Page 40 - Impact: Collected Essays on the Threat of Economic Inequality

Criminal Records in the Post-“Great Society”
38
Michael Pinard1
Over the last year or so, many in the United States have reflected on the half century that has passed since President Lyndon B . Johnson launched the Great Society programs in the mid- to-late 1960s . In addition to landmark civil rights and voting rights legislation, these initiatives included an assortment of statutes and related programs aimed at assisting poor and working class individuals and families to simply live and to ascend . These programs were intended to sustain families, eliminate discrimination in critical features of American life, and, overall, make the American dream a reality for those to whom it was pure myth . Thus, President Johnson and Congress worked hard to, among other things, “reduce poverty and economic inequities by putting progressive polices in place, rais[e] the minimum wage and expand[] access to health insurance and housing for the poor and elderly .”2
President Johnson was deeply concerned about the economic plight of all individuals, including, of particular note, those incarcerated in U .S . prisons . On March 9, 1966, President Johnson gave a Special Message to Congress on Crime and Law Enforcement . In his message, President Johnson discussed the importance of providing meaningful job opportunities to individuals leaving prison and, as critical, not to exclude individuals from these opportunities . As he told Congress, “[t]he best correctional programs will fail if legitimate avenues of employment are forever closed to reformed offenders .”3
Thus, President Johnson, through these various programs, was wedded to reducing poverty in all of its dimensions and opening up doors of economic opportunity that were previously cemented shut . Today, however, fifty years or so after he and Congress committed the country to providing resources and opportunities to help individuals live and climb economically, the onslaught of criminal records has hardened poverty by excluding individuals who have been through the criminal justice system from these programs and opportunities . This is especially true for the poor individuals of color—Blacks and Latinos—who disproportionately and overwhelmingly encounter the criminal justice system and bear the permanent mark of a criminal record .
This essay offers a snapshot of how criminal records exclude individuals from some of the critical Great Society programs: the Food Stamp Act of 1964, the Higher Education Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 . While criminal records implicate several other programs, this essay focuses on these three programs because they impact survival, economic mobility, and families . The essay then revisits President Johnson’s Special Message to Congress and details some of the ways in which individuals with criminal records are shut out from employment opportunities and are not able to achieve the economic stability that President Johnson envisioned . In sum, the essay demonstrates that criminal records contribute to and exacerbate economic inequality in the United States .
1 Professor, University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. I am grateful to Randy Hertz for his comments. I am indebted to Bryan Riordan for his excellent research assistance and to Susan McCarty, Managing Research Fellow, for tracking down various sources.
2 Benjamin Jealous, America’s Yawning Racial Wealth Gap, poliTico (July 11, 2013), http://www.politico.com/ story/2013/07/americas-yawning-racial-wealth-gap-94048.html.
3 President Lyndon B. Johnson, Special Message to Congress on Crime and Law Enforcement, 1 puB. papers 291 (Mar. 9, 1966) [hereinafter Special Message].
Impact: Collected Essays on the Threat of Economic Inequality