August 15 • 2019 5
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I
will always free associate Sam
Marvin with wood pallets and
wood pallets with Sam Marvin.
In the days leading
up to the opening of
Repair the World’
s
Workshop space in
2014, one of Sam’
s
many tasks, as he
tripled and quadru-
pled his part-time
hours, was finding
and arranging pallets to serve as the
Workshop’
s couches.
Sam has long since moved on
from Repair the World. But the
pallet couches — which have been
greeting people and their butts with
nary a splinter for five years strong
— provide a passable metaphor for
his current work.
Start with something that could
easily be considered disposable, if
not dangerous. Identify the tools
and assemble the resources so that
they can be assets rather than lia-
bilities. Help others to see them as
something stable, something with
worth, something with integrity.
Sam works with — for, really
— returning citizens. If you’
re not
familiar with the terms, think of
“returning citizen” as a long-overdue
reframing of “ex-con.” It acknowl-
edges that people who were incar-
cerated are products of and once
again members of our community.
Their pursuit of self-sufficiency is in
the community’
s interest; their tran-
sition can be unduly complicated by
entrenched policies and prejudices.
There are currently 2,500 parol-
ees and 8,000 probationers living
in Detroit. Through the Mayor’
s
Office of Workforce Development,
Sam works from multiple angles to
create opportunities for his fellow
Detroiters:
1. Opening doors to opportunity.
The focus here is on motivating
employers to give returning citizens
a “fair chance.” By way of example,
Ban the Box has gained traction as
a way for job applicants to receive
due consideration by not having to
disclose their criminal background
on their initial application.
2. Reducing individual barriers
to employment. Beyond sweeping
statistics, every returning citizen has
his or her own set of circumstances
that can make hurdles ever higher,
like access to stable housing, reliable
transportation and vital documen-
tation. (It can take weeks of wading
through layers of bureaucracy and
months of waiting to obtain copies
of your birth certificate or social
security card.)
3. Up-skilling job-seekers. Some
80 percent of people paroling back
to Detroit were unemployed when
they were incarcerated. Lack of
access to quality education is a
major part of the vicious cycle that
leads people into the justice system
in the first place and can trigger
recidivism. The city and Michigan
Department of Corrections have
a
range of partnerships that focus
on remedial education, high school
completion, post-secondary, voca-
tional skills and soft skills.
Sam has learned through the
course of his work that one of
the big things standing between a
returning citizen and a job is a job:
“Transitional jobs have very low
barriers to entry and are ideally
provided by a nonprofit or social
enterprise with the sole purpose of
supporting an individual’
s transition
into permanent employment,” he
said.
“Buying clothing, food, bus passes
and paying rent become substantial-
ly easier when a returning citizen
has a transitional job. Large employ-
ers and public institutions can create
these opportunities and my efforts
are directed toward growing the
number.”
He notes two nonprofit partners,
among myriad programs providing
a strong return on the public and
private investments in returning
citizens.
Goodwill Industries, in Detroit
since 1921, provides more than
900 local businesses with a reliable
workforce. Their Flip the Script
program provides mentoring and
job training that address the unique
challenges returning citizens expe-
rience.
Center for Employment
Opportunities, new to Detroit last
year, provides immediate paid
employment — caring for 100 parks
and green spaces around the city —
along with skills training and ongo-
ing career support.
Many factors stemming from con-
centrated poverty conspire to create
a pipeline into prisons.
The number of incarcerated indi-
viduals in Michigan is dropping,
in an encouraging trend, but it will
take a comparable conspiracy to
manage the flow of people back into
Detroit neighborhoods and suburbs.
Ultimately, people aren’
t pallets.
Their lives are messy. Both their
problems and their potential can be
powerful. Sam and his colleagues
have seen all the constructive ways
returning citizens can contribute
to their communities — as long
as they aren’
t trapped under the
weight of a debt to society they’
ve
already paid. ■
views
jewfro
Sam Marvin and Our “Returning Citizens”
Ben Falik
Sam Marvin
BEN FALIK
Rock-on!