A number of American companies, including Walmart and IBM, have pledged to consider hiring potential candidates even if they have had about with the law in the past. This move followed after U.S. President Donald Trump's criminal justice bill passed all law borders last year.
According to FOX Business, this campaign was spearheaded by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the Charles Koch Institute. Aside from Walmart and IBM, Caterpillar, American Airlines, Ford Motor Co. and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce agreed to the initiative.
SHRM CEO Johnny Taylor Jr. told the outlet that the campaign plays a huge role in ensuring that people with arrest records will get a chance to get the jobs they need just as other locals do. He added that the program will provide the necessary tools for signing companies.
"We will produce the toolkit, we will distribute it. We just need you to sign this page to ask your members to hire," Taylor Jr. explained. The program is very much in line with Trump's criminal justice reform bill that gives nonviolent inmates a chance to live well once they're free.
During his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, Trump highlighted the "First Step Act" as one of the greatest accomplishments he achieved since becoming U.S. president, Vox reported. "The First Step Act gives nonviolent offenders the chance to reenter society as productive, law-abiding citizens," he said.
The act was overwhelmingly supported by both Democrats and Republicans. It aims to create positive reforms to the country's criminal justice system. It will also give incarcerated people a chance to be released earlier.
Furthermore, the law will ease on the "three strikes" rule. Some people who should automatically get a life imprisonment sentence can get 25 years. This section is applicable for those who have been convicted thrice or more.
Well-behaved inmates will benefit greatly from the new law. "Good time credits" will be increased to allow behaving inmates to earn a maximum of 54 credits in their yearly incarceration period.
Finally, the law will allow for "earned time credits," a points system that adds up when inmates participate in rehabilitative and vocational programs provided by the U.S. government. The earned credits can give a legible inmate a chance to be released either to home confinement or halfway houses.
A large number of groups showed support for the new law, including Right on Crime and the American Civil Liberties Union. On the other hand, before it was passed, Trump's act received opposition in the form of Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Republican senators Lindsey Graham and Chuck Grassley.
