For many companies, that challenge might be too great. It was the right decision for our business for two main reasons - it allowed us to tap into a pool of talent we otherwise wouldn’t have had access to, and it enabled us to align our hiring practices with our values. We made the choice to work through these obstacles and actively hire individuals with criminal records. We weren’t experts on criminal law, and yet we had to make decisions about whether or not a record - which we couldn’t even understand - should give us cause for concern. In many cases, my managers and I didn’t have a clue what we were looking at or what it meant. When I first started second-chance hiring, I was shocked by how unintelligible most criminal records are. We’re committed to delivering the highest quality services while also helping break down the barriers facing people with criminal records. This has never stopped us from doing the work. Some of our staff have even undergone Homeland Security screening in order to make deliveries to secure facilities. More than half our Pennsylvania workforce is made up of people who used to be in jail, homeless, or welfare-dependent, and our retention rate is nearly twice that of the average company. We’re also dedicated to creating real second chances, providing not just clean laundry, but a clean slate for employees. We clean millions of pounds of dirty laundry each year for businesses ranging from local yoga studios to the federal government to Fortune 500 companies. In 2010, I started my business, Wash Cycle Laundry, in Philadelphia with these folks in mind. Seven states, including Delaware, have followed our lead and passed their own Clean Slate laws to help individuals who were negatively impacted by the criminal justice system get back on their feet. Since the law took effect, 1.2 million Pennsylvanians have benefited from the law’s automatic sealing provisions. In 2018, Pennsylvania came up with an innovative solution to help break down these barriers: The governor signed the nation’s first “Clean Slate” law, which automatically seals old records if a person remains crime-free for a certain period of time.Ĭlean Slate was hailed as a commonsense solution to a problem facing individuals across the commonwealth - and it worked. For these individuals, that can mean facing restrictions to employment, housing, education, and more. adults - have some form of a criminal record. More than 70 million Americans - nearly one in three U.S.
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