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| Your Call Will the ex-con ever go away? |
| By Nina Boyden |
| Published: 03/26/2007 |
Editor's Note: The quarterly Your Call section is all about you, our readers. If it wasn't for your ideas, commentary, opinion and suggestions, Corrections.com couldn't be the news and information source it strives to be. Many readers are sending thoughtful commentary and are becoming more and more vocal about where they work, what they do and how things can be improved.This quarter's Your Call doesn't necessarily address one article in particular, but it does communicate some of the hardships another group of readers, represented by the families who have an imprisoned loved one, or by the inmates and ex-offenders themselves. This reader did responded shortly after our piece on the way the Canadian government expunges certain criminal records to help those who have done their time obtain a legitimate chance at employment and starting life anew. (See A fresh start, 3/19/07). My name is Nina Boyden, and I have a question that hopefully someone can help me with. I am ashamed to say that I was in prison from October, 2000 to June, 2002. Before that I was a respiratory therapist. I went to school at Rolla Voc. Tech School, in Rolla, Missouri. I had also been previously incarcerated from August, 1989 to April 1991. I was in prison for bad checks, forgery, and for obtaining a controlled substance by fraud. When I got out of prison the first time, I knew I had to make changes in my life, so to school I went. I also got into AA after I got out the first time, and met a man who was a councilor in a treatment center, and after I graduated from RT school, we got married. After I completed school, I graduated in Aug.1992, I got a fantastic job at the University Medical Center in Columbia, Missouri. At that time there were no background checks, and I kept it a secret that I had been in prison. I later went to work at Ozark Medical Center, West Plains Missouri. I took my boards to become a Certified Respatory Therapist Technician, and I made the highest score on the boards than anyone in the history of the program. At Ozark Med. Center, I started a program which included helping the hospital sign contracts with the local skilled nursing facilities. I wrote out the protocol and the whole program. It was a very successful program. Well, they started doing background checks, and up to that time I felt I could write my own ticket to move ahead in my field. I know lying about whether or not I had a felony conviction was wrong. However, I had told employers before only to not get hired. I had to leave my job, and now I am a caregiver for my 92-year-old dad. I can't even get a job at a restaurant as a dish washer in this small town. So, what is someone like me suppose to do? It's like a vicious circle. I don't blame people for wanting to do background checks, but when they look at my history on a piece of paper, it looks bad, and it's misleading as to the person that I really am. A lot of people are faced with this problem. When starting their life over, they want to do good, but when you keep getting turned down, and you lose your profession because of mistakes like the one I had made, it starts to feel hopeless. Prison does not do anything for inmates to better themselves and that needs to change. When an ex-felon continues to get turned down for jobs, it destroys their self esteem. Not to mention that if there are little or no chances to make money, they might be tempted to start stealing or writing bad checks and go into a survival attitude where they will do anything to get by. I have talked to a vocational rehabilitation group, but taking care of my family has prevented me from being fully committed to school. I have decided the only way I will get a good job, is if I am my own boss. Therefore, I am looking at going to school for web design and computer graphics. I have accepted that I will never work in a hospital again. And it hurts. But I have to look at myself and hold myself accountable too, and not just the people who do the hiring or in my case “don't do the hiring.” Since getting out of prison in 2002, I have tried to be an asset to society, and to give back to the world that I took so much from. I've held gift drives for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and committed to taking care of my dad. So, I am trying. But, I just want a job so I can feel proud about being what I've become. For now, though, I am left with a nagging question that never seems to have an answer - Will the ex-con, ever go away when people look at me? Nina Calvin Boyden |
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