Can AI can help job-seekers facing one of the hardest obstacles?
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
It's Consider This, where every day we go deep on one big news story. Today, we look at one way AI is changing the job market, and it may not be in the way that you're thinking. Looking for work is always tough, but having a criminal record, well, that makes looking for work even tougher. Noella Sudbury saw it firsthand while she was working for Salt Lake County in Utah to help people get jobs at places that needed workers.
And sometimes we could even get people jobs. But then as soon as that background check is run, someone says sorry. We've got to let you go because of your background.
Now, some of those criminal records can be sealed or expunged under most state laws, including for drug charges and retail theft. But that does not mean the system makes it easy. And Sudbury says the people she talks to have paid the price for their crimes and just want their lives to get back on track.
They tell her things like, I want the right to work. I want to be able to earn a wage that can support my family.
How is AI being used to help job-seekers with criminal records?
I want to coach Little League. I want to be like the classroom mom.
Helping people clear their records used to be a painstakingly slow and expensive process. But consider this. AI is changing that process. Could it help more people with criminal histories find work? From NPR, I'm Elsa Chang.
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Why do criminal records create long-term barriers to employment?
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It's Consider This from NPR. While it is true that AI is taking some jobs away, it is also providing a new path to employment. NPR's Andrea Hsu reports.
Tens of millions of adults in the U.S. have some kind of criminal record. These are felonies, misdemeanors, and in some cases, arrests without a conviction. The kind of histories that scare employers away. Virginia Mireles knew she looked terrible on paper.
Five, felony records, all due to my drug addiction.
Mireles grew up in poverty, started using heroin at 14. For two decades, she cycled in and out of the Arizona prison system. She says while you're behind bars, you think a lot about how you're going to change. But then you get out.
And you can't rent a house under your own name. You can't find a job that's going to help you support your family. So now you just feel terrible about yourself because, you know, your family's looking at you like, I thought you were going to be different.
It's a problem that Noella Sudbury is obsessed with solving.
How do you help someone with a criminal record get a job? It's really hard.
Years ago, as a public defender in Utah, Sudbury saw a justice system unresponsive to the root causes of people's problems.
Mental health, substance use, trauma, poverty.
Over and over, she saw people who had served their time struggle to find their way. Later, she took a job with Salt Lake County to try to bring change. Employers needed workers. The county wanted to help people get jobs, but their records stood in the way, most commonly drug charges and retail theft.
It could be shoplifting. It could be stealing a cup of coffee.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–1:06
2
How is AI being used to help job-seekers with criminal records?
1:06–2:18
3
Why do criminal records create long-term barriers to employment?
2:18–6:20
4
What challenges did Noella Sudbury see while working on reentry and hiring?
6:20–9:21
Speakers
9 identifiedMore from Consider This from NPR
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