Giving Felons a Second Chance

Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis wrote an eloquent and thoughtful post yesterday about sitting in a courtroom while an employee was sentenced to four years in prison for computer security crimes committed when he was younger. Calacanis' colleagues hired John Schiefer without knowing he was accused of infecting 250,000 computers in his youth and may not have hired him if they had known. But now Calacanis says he's glad he gave Schiefer a chance, and that his experience with John "taught me a lot about society, computer crime and rehabilitation."

I consider myself a fairly decent judge of character, and after spending months with John, I’m convinced he was an angry stupid kid when he launched his botnet attack (which did .000000001% of the damage it could have). Now he’s an adult who just wants to make a decent living, spend time with his significant other and breathe the clean air off the Pacific Ocean by our offices in Santa Monica.

John’s going to have to spend a couple of years in jail for what he did. Certainly we have to punish those who’ve committed crimes. But watching this go down, I wish in my heart of hearts that judge had given John a sentence from home, where we could have supervised him.

Calacanis' eye-opening experience doesn't only apply to computer crime. People make mistakes and everyone deserves a second chance. If employers large and small begin to build second chances into their corporate social responsibility practices, we could be on our way to a shrinking prison population and healthier communities.

As you might expect, there are no major companies that publicly offer a second chance to people with felony convictions. Our society would simply rather hear that a company supports head-start education than prisoner reentry efforts. But both are important, especially when finding a job is even harder in this market.

We release 700,000 people from prison and jail every year. By excluding these people from our work force, we contribute to the cycle of recidivism - people without a job are more likely to become involved in drugs, prostitution and theft.

There are organizations out there, such as the H.I.R.E. network, that will help formerly incarcerated people find jobs. State agencies can be instrumental in helping people find jobs, too. But we need some leadership from corporations on this issue, too. Perhaps web companies like Mahalo can lead the way.