“COVID-19 Doesn’t Care What’s in Your Record. We Shouldn’t Either.”

Rebecca talks to Quintin Williams, a leading criminal justice reform organizer, about the need to move past the U.S.’s obsession with the “violent/nonviolent” dichotomy as we protect people behind bars from the spread of COVID-19 — plus the “second chances” response we need to ensure the 1 in 3 Americans with criminal records aren’t left behind. Subscribe to Off-Kilter on iTunes.

As the nation continues to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic, leaders in states and cities across the U.S. have increasingly been taking decarcerative steps to protect people behind bars in prisons and jails from the spread of the virus. And there’s a great deal more work there to do to prevent large-scale loss of life. Meanwhile, as we begin to think even slightly longer-term, it will be critical for lawmakers to take steps now to ensure that the tens of millions of justice-involved individuals and their families already facing significant economic vulnerability due to the stigma of a criminal record aren’t shut out from rebuilding their lives as the nation begins to recover.

To that end, as we continue Off-Kilter’s ongoing series on poverty & inequality in the age of coronavirus, Rebecca sits down with Quintin Williams, campaign manager at the Heartland Alliance and a leader in Illinois and nationally on criminal justice reform and reentry policies. He recently authored an op-ed for Spotlight on Poverty titled “COVID-19 Doesn’t Care What’s in Your Record. We Shouldn’t Either” with Marshan Allen.

This episode’s guest:

• Quintin Williams, campaign manager, Heartland Alliance (@QWillyLeads)

For more:

• Read Quintin’s op-ed for Spotlight on Poverty (w/Marshan Allen): “COVID-19 doesn’t care what’s in your record. We shouldn’t either.”
• Dig in to the violent/nonviolent dichotomy in this explainer from The Marshall Project — and in this new research from Sonja Starr and other researchers
• Follow Josh Hoe on twitter, who’s been tracking deaths behind bars in Michigan at #LetMIPeopleGo
• Read “The public health risks of jailing people for poverty” over at The Appeal

TRANSCRIPT:

REBECCA VALLAS (HOST): Welcome to Off-Kilter, the show about poverty, inequality, and everything they intersect with, powered by the Center for American Progress Action Fund. I’m Rebecca Vallas.

As the nation continues to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic leaders in states and cities across the U.S. have increasingly been taking decarcerative steps to protect people behind bars in prisons and jails from the spread of the virus. And there’s a great deal more work there to do to prevent large-scale loss of life. Meanwhile, as we begin to think even slightly longer-term, it will be critical for lawmakers to take steps now to ensure that the tens of millions of justice-involved individuals and their families already facing significant economic vulnerability because of the stigma of a criminal record aren’t shut out from rebuilding their lives as the nation begins to recover, whenever that is. To that end, as we continue Off-Kilter’s ongoing series on poverty and inequality in the age of COVID-19, I’m thrilled to welcome back my good friend Quintin Williams, campaign manager at the Heartland Alliance and a leader in Illinois and nationally on criminal justice reform and re-entry policies. He recently authored an op ed for Spotlight on Poverty titled COVID-19 Doesn’t Care What’s in Your Record. We Shouldn’t Either with Marshan Allen.

Quintin, thanks so much for taking the time to come back on the show.

QUINTIN WILLIAMS: Oh, man, it’s been way too long. Way too long.

VALLAS: It has been too long.

WILLIAMS: I welcome the opportunity to speak with you about these issues anytime.

VALLAS: And you and I were also part of a conversation last week that the Center for American Progress hosted on some of these issues. So, I know you’ve been thinking a lot about this stuff, and you recently wrote that piece that I mentioned for Spotlight on Poverty, another blog that Off-Kilter works a ton with and runs really great stuff on these issues. So, I’d love to have you really kind of kick off with a little bit of an update, an overview on where things stand with some of the efforts to get people who are behind bars in prisons and jails and very much at risk of what have become sort of petri dish-levels of spread of this virus, efforts to protect those folks by letting as many of them out as we can. Where do things stand with that? I know you’re based in Illinois, but you’ve been following on this issue in states across the country as well.

WILLIAMS: Yeah. You know, I have had a range of reactions and emotions to our efforts in response to COVID-19. Here in Illinois, I’ll start is that, there, at the beginning, was quite a bit of outcry from advocates saying, rightfully, that people that are inside of jails and prisons, we need to do everything we can to get them out of there. Because what we do know, those of us who’ve spent time behind bars, but even I believe the general public is somewhat aware that to social distance in prison, it’s impossible. The things that we’re able to do, Rebecca, on the outside are just not possible on the inside. Add to that you already have conditions that aren’t the most hygienic already. You already have institutions that are not transparent and kind of go by their own rules. So, you kind of add all of these things up, and then you have people who were incarcerated and not given death sentences — some people very close to release, others not, but still they weren’t sentenced to death — and now you have them in the situation where you have them in this petri dish, as you say, during a pandemic and under the very real threat of death.

Here in Illinois, we’ve had a few deaths because of COVID-19 of individuals under correctional control. Now, I just want to really emphasize this point. Because a lot of talk has been said about how COVID-19 has made it so that people die alone because we have to be apart from each other. But I want the listeners to really get a picture of that, but also get a picture of if you had to not only die alone, but die behind bars, under correctional control, in some of the most horrid conditions that you can even fathom or think about, that’s what the fight has been about. We want to get people out. Now, what has happened here in Illinois, thankfully, the governor has commuted some sentences, right? He’s let some people go for range of offenses. And to date, I believe the IDOC has released roughly about 1,000 folks as it relates to COVID-19. Quite frankly, 1,000 is great. However, we’d love to see more. And then as it relates on the county level, Cook County Jail, one of the largest county jails in the country, we know a lot less about their procedures by which they have let people out.

And I do want to say one more thing in terms of where we are. So, where we are is we’ve let some people out. I’ll just say it in plain language. We’ve let some people out. There’s a dire situation. We’ve let some people out. We know the numbers in IDOC more so than we know the numbers with the Cook County Sheriff’s Office. And here’s what we also know is that there’s been a ton of backlash, though, Rebecca. Tons. The governor, like I said, they commuted a few sentences of people. The Fraternal Order of Police and a couple of senators, I mean, a couple of state legislators on the right side of the aisle have released statements oftentimes outlining what the person was convicted of and really demonizing them before the public. And even one instance, it was said that they didn’t want this particular individual to be in the community. I talked to one of those guys on the phone who was released, Mr. Harrington, and he talked with me about his experience of feeling like people didn’t want him in the community. So, that’s what we’ve had to deal with and probably will continue to deal with in post-COVID time. So, while there has been some progress, we are still fighting on multiple fronts to decarcerate, not only the prisons, but then the prisons that people end up in when they get back to their community.

VALLAS: And I want to give a shout out to someone that I’ve worked a lot with that you’ve also worked with who has also been really tracking this issue and this incredibly important and high-stakes fight in Michigan. And that’s Josh Hoe, a policy analyst at Safe and Just Michigan, an organization based there. And the hashtag that he has been helping to raise attention around is #LetMIPeopleGo: let mi people go. So, just a shout out to Josh and the really important work he’s doing there. Lots of other folks in states across the country, too given that this is not just a problem in a handful of states or in cities.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

VALLAS: But, Quintin, part of what you have really been trying to ring the alarm bells about, and you’re not alone in this by any stretch, but you’ve really been a loud voice long before COVID-19, is the need to move past the violent/non-violent binary that defines, and has long defined, so much of criminal justice reform over the past many years. And you’ve been ringing that alarm bell in this moment. I want to bring back some words that you just mentioned and that also appear in your op ed for Spotlight on Poverty. You note, as we think about who’s actually getting let out in this moment, whose lives are being saved, in effect, in this moment as part of these decarcerative measures, these “people were not sentenced to death, but by ignoring their health needs, we are saying that they are deserving of death by COVID-19 because of their record.” Talk a little bit about that deserving/undeserving dichotomy that’s playing out in who’s being allowed to be released in the context of COVID.

WILLIAMS: Yeah. So, yeah, Rebecca, the impetus for even writing the piece with Marshan was because, you know, as the pandemic and information about the pandemic had been circulating and we were learning more about the severity of COVID-19, simultaneously, advocates were calling for the release of individuals, and also public officials, right? But one thing that I noticed — and I was OK with that — but one thing that I noticed and what became the impetus for the piece was that I saw that people were just so casually throwing out words like, “Yes, we want to let people out who aren’t a ‘threat’ to the community. We want to let out ‘low-risk’ individuals. We want to not,” or just giving people the disclaimer saying that, “Don’t worry. We’re not letting out any violent criminals.” And that didn’t sit well with me, because if I just go back a little bit in the movement for criminal justice reform, often in prison abolition movements, restorative justice, and now transformative justice, we have tried our best in this space to move beyond the language of violent/nonviolent. And there’s a number of reasons for this.

One reason is, is that the way states categorize things as violent or nonviolent are quite arbitrary. And a person may not have committed any violent act, but may get an offense that is deemed a violent act. And I can give some examples later. But that’s just one reason. The other reason is that there is a huge difference between an individual being accused of or even convicted of something that the state deems violent and actually being a violent person. When we talk about human beings as being something, being whatever label you want to add to it, being violent or being this or being that, you then cast upon them a master status, a master status that does not encompass the complexity of any one human being.

And it flies in the face of all the criminal justice reform talk that we talk about: second chances and second — And I don’t even like that language. I think we need second, third, fourth, fifth chances, right? Because there’s not a human being that hasn’t had to be given, on multiple occasions, to be brought back into community with their loved one. So, language is so important. Public officials just went on the news and just said it very casually. And then, even in advocate spaces, we were just not saying anything. We were letting people get away with saying this, talking about humans as if they were animals that we should be afraid of. That is what’s at stake here.

Lastly, I’ll say that even if someone, again, is accused and/or convicted of a crime that the state deems violent — and notice, I’m being very careful with my language — that the state deems violent, we create these categories. They do not. They are not inherent categories. We make them up. And if you study state by state, they’re very different categorizations.

But lastly, even if a person was convicted, even if they were sentenced to prison, if they were not given the death penalty, which just is a whole nother podcast, Rebecca, but they were not given the death penalty. When something like a crisis arises, I do not think that a person’s conviction or record or whatever should be taken into consideration on whether or not we should keep them safe or not. It’s just not right and it’s unjust and it’s terrible.

VALLAS: And I appreciate so much, Quintin, how you talk about this. Because, I mean, there were like a million kind of questions I had in my notes that I was going to throw at you: this straw man and that straw man, and what do you say to this person? And you took them all down, right, in you just really talk about it.

WILLIAMS: Yeah. Put them up, Rebecca. I’ll take them down. I’ll take them down.

VALLAS: Well, I think what I’m saying, I think you took a lot of them down as I was ticking them off, as you were talking. But the one that I want to throw out there that I think really does bear mentioning and really kind of destruction, which I will let you do, in this moment is particularly in light of the backlash that is so recent to New York State’s really important and historic bail reform law, there’s a lot of people out there who have been champions of criminal justice reform, maybe state lawmakers, policymakers at various levels of government, who were keeping an eye on that and who now are maybe getting squeamish and thinking to themselves, man. I don’t want to do anything that people are going to perceive as some kind of a public safety risk. How do you respond to those kinds of concerns or newfound reticence in the wake of that New York experience, given that it did get so much visibility?

WILLIAMS: Yeah. I really, really appreciate you for bringing that up, because that’s part of the challenge. And really, the backlash around bail reform has coalesced, quite interestingly, with the backlash against decarceration during COVID. Yes, you bring up New York, but recently here just in Chicago, The Chicago Tribune is one of the most prominent papers in the city, if not the most, released what we consider a hit piece on bail reform about releasing so-called violent — again, all of this is connected, right — releasing dangerous people into the community who then re-offend. So on and so forth, right? And I just want to give a shout out quickly to the Chicago Bond Fund and my good friend Sharlyn Grace, who’s been really just championing these issues here in Chicago. But what I would say to that individual, at the heart of bail reform is this. And the heart of bill reform is inequality, right? So, and just for the sake of ease of explanation, I’m just going to use an example.

So, my name is Quintin Williams. I grew up on the West side of Chicago. I don’t have a job because over 50 percent of young Black males in Chicago are not working and are not in school, not because they don’t want to; because the opportunities don’t exist. So, here I am. I am out. I don’t have that much money. I’m living in poverty. My community is policed every day. So on and so forth. And I end up in court, and the judge gives me a bond, right? Maybe, let’s say a $5,000 bond, and then you have to pay 10 percent of that bond, which would be $500 that I don’t have. So, I am going to sit in the Cook County Jail until I can produce this money. Now, I want people to realize that it’s not about my risk at this point. The bond is set by the judge. And he’s already, he or she, has already taken into consideration supposed risk and supposed risk to the community, and that’s when the bond is instituted, right? If a person is considered a true danger, then there won’t even be a bond given, OK? So, now risk is already considered. $500 bond. But then, hey, my name is Joe Schmo from one of the richest zip codes here. They caught me sniffing coke in the back of some lounge or something, whatever. And they send me to jail, right? And they book me, and my bond now is $5,000. And then I have to pay them $500 to be able to be released to freedom.

Now, both of these individuals were considered by way of an analysis by the judge that they are not risky or anything, which is why we’re going to grant bond at this particular dollar amount, OK? So then, if they post that, then they may go to their communities because the judge has not deemed them a risk in any way, shape, or form. Otherwise, the judge would have taken care of that on that end. The only difference between these two individuals is their ability to pay. And who cannot pay? People that are poor and in poverty, and most of the times, people of color. Therefore, every other racial group can do things somewhat with impunity because of their economic status. In the justice system, this is not supposed to be about economics and who has the most. It’s supposed to be about fairness and justice. Please explain to me, person who is having Rebecca give me this straw question, please tell me how it is just because a person doesn’t have money that they cannot be released and have to stay in confinement. Whereas a person who could’ve been just as guilty gets to go home free just because they have more money? How fair is that?

VALLAS: So, Quintin, I’m going to set the straw man aside because he is so battered and bruised at this point that I can’t actually keep him hanging.

WILLIAMS: [laughs]

VALLAS: No, but, in all seriousness, though, it’s such an important, I think, thing to unpack in those kind of concrete terms and also kind of lifting up the real types of fact patterns and the real stories of people who themselves are in these situations to really kind of humanize what otherwise gets so grossly mischaracterized by news outlets that deserve being called out like The New York Post and others.

You mentioned before, and I want to get to the artist formerly known as second chances in just a moment.

WILLIAMS: [chuckles]

VALLAS: But you mentioned before that you thought it could be valuable, and I always find it to be really valuable, to actually name some examples of the types of offenses that end up getting arbitrarily categorized as violent or nonviolent. And so, before we move on to kind of what happens once you have a record side of this — as opposed to just the starting with who’s behind bars and who really has no business being behind bars in the first place outside of a pandemic, but especially in a pandemic who has no business being behind bars — talk a little bit about the arbitrariness, and offers some examples of the types of records that might be categorized as violent or nonviolent.

WILLIAMS: Great, great question. I’ll give you perhaps the most egregious example here in Illinois. Because when we talk about violence, right, when we talk about violence, first of all, when we just say the word “violence,” we talk about violence, we don’t consider the nuance of what’s considered violent, right? And I’d be remiss to say, before I just get into it, Rebecca, is that we often consider interpersonal things violent. But for some reason, we don’t consider institutions as violent when they commit acts against whole groups of people that then cause harm. For some reason, that’s not considered violent, but things that are interpersonal between individuals are considered violent. So, one of the most egregious examples is that we have something in Illinois called a felony murder. Now, I’ll give a shout-out to my coauthor on the Spotlight piece, Marshan Allen and the Restore Justice folks. They have been at the forefront of these issues about that false violent/nonviolent dichotomy and also have been at the forefront of just crazy rules like felony murder.

So, in felony murder cases in Illinois, there was one right before the pandemic in a suburb, I believe called Waukegan, where there were three young men, and they attempted to commit a robbery against someone. The homeowner then shot and killed one of the young men. So, you know, he must’ve had a license or something for his gun or whatever. But here’s the kick. Although the two remaining friends never touched a gun or never killed anyone, they are, in fact, being charged with murder. Murder. They’re being charged with murder. Now, unless you know what felony murder is and what the rules are behind that, then if you see this person’s background, you will assume that they were some heinous person that took a gun or a knife or some type of object and killed someone. Well, in this case, it wasn’t. That didn’t happen. Like literally didn’t happen. There was literally no act of violence from the young men towards the individual who is now deceased. In fact, that was their friend. So, imagine being accused of the murder of your friend.

Now, the robbery piece. People will say, well, they shouldn’t have did that. Well. OK, maybe so. I don’t like to get my things stolen either. But felony murder is something different. They can charge them with robberies, so on and so forth, whatever. But it’s not murder, right? That is the most egregious example, Rebecca. And somebody made that up. Humans make that up. Somebody said this will be a great law, right? But that’s also the good news, is that anything that humans create, we can recreate.

VALLAS: Yeah. And it is by far the most egregious example. I mean, I’m hearing you talk. It’s reminding me, it’s bringing me back to my days of criminal law, right, in law school learning those kinds of doctrines. And thinking, at the time, how incredibly unjust that seemed because of how incredibly overbroad the reach ends up being then of these incredibly significant punishments that are maybe proportionate to the underlying crime itself, but not to sort of the tentacles that end up getting extended to bring in other people as well, just because of their being part of a larger act.

But there’s also all kinds of — and way more than we’ve got time for right now, because I definitely want to get to the reentry piece of this, too — but there are way, you know, tons of examples out there across the criminal code and in states across the country that end up ensnaring people who have nothing to do with an act that most people, if polled, would say is violent.

WILLIAMS: Yeah.

VALLAS: They still end up with records that tag them with that sort of scarlet letter V. And maybe offer an example or two of those to give maybe the less egregious examples too. And then I want to take you to criminal records, too.

WILLIAMS: Well, for example, in Illinois, the way we categorize crime, so we have Class 1, 2, 3, 4, X. And I think it’s one more. I cannot think of it at the moment, but let’s just take Class X felonies, right? Class X felonies. There are a range. So, I think people, a lot of things under the Class X. So, there are things like, let’s say, carjacking under the Class X felony categorization, right? Things like, and even carjacking, I mean, you can argue whether or not that’s violent. But anyway, there are also a range of drug offenses, right, that can be considered Class Xes or that charges can get aggravated add to it, right? You can just have a weapon in your hand, right? Not use it. But then it’s aggravated with a record. I mean, with a weapon, you can just have it. You don’t have to use it. You just need to have it. Or it can be gang intimidation. That’s another one, right? Like, how are they categorizing “gang,” and how are they categorizing that as violent, even if there is no sort of act of violence, per se, against a person’s body that happen? Just being a part of a gang, I think you already, already get cast as someone who is violent.

VALLAS: And as you said, just incredibly arbitrary and just a lot of kind of subjectivity baked into this along the way as criminal codes were established. And what’s true in one state might not be true in another state. And so, these are just a few examples. But I really find it worth going down some of these rabbit holes so that people who are not as expert on this as you are maybe get a little bit more visibility into the injustice that underlies the calls from you and others for these kinds of reforms.

So, Quintin, in the last kind of few minutes that I have with you — and I guess I get to decide how many minutes that is. So, let’s make it a few more than it might’ve been, because this is really another important piece of it too — you, I mentioned, were part of a panel discussion that we hosted last week at the Center for American Progress online, of course, about how people with criminal records are one of the groups that is perhaps most likely to be hardest hit by the impact of COVID-19. Not so much the health side, although there is a health side of this, too. But I’m really talking here about the economic side. And one of the things that, if people are not familiar with kind of the issue of the stigma of a criminal record, the statistic to me that really sums it all up is that pre-COVID, when we had Donald Trump claiming the quote-unquote “best economy ever,” and we had unemployment at just around 4 percent or a little under 4 percent overall, one of the headline statistics that he was loving to point to, to underscore what the economy and the labor market were looking like, pre-coronavirus, at that time with 4 percent overall unemployment, people who had been behind bars, formerly incarcerated people, were facing an unemployment rate of wait for it: 27 percent.

WILLIAMS: Mm.

VALLAS: A rate that we have never seen in the United States as an overall unemployment rate, even during the Great Depression. So, this incredibly harsh permanent recession already underway long before the pandemic for people facing the stigma of a criminal record. And this is something you have worked on for years in Illinois and nationally, and now it’s something that you have really started to trumpet in this moment. I want to be very clear that priority number one has to be policymakers doing everything they can to let people out in states and cities, in prisons and in jails, to protect them from the spread of this virus. But on a parallel track, and hopefully our policymakers are figuring out how to chew gum and walk at the same time right now, in a moment where everything seems to be on fire, there is this second part of the puzzle that’s about making sure that people with records don’t end up totally getting left behind in whatever recovery ends up happening. So, Quintin, talk a little bit about what it is that people with records are already facing and how you see COVID-19 entering that picture.

WILLIAMS: Yeah, I mean, you really said it well. I think the unemployment rate at 27 percent pre-pandemic, pre-recession, pre-anything speaks volumes. Individuals with records are faced with what most folks know as collateral consequences when they leave prison. I don’t like to call them collateral consequences. I like to call them permanent punishment. In fact, that’s what we at our campaign are doing, calling them permanent punishment because language matters. We just got through talking about this. These permanent punishments are essentially legal barriers across a range of social institutions that are designed for humans to be able to tap into, that would contribute to their flourishing and their families. By way of having a criminal record, many things are off-limits: certain licenses, certain jobs, certain housing situations. You can’t be a notary, which is one of the obscure things here in Illinois. But essentially, there are an estimated 48,000 of those types of barriers in the country. And here in Illinois, we are little over 1,100 of these barriers.

So, that is what folks were facing, are facing, were facing before COVID-19. Now, when you have something like a pandemic happen, now everybody — or I wouldn’t even say everybody — more people are feeling what individuals with records have been feeling already. And when that happens, that creates a perception of scarcity. And then whenever there’s a perception of scarcity, the question of deservingness creeps back in to human beings. And then the people who are deserving are often those who are at the top of the social hierarchy, and those that are undeserving are at the bottom of the social hierarchy. And people with records find themselves at the bottom of that hierarchy for reasons that we’ve already talked about, which is the lack of economic opportunity. Because even if — there are studies out there that show that — even when folks with records grab hold to a job or grab hold to some stable employment, quite often, it is not employment that is paying a living wage. Quite often, it is employment that is not providing benefits to that individual.

So, I would also say to the listener, we should be careful about celebrating just because somebody has a job. Of course, we want people to have economic opportunity. We want people to make money to be able to feed themselves and the people that they care about. But oftentimes, we stop right there when we shouldn’t stop right there. We should not only want people with records to have jobs, but have jobs that pay a living wage and jobs that offer benefits and things like that. For example, in this pandemic, right, there’s been on the news and in different reports that there’s a shortage of healthcare workers, right? Well, maybe there wouldn’t be a shortage of healthcare workers if folks with records would be able to acquire healthcare licenses, like, for example, respiratory therapist or something like that. If they were able to do that after their record or after incarceration, perhaps we wouldn’t have a shortage. But we have a shortage because of all of these laws and barriers that are in place.

So, I am hoping, Rebecca, that after COVID is — I don’t want to say over; I don’t know if it’ll ever be over — but once the recovery phase, as you put it, I am hoping that this rings the alarm and wakes people up to provide the resources and our lawmakers to have the courage to create laws that would relinquish or get rid of a lot of these barriers and create pathways for people with records. If we don’t, I’m telling you, it’s going to only get worse.

And last thing I’ll say is, as it relates to public safety. If people want to keep the public safe, it’s in their best interest to provide these resources to people with records. Because it feeds recidivism, and it feeds into crime and so-called violence.

VALLAS: And I’m really struck listening to you speak just now that we’re talking about employment. It’s so important to also talk about housing. And you’re one of the people who I feel like speaks best about this. As we talk about employment as well, given that huge labor market discrimination for folks facing the stigma of a criminal record — and just want to be clear. We’re not just talking to people felonies, right? We’re talking people with any kind of record can end up facing these long-term barriers — 70 million to 100 million people with records, huge, huge scale of this problem and a huge share of the labor market that’s going to be impacted. So, the employment side is critical. It is really, really high on the list. Needs to be high on the list as policymakers think about what that COVID package looks like that they’re considering, whether in state legislatures or at the federal level, if that ever resumes, that we start to see them think about workers at the federal level as well. But housing, hugely important, too, given that it’s not just about 90 percent of employers who are using background checks in hiring, but four in five landlords are using background checks in housing contexts as well. And Quintin, I keep thinking about this every time people talk about the evictions that are happening and that are going to continue to happen when people can’t afford rent, is all the people who manage to get their lives back on track and find a job and maybe some housing. And boom, they’re going to be right back where they started or are at risk of being right back where they started, having not just their job application, but their application for rent thrown in the trash on the other side of this.

WILLIAMS: Yeah, I mean, I think housing, for me, has become the foremost issue that I think people with records are facing. Because as I stated, many of my remarks were regarding employment. And let me be clear: I still feel the same way about the need for employment, and not only employment, quality employment. But over the last few years, it has become very, very clear to me and the coalitions that we work in at Heartland Alliance — shout-out to them: the Restoring Rights and Opportunities Coalition of Illinois, Cabrini Green Legal Aid, Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, and Community Renewal Society — we have been working on employment barriers for a long time. But then, over the last several years, we were getting people from the community and directly impacted people tell us how difficult it was to find safe and affordable housing. The same issues that persist when it comes to the labor market are there in the housing market.

On the private side, you have the same thing and the same arguments with private employers. They are going off of stereotypes of people with records. They run background checks and automatically disqualify individuals. And let me just, I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring up the Wild Wild West that is background checks that are governed by the Fair Credit Reporting Act. So, we have little that we can do in states, and particularly in Illinois, about that because it lets background check companies do whatever they want. They can get outdated information from courts. They often can sell their services to employers and landlords alike with misinformation, outdated information. And we don’t have any clear standards for those individuals. But again, that’s another podcast, Rebecca.

But more so, so then, even in public. So, that’s the private. So, in the public housing, HUD recognizes this. This is what I’m saying. COVID, one good thing about COVID, it has us doing things that we could’ve done long ago! But now, all of a sudden, we can do it. But now, all of a sudden, it’s the political will. HUD relaxed some of its restrictions as it relates to people with records. And also, there is a provision that does not allow family members to take people in, into public housing who have records, and they have relaxed that for a period of time right now. Because in public housing, there are only two permanent restrictions that HUD dictates, which is production of amphetamines and several sex offenses. Beyond that, it is the discretion of public housing authorities and states. And here in Illinois, they vary widely, which is why we have a bill right now, House Bill 206, that’s up for consideration that will put limits or some coherency to the criteria by which public housing authorities allow people in. But the short of it, Rebecca, is that in both public and private housing markets, it is a mess! And people with records are the most, one of the most unstably housed groups of people in this country, and there has not been enough attention paid to it.

VALLAS: Yep. And one more statistic that always, to me, bears repeating, formerly incarcerated people are more than 10 times as likely as the general population to face homelessness, right? So, all the things you’re talking about. That was before the pandemic. And now here we are in this moment, watching those kinds of numbers just turn into, in some ways, a rosy memory, horrible though they were.

WILLIAMS: Can I say something really quick?

VALLAS: Please, please.

WILLIAMS: Yeah. I want to say one thing. So, one way that — and this is a shameless plug, but I’m going to do it — I am currently writing my dissertation on the effects of housing, disability, and reentry. So, here’s the thing. What you just said is that people who were incarcerated are a lot more likely to be homeless or unstably housed. So, what that does is that that — which is true, right? — but what I want to look at is the other way, right? Which is in the other direction, right? How does housing stability even contribute in the first place to getting people inside of prisons in the first place, right? We know that prison destabilizes people, but people are destabilized before they even make it to prison, right? They are destabilized before they even make it to prison. We’ve spent a great deal, spilled a great deal of ink on the role of employment and recidivism. I think it’s time for us to start considering housing instability and recidivism as well.

VALLAS: Amen, Amen, Amen. And I hope I’m first to get a copy of your dissertation when it’s available for that sneak peek. But we can talk about that off the air.

WILLIAMS: [laughs]

VALLAS: So, there’s a lot more to be said about all of this. But I want to actually refer our listeners to a bonus podcast that we’re releasing in conjunction with this conversation with you, which is actually the audio of that panel discussion I mentioned from the Center for American Progress Online last week. It features you. It features Daryl Atkinson of Forward Justice and the Formerly Incarcerated Convicted Peoples and Families Movement. Sharon Dietrich of Community Legal Services and my former boss and one of my partners in the clean slate work in Pennsylvania. We also include Arthur Rizer from the R Street Institute. And then there’s a conversation as well with Jordan Harris, who is the Minority Whip of the Pennsylvania Assembly and one of the lead sponsors of the Clean Slate Act that became law in Pennsylvania back in 2019. So, a conversation that includes a lot more detail on all of this, but also a lot of discussion about the policies that could prevent people with records and their families from being left behind in the COVID-19 response policies like criminal record clearing, expungement and sealing, and using automation to do that at scale, policies like subsidized jobs to help people with records get back into the labor market when the private market fails to be equitable and inclusive. And policies like occupational licensing reform, which you were talking about just a few minutes ago, Quintin. And a lot more where that came from, too. So, we’re going to make that available as a bonus episode of Off-Kilter, so you can take in lots more on the second chances response in the era of COVID-19.

Quintin, I’m going to tell everybody to follow you on Twitter. You are @QWillyLeads. That’s Q W I L L Y L E A D S. And you are definitely worth the follow because of your ongoing commentary on all of these issues and so much more, and especially about the importance of language, which is a whole other podcast itself and one that we’re going to need to do at some point.

Quintin Williams is campaign manager at the Heartland Alliance. A lot of his work there is around removing barriers to employment and housing and other basic building blocks for people with criminal records, as well as larger efforts at criminal justice reform in Illinois and elsewhere. And he is the coauthor of a recent op ed for Spotlight on Poverty titled COVID-19 Doesn’t Care What’s in Your Record. We Shouldn’t Either. His coauthor is Marshan Allen. Quintin, thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the show and for all of your incredible work on these issues. And I’m looking forward to having you back soon. Take care and be well in this moment.

WILLIAMS: Yes. Thank you so much for having me, and I look forward to coming on here and talking again. [chuckles]

VALLAS: And that does it for this episode of Off-Kilter, the show about poverty, inequality, and everything they intersect with, powered by the Center for American Progress Action Fund. I’m Rebecca Vallas. The show is produced by Will Urquhart. Transcripts are courtesy of Cheryl Green. Find us on the airwaves on the We Act Radio Network and the Progressive Voices Network, and say hi and send us your show pitches on Twitter @OffKilterShow. And of course, find us anytime on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. See you next time.