Unjust: Life after conviction disproportionately limits LGBT people
by Sara Ritsch
Staff Writer
Part IX: An Unjust Criminal Justice System
Life After Conviction
If you have been convicted of a crime, spent your time incarcerated, and expected a regular life after your release – good luck.
Last week on Section 3 of Unjust: How the Broken Criminal Justice System Fails LGBT People we took a walk through Life after conviction: LGBT people face added challenged to rebuilding their lives, focusing on five problems: difficulties finding housing, inadequate healthcare after release, difficulties finding employment, ineligibility for finding public assistance, and overuse and misuse of sexual offender registries.
Our focus today is to finalize our discussion on how having a criminal record harms LGBT people’s ability to support themselves and be a part of their families and communities. We will approach this impediment with a close look at the five remaining obstacles for LGBT individuals.
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Problem: Educational barriers
Studies show that people who have a criminal record are less likely to obtain an education. Without a proper education, it is harder to get ahead in life. This can be particularly true for LGBT people, given the harassment, violence and different discipline they (we) experience in educational settings.
Accessing student financial aid is already complicated. But beginning in 2001, “any student convicted of a drug offense became ineligible for federal student financial aid for one or two years post-conviction, depending on whether the student had been convicted before,” according to Unjust. That law now only applies to students who were convicted while receiving financial aid.
This counterproductive initiative cuts off an individual’s ability to access higher education right when they need it the most.
Applying to college can be difficult post-release, because many colleges ask about criminal history and about 20 percent run background checks on prospective students. This is discouraging, at the least. And what’s more – certain schools impose conditions on students with convictions on their records, such as regulating their class attendance.
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Problem: Severed or denied parenting rights
Federal law states that individuals with certain convictions are barred from fostering or adopting children. The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 says agencies must conduct criminal background checks on potential parents, barring those with child-related offenses for life, of course. But, even people with drug-related offenses are barred for five years. In addition, 13 states ban all people with records from adopting or fostering.
“A prospective 35-year-old parent could therefore be banned from adoption for life because they possessed marijuana at age 22,” explains Unjust.
In LGBT parenting, it is more difficult to gain legal ties to the child for both parents (since both are, in most cases, not biologically related under the law). According to Unjust, “If a non-biological LGBT parent could not secure legal ties to the couple’s children prior to being convicted, these restrictions can make it impossible to obtain second-parent adoption.”
This creates a huge problem, because if they are not legally recognized as a parent, this can jeopardize their ability to care for their own kids. This can risk their child’s access to safety-net programs and threaten their connection to the child in the case of separation from death of the bio parent.
On top of everything, retaining parental rights post-conviction is already extremely hard. So if you lack biological ties – as many LGBT parents do – it can be virtually impossible.
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Problem: Challenges reconnecting with family
Although this sounds outrageous, studies show that nearly half of all children in the United States have at least one parent with a criminal record. That’s 33 to 36.5 million children.
If you have been gone from your child’s life for an extended period of time, you are likely to have missed milestones that you can’t regain. You have missed day-to-day activities and ‘getting to know you’ times that cannot be taken back. It can be hard to catch up to all those missed moments, so reconnecting with family can be a challenge.
LGBT people already have a history of family rejection, in a lot of cases. LGBT people with criminal records, then, have a hard time with “lack of traditional family support, increased reliance on support networks that are not based on blood ties, and lack of legal parental recognition [that] can make re-entry and rebuilding one’s life even more difficult” (Unjust).
Research has proven that more contact with family members while incarcerated lowers the risk of re-incarceration. Support, both emotionally and economically, is extremely imperative for LGBT convicts.
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Problem: Difficulty obtaining name changes
Transgender people often prefer to change their names in accordance with their gender identity. For a former inmate, this can be increasingly difficult. Some states see this as an attempt to commit fraud or to evade law enforcement.
Imagine this hurdle as a trans person who wants to rebuild her or his life.
A judge may require written consent from a probation officer before a name change. Then, it must be granted by a judge. As discussed in previous sections of Unjust, judges have their own discriminatory biases and lack of understanding. So, “they may be more hostile toward a transgender individual seeking a name change particularly if the individual has a criminal record.”
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Problem: Loss of political participation
An individual may feel less connected to their communities when they are barred from certain civilian rights, such as voting, serving on juries, holding public office and restrictions on IDs. Unfortunately, these are common exclusions post-incarceration.
In obtaining a state-issued ID, people who have been incarcerated need extra assistance. Identification is crucial for having a bank account, a home, a job and health benefits. But, most former convicts struggle with having ID, since theirs may have expired while incarcerated and since some states automatically suspend or revoke licenses for certain offenses.
About 5.9 million Americans are unable to vote because of felony conviction laws. These are called felony disenfranchisement laws. For LGBT people who are directly impacted by discriminatory laws, the inability to vote can be beyond frustrating.
The only two states without limits for voting by former convicts are Maine and Vermont. But in 12 states, people with felonies are unable to vote. In the rest of the states, they have the right to vote for a limited amount of time, such as while in prison/on parole/on probation.
“Despite the fact that two-thirds of people in Alabama’s prisons are black, nearly two-thirds of individuals whose voting rights have been restored in recent years have been white,” Unjust says. “In Alabama, 30 percent of voting-age black men lack the right to vote because of criminal records.”
If you have been convicted of a felony, you cannot serve on a federal jury. But, in certain states you can serve on state juries.
Some states limit your ability to serve on elected office if you have a criminal record. Since LGBT people already have a low representation, this is an added barrier.
Recommendations given by Unjust:
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Include nondiscrimination provisions in all government-funded re-entry programs.
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Ensure that prison and jail re-entry programs provide a holistic assessment of an individual’s needs.
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Employ wraparound assessments to help youth succeed following release from juvenile justice facilities.
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Remove barriers facing people with criminal records, including LGBT people, when it comes to finding employment, housing, health care, and participating in civic life.
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Revise laws governing the use of sex offender status and registries to better balance community safety and the rehabilitation of individuals convicted under sex offender statutes.
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Expand opportunities for individuals to clear their records.
In conclusion, America’s criminal justice system is flawed. It limits the opportunities for LGBT people and people of color – LGBT people of color in particular – before, during and after incarceration.
And it needs to be fixed.
Pt. VIII: Life After Conviction
The Gayly – 5/2/2016 @ 2:30 p.m. CDT