31 adults is behind bars, on probation or on parole, but in Georgia, for example, one in 13 adults is under correctional control. Second, Southern states tend to have more restrictive barriers to reentry than in other regions, perpetuating a cycle of arrest and recidivism. This was established by the Legal Action Center's seminal report, After Prison: Roadblocks to Reentry. Given the disproportionate effect of these barriers on communities of color, the need for a regional effort becomes clear. Research has shown that a criminal record constitutes more of a barrier to employment for black men than it does for white men as reported by Devah Pager in Marked: Race, Crime, and Finding Work in an Era of Mass Incarceration. The last census found 47% of Black Americans live in the 14 states encompassed by the New Southern Strategy Coalition, and recent reports indicate a trend of black migration to the South. Our experience as southern-based advocates teaches us that reform strategies that work in California or New York are not always effective in Alabama or Mississippi. Also, conservative southern legislators, who dominate our state houses, are generally more interested in what is happening around the region rather than what is happening in other parts of the country. There are many underfunded and understaffed Southern state and local groups that care about these issues and want to become more involved in advocating for change. Unfortunately, national funders are often reluctant to invest in the South because of the lack of infrastructure and capacity of non-profit and advocacy organizations. (See Grantmakers for Southern Progress.) A goal of the Coalition is to strengthen the capacity of these organizations, and through partnership, produce greater results than each group could accomplish on their own. Structure and Activities of the Coalition NSSC is led by a steering committee that consists of several state-based organizations – Georgia Justice Project, The Southern Coalition for Social Justice (North Carolina), South Carolina Appleseed Legal Justice Center, LifeLine to Success (Tennessee), and One Voice Mississippi – and two national partners – the National H.I.R.E. Network and the National Employment Law Project. Members have largely donated their time over the last three years to bring the idea of the Coalition to fruition. Beyond the steering committee, NSSC is a loose network of individuals and organizations working on reentry and criminal justice reform. Over 90 individuals, representing over 57 different organizations, have participated in the Coalition by attending one or both of the regional meetings or as presenters on the webinars. NSSC held regional meetings in 2011 in Atlanta, GA and in 2013 in Durham, NC. In 2014, state meetings were held in Mississippi and Tennessee. The NSSC has also hosted several webinars, with its latest webinar coming up on Wednesday, December 3rd, “Reactions to Ferguson from Arch City Defenders.” Please join this effort by signing up on the website, www.newsouthernstrategy.org. After joining, you will receive an email with a passcode that will allow you to log into the members section of the website. It may take up to one week to receive the passcode.