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| Ex-Inmate Denied Chair (and Clippers) |
| By New York Times |
| Published: 03/18/2003 |
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Thank goodness Joseph Heller wrote 'Catch-22.' Otherwise, we would have had to scare up another phrase to describe Marc La Cloche's situation, and undoubtedly it wouldn't have been half as good. Mr. La Cloche is, not to put too fine a point on it, an ex-convict. He went to prison a dozen years ago, having been convicted of first-degree robbery. But as he bounced from one cell to another in the New York State correctional system, he chose to turn his life around. He earned a high-school equivalency diploma. And he learned a trade, barbering. He really worked at it, putting in hundreds of hours to, no pun intended, sharpen his skills. 'I love cutting hair,' said Mr. La Cloche, who is 37, two years out of prison and living in the Crotona Park East neighborhood in the Bronx. 'I'm real creative. It's artwork.' Rewind for a moment to August 2000. Mr. La Cloche was at the Clinton Correctional Facility, near the Canadian border, where he began planning for the parole that he expected in a matter of months. He wrote to the licensing authorities in Albany, who are part of the Department of State, and asked them for certification as a barber's apprentice. That is the first step toward a full barber's license. Albany's reply came a few weeks later: not a chance. 'Applicant's criminal history,' it said, 'indicates lack of good moral character and trustworthiness required for licensure.' To put this in plain language, it means that the same state that taught Mr. La Cloche a skill while he was in prison is saying that he may not use that skill because of the very fact that he was in prison. You have to wonder if Joseph Heller, who died in 1999, is smiling somewhere right now. If the logic eludes you, don't feel bad. It rang no bells, either, with a State Supreme Court justice in Manhattan, Herman Cahn. The case landed in his lap after a series of contradictory rulings within the Department of State. After the initial rejection, Mr. La Cloche got his apprentice certificate, then lost it, the decision being that, with his criminal record, he had not proven himself morally fit to cut hair. So Mr. La Cloche turned to the courts, and in a decision made public last Thursday, Justice Cahn agreed that the state's reasoning fell flat. Without question, he said, the authorities have a right to expect would-be barbers to prove their 'good moral character.' But Mr. La Cloche did not get that chance. He was never asked to submit any evidence. He was rejected for one reason only. He had been in prison. For Justice Cahn, that flipped the concept of rehabilitation on its head. 'To refuse to certify an applicant as a barber apprentice solely because of a previous criminal conviction,' he wrote, 'would be to deny the applicant the opportunity to practice a trade which the state itself taught him/her.' Now Mr. La Cloche is expected to be called next month before a licensing hearing to show his moral worth. 'I'm sure I'll be able to do that,' he said. What he really wants, though, is to change procedures that he deems unfair. He is not alone in challenging how felons are treated once they have paid their debt to society, to lean on that cliché. Increasingly, to show toughness on crime, 'we make them pay and pay and pay,' long after they are out of prison, said Jennifer Wynn, an official with the Correctional Association of New York, a group that monitors state prison policies. Federal law, for example, bars former inmates from public housing. In at least eight states, a felony conviction leads to a lifetime ban on voting. Many states, including New York, have restrictions that make it hard, sometimes impossible, for ex-convicts to become plumbers, teachers, health care attendants or security officers. Or barbers. Granted, 'you don't want a child molester driving a school bus,' said JoAnne Page, executive director of the Fortune Society, a New York organization that provides services to former inmates. But it is a big leap from that, Ms. Page said, to deciding that a convicted thief somehow lacks the moral fiber to cut hair. 'We're not talking here about targeted prohibitions,' she said. 'We're talking about blanket prohibitions.' Referring to Mr. La Cloche, she added, 'This is someone who was trusted with cutting implements in a maximum-security prison. So they must think he's safe. No barber on the planet has been scrutinized as heavily as this fellow.' If you don't count Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, she may be right. |
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