Changing the Narrative in Minnesota
Through its “Ban the Box” campaign the Justice4All Program, run by TakeAction Minnesota, tackled our nation’s racial jobs disparity head on. For three years, Justice4All led an ultimately successful campaign for “Ban the Box” policies preventing employers from asking job applicants about criminal history on an initial employment application. Because African Americans and Latinos are arrested, convicted, and incarcerated at higher rates than white people, employment practices that discriminate against ex-offenders contribute to the racial jobs disparity.
From the outset, this campaign faced a serious public relations challenge. “This is not a population for which the general public has much sympathy,” explained Justin Terrell, Justice4All Manager. “The dominant narrative about people with criminal records is about revenge. We needed to instead tell a story about redemption and healing.” The campaign developed plans for both traditional and social media that included building relationships with reporters, press releases and press conferences, Facebook and blog posts, op-eds and interviews. They compiled and released two reports. One described the racial jobs gap in Minnesota, and the second focused on the Target Corporation – the largest corporation in Minnesota.
To put a face on the issue, the campaign identified a handful of individuals with criminal records who couldn’t find work and were willing to tell their stories publicly. Finding people courageous enough to do this was challenging, but in the end Terrell found the bigger problem to be one of altering the dominant narrative. “We had to get beyond the usual negativity,” explained Terrell, “and to do that we had to find a way to get beyond just blaming individuals. We had to paint a picture of a system that is more powerful than the individual, and that disparately affects people of color. That’s where Target came in.”
Target, like most corporate employers, had historically asked questions about criminal history on job applications and screened out any applicant with a record. “Here was a powerful corporation resistant to hiring people with a criminal record no matter how trivial or how long ago the offense occurred,” said Terrell. “We were able to juxtapose that story with one of individuals who were desperately trying to put their lives back together, but who were blocked at every turn. This was a different narrative.”
The campaign organized direct actions that generated great media interest which in turn generated public support, thereby building political will for change in Minnesota. In the spring of 2013 the state legislature passed a bill that prohibited employers from asking questions about criminal history on initial job applications. In October of 2013, Target agreed to remove questions about criminal history from their job applications not just in Minnesota, but across the United States. The company also agreed to support a free legal clinic for people with criminal histories and now meets monthly with the Justice4All Campaign. “These changes were certainly evidence of our success,” said Terrell. “But the real evidence is that the narrative has changed. Now, most media stories talk about this issue from a new perspective. That’s how I know we’ve been successful.”
Terrell is optimistic about the work ahead. “Ban the Box got us through the door,” he said. “Now we’ve built the political power to keep moving.”
To reach Justin Terrell, email [email protected]. To learn more about the Justice4All Project, visit http://www.takeactionminnesota.org/work/criminal-justice-reform/
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Date added: November 4, 2014