H.I.R.E. Network Study

About this grant

More than 650,000 people are released from state and federal prisons every year and hundreds of thousands more are released from local jails. Approximately two million people with criminal records are added to the labor market every year. With more than 71 million criminal records on file in the United States, there are a significant number of ex-offenders seeking to enter or re-enter the labor market.This grant will enable the Legal Action Center’s National Helping Individuals Re-enter Through Employment Network (H.I.R.E.) to conduct a study that will highlight effective practices and strategies for assisting job seekers with criminal records, and to disseminate the findings and recommendations to leaders of local and state workforce development systems.For more than 25 years, the center has worked to combat the prejudice that keeps individuals and their treatment providers out of the mainstream of society. It is the only nonprofit law firm and policy organization in the U.S. that fights to protect the legal rights of and improve public policies and services for people with histories of alcoholism or addiction, people with HIV and AIDS, and people with arrest or conviction records.