MARTEN BJORK | UNSPLASH

Recently incarcerated people often face societal and legal barriers to re-enter society, especially when it comes to employment. One potential vehicle to ease the transition is petitioning for expungement, which requires navigating a maze of official red tape between law enforcement and courts. North Carolina law limits felons – even those convicted of non-violent crimes –  access to expunction.

Michael Watkins has the education and training for a career in health care, but North Carolina law won’t allow it.

The state prohibits people with a felony record to be employed in the field. Watkins’ crime? Breaking and entering and larceny, which resulted in a three-year sentence. He served six months, and the damage to his future employability was total.

“Honestly, it was largely because of a felony I committed in 1989 that the state of North Carolina says cannot be expunged,” said Watkins, who lives in Raleigh. “I didn’t realize that until a couple years ago when I tried to go to Legal Aid of North Carolina to see if I could have my record expunged so I could gain sustainable employment.”

Watkins sought help at the Campbell Law Clinic at Campbell University in Buies Creek, N.C. State law disqualifies anyone convicted of a Class H felony – although violence wasn’t involved – from expunction.

“The way they treated me, you’d think I’d done something far worse,” he said. “But they labeled it as a violent crime and there was nothing violent in it.”

The inability to find work at a living wage is a major impediment for the formerly incarcerated. The social stigma that follows conviction often filters to potential employers who are hesitant to hire people with a record beyond low-level misdemeanors. As a result, people who can’t find work are more at risk to return to crime, and by extension, incarceration. It’s a cycle that can be hard to break.

“I was never able to get any jobs unless it was restaurant-type work, which paid minimum wage or calls center work, which still didn’t pay enough for me to afford to be able to get an apartment,” said Watkins, who earlier this year went to work for a nonprofit in Portland, Oregon, earlier this year. “So, I was extremely limited in the types of jobs I was ever offered.

“I did well. I always do well in interviews, and employers are always impressed by me in interviews. However, when they find out that I have a criminal record, it normally kills the interview process right there.”

That’s where the public perception of incarceration and real-world needs of re-entering people diverge. Society, UNC Charlotte social work professor Dante Bryant PhD insists, punishes the formerly incarcerated long after release.

“A crook is always a crook, which undermines the very idea that our criminal justice system is supposed to help reform people so they can be productive members of society,” he said. “I don’t believe the average person believes that, based on how they treat formerly incarcerated people. You can’t convince me that the average person really believes in reforming a criminal through our criminal justice system.”

Expungement can clear the way for a complete return to society, but it’s a daunting and time-consuming task in North Carolina because of multiple levels of process involving the courts, law enforcement and the State Bureau of Investigation. Petitioners must file a form in the county where the arrest occurred by contacting the clerk of court or a private attorney to navigate the paperwork required. Any error is cause for automatic rejection.

Mecklenburg County District Attorney Spencer Merriweather, who as a prosecutor for the state isn’t allowed to offer advice on expunction, still supports helping people access resources for it.

“Our office does not have programming for re-entry,” he said. “I have tried to be very vocal and very helpful with regard to expunction practices, cleaning up people’s records who made mistakes and have a criminal record in trying to make sure people find legal relief because I know what the weight of a criminal record can be for people in getting jobs, securing housing, or even pursuing education.”

Bryant contends race, gender and class also have bearing on how quickly an ex-convict can integrate into society. White-collar felons, he maintains, are more likely to have access to resources that can give them an advantage while the poor struggle, especially people of color.

“We don’t, as a society, really perceive people who commit white collar crimes as criminals,” he said. Right. “I think that’s part of class, that’s also part of race, because if you look at who’s committing white collar crimes. It’s class, race and gender, because largely white men are convicted of white-collar crimes, and usually wealthier white men who are convicted of white-collar crimes.

“As a society, we don’t automatically assume that particular population at baseline is a criminal the same way that we do with poor people regardless of race, or people who are Black are racialized. So, you get the benefit of the doubt as a white male and then you’re committing a crime that’s considered to be a nonviolent crime.”

There has been movement to give the formerly incarcerated a better shot at work. Several North Carolina municipalities, including Charlotte, Durham and Cumberland County, prohibit asking job applicants if they’ve been convicted of a crime. They conduct background checks as part of the employment process.

Raise the Age legislation, which allows 16- and 17-year-olds to be charged as juveniles, not only reduces the number of children incarcerated with adults, it also provides an avenue to intervention and rehabilitation.

“It’s important for us, and quite frankly, it’s important for me as an official within this justice system to say that people make mistakes, but we need to get people a way out and a way up,” Merriweather said.

Watkins, who in the last four years earned degrees in medical office administration and healthcare management, would like to put his education to work. Barring a change in North Carolina law, he won’t be able to do it here.

“I’m currently in graduate school at Walden University pursuing a master’s degree in healthcare administration,” Watkins said. “Although I’ve earned these degrees and still earning degrees, basically North Carolina will still not hire me, hospitals will not hire me because all my degrees are in health care. Hospitals seem to think I’m a threat because of my felony. They will not touch me. The medical profession, the healthcare profession will not touch me.”

He hasn’t given up, though. Watkins has reached out to Gov. Roy Cooper, who as a former attorney general was the state’s top law enforcement official, to change the felony schedule so non-violent convicts can have a chance at reclaiming their lives.

“I have sent emails out to Gov. Roy Cooper,” Watkins said. “I sent messages out to some of his staff on LinkedIn to speak with him to hear my concerns and know what I’m going through because I’m sure I’m not the only person that’s going through the same ordeal.

“I want him to meet me as a person and see who I am, because you can’t know me based on who I was 30 years ago. I’m not the same person that was then.”

No one has responded.

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