A few months after her release from federal prison in 2017, Charlotte Garnes finally found a job that renewed her sense of purpose and allowed her to rebuild her life. But when her employer found out about her conviction, she was fired immediately.
For 11 months, Garnes had been working with job centers that provide career training, support services, and resume workshops to formerly incarcerated people, connecting them with companies willing to hire workers with convictions on their record.
“I was told specifically by this employer that ‘we can’t have people like you coming in and [working here].’ But at the same time, this is exactly what [my work] was for, people like me,” Garnes said…