Ex-offenders, New Skills and Opportunity
For W&W Steel Training Director Mark Milsap, there is a stark contrast between potential employees who come from off the street and those who arrive through The Education and Employment Ministry. TEEM is an interfaith nonprofit organization trying to break the cycle of incarceration in Oklahoma.
“You see it in their eyes sometimes, maybe a possibility of no hope,” Milsap said. “That means, ‘Oh, I made a grave mistake. Can I turn this negative into a positive?’”
There is a sense that those who have been convicted feel as if they have more to prove, Milsan said.
W&W Steel is a welding company whose relationship with TEEM and CareerTech, the state technology education agency, provides the formerly incarcerated with opportunities after they have been released.
“They don’t have to have a college degree or anything like that,” Milsap said. “But if you have the willingness and the desire, then there’s opportunity here for you.”
Milsap tends to work with about three people from TEEM every couple of weeks. During those 14 days, he assesses and educates employees before they are properly transferred to the department they were initially hired for.
Although the training director is willing to help each new employee push forward, he maintains the process starts on the individual level.
“If you’re willing to help yourself, I’ll help you,” Milsap said. “If you show me a positive attitude and you’re teachable, then the sky’s the limit for that person.”
However, he admits that it takes a degree of patience to fully assess where a trainee’s motivation stands.
“A lot times you don’t get that in the first day or even the second day,” Milsap said. “It takes a few days before you realize and see that in a person.”
Considering that he has been a part of W&W Steel’s management for 15 years, Milsap has dealt with his fair share of varying personalities. He insists that one of the most important skills he’s picked up is differentiating those who have a desire to learn from those who don’t.
“If they don’t have [the motivation], I’m just not going to mess with them,” he said, laughing. “I just put that away.”
Employers are generally reluctant to hire people with a criminal record.
The Nation cited a study in which 92 percent of major employers run background checks.
Additionally, the National Employment Law Project notes that online job ads on Craigslist routinely block out applicants with either felony or misdemeanor convictions.
“That question on job applications is an easy reason to dismiss an application right off the bat,” said Ryan Gentzler of the Oklahoma Policy Institute.
Gov. Mary Fallin signed an executive order in February requiring state agencies to eliminate questions about felony convictions from employment applications.
“We should remove unnecessary barriers to employment opportunities for Oklahomans with felony convictions,” Fallin said.
Gentzler, a criminal justice policy analyst, attributes recidivism – a relapse into criminal behavior – in the United States to the relative lack of opportunity.
“I mean, you have to find a way to support yourself,” he said. “So often that means just returning to the same kind of behaviors that landed you in prison in the first place.”
W&W Steel Safety Director David Winters said the company’s unique approach is tied to its blue-collar environment.
“We’re all about second chances,” he said. “You don’t get that with everybody – there are some who fall back – but even if half of them stay and take advantage of their opportunities, then we are 50 percent better than we were.”
The turnover rate from employees who come through TEEM is approximately 50 percent – considerably higher than that of off-the-street applicants, Winters said.
This company is unique in the sense that it provides most of the hands-on education. The safety director argues that the skills that W&W Steel requires are not given through a specific education system.
“We like to get people who have a basic general knowledge and a good work ethic,” he said. “Then we train them up.”
It’s not that simple with other establishments.
Most businesses look for some experience, especially when they are already apprehensive about hiring someone with a criminal record.
Photos by Zack Furman
Greg Dewald, superintendent of CareerTech Skills Centers, cites the company’s pet services program, Muddy Paws, as an example of how training can help overcome that roadblock.
The program not only lasts for about five months, but the students also leave with clippers and other tools to groom dogs.
“So when you walk into a Petco or an Alice’s Ark here in Stillwater, you’ve got your stuff,” Dewald said. “When you’ve actually used it for four or five months – it’s not all brand new stuff – that makes it a whole lot easier to get employed.”
Still, some students enter a different field then the one they spent months training for – often one with lower pay and worse conditions. Having a low-paying job is better than not having one at all, Dewald said, but he knows the value of better wages.
“I don’t feel really good about putting someone through a six-month training program and then seeing them end up at McDonald’s,” Dewald said. “There’s nothing wrong with McDonalds, but you can’t pay the babysitter with that.”