About a month after Michael Stites was released from prison, he was dressing up for work as a salesman. He had a company cell phone, even business cards. Today he wears a uniform and works at Jiffy Lube.

“I was top in sales,” Stites said. “Then about three months into it, they hired a new manager. Her first day was my day off, and when I came back in, she said that my services were no longer needed.”

Stites had joined Carrier Access Inc. as it was expanding from its landline phone business into the cellular phone market. Nowhere on the job application was Stites asked if he had a criminal record, he said, and he never mentioned in either of two interviews his misdemeanor convictions for third-degree theft, attempted burglary and possession of burglary tools. With a background in cell phone sales, he was hired along with several others to help start the cell phone division.

Three months later, someone conducted interviews with all Carrier Access employees as part of an assessment of the company and advised the company to start doing background checks, said Stites, and because of his past, he was let go.

“I was really mad,” he said. “My mom works three blocks down the road, so I drove there and said, ‘I don’t understand. I gave it my all. They got to see me for who I am and what I want to be and all that didn’t mean anything compared to something this big.’” He held up a piece of paper.

Although Brendan Phelps, president of Carrier Access, said he could not comment on a former employee’s situation, he did say the company has no policy on hiring ex-offenders at this time and is currently considering a candidate with a criminal record.

“We’re just a small company that has grown,” said Phelps, “and we’ve been implementing more policies as we’ve grown.”

Stites is one of many former inmates who quickly discover the struggle of beginning a career and moving up the corporate ladder when they are released from prison. Getting – and keeping – a job is essential for ex-offenders to fully reintegrate into society, but for many, getting a job is the hardest obstacle they face.

“If you put yes [that you have been convicted of a felony on an application], whether they discriminate or not, they don’t call you back for an interview,” said Eric Randall, who was released from prison for third-degree burglary in March. “It doesn’t matter how many qualifications you have on there.”

Not being able to find a job poses problems not just for the ex-offenders but also communities. At least 95 percent of all state prisoners will be released from prison, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, which means that the majority of the 36,200 adults under correctional supervision (prison, jail, probation and parole) in Iowa will be looking for work in the future. Without a job, they may soon become discouraged and tempted to revert to crime.

“The reality is – except for capital murder – whoever we send away will get out of prison someday,” said Carol Egly, a district associate judge in the 5th Judicial District of Iowa, which includes Polk County. “If they get out and are unable to be contributing members of society, we’re probably going to see them again.”

“The transition and all the other things involved happen at a greater rate and a lot more success with a job,” said Jerald Brantley, executive director of Spectrum Resources, a program designed to support ex-offenders in all aspects of their lives, especially in securing employment. “They feel more like being a citizen by being productive than being a drain. For a person to earn his way is a must.”

That’s why the Directors Council, a coalition of non-profit agencies serving Greater Des Moines, is trying to develop a support system to help former inmates become employed, stable citizens. Through its program, the Council provides a variety of services, including mediation between employer and employee, temporary housing, substance abuse support, faith-based mentoring and education.

This year, the council will receive a Prisoner Re-Entry Initiative grant through the U.S. Department of Labor for $600,000 over one year and renewable for four years. Although the council already received funding through donations last year, the grant will greatly enhance its efforts to help non-violent former inmates in the 5th District. From the time the program started March 1 to March 31 of next year, the program hopes to increase the number of ex-offenders it serves from around 25 to 200.

“We’ve been doing this kind of work for 10 years,” said Brantley, “but not at this level of funding and recourses. This is a huge boost to what we do”

The Directors Council received one of the 30 grants out of 600 applicants across the United States because, in part, it already had the systems in place to help ex-offenders. Two years ago, the council conducted a two-year study on factors involved with ex-offender re-entry and how the entire community could help remove some of those barriers. It developed a system that worked with several organizations and with the 5th Judicial District to receive recommendations for ex-offenders that needed the program’s services most. In fact, when the council went to a conference with all the grant winners, it was the only group with an already established program.

“These were people who know they did wrong,” said Vernon Delpesce, president and CEO of the YMCA of Greater Des Moines, based on his observations from ex-offender focus groups. “They very sincerely want to get back to normal life.”

Starting with nothing

When Randall was released from prison, a bus dropped him off at a street corner with nothing but a box of prison gear. Not knowing where to go, he began walking down the street to Spectrum Resources.

“I walked about 400 feet and people were hollering my name already,” he said. “I just kept walking faster until I got here.”

Randall had no place to stay and little money from a prison job that paid $1.70 an hour – which he said was better than the 36 cents per hour earned by inmates who can’t work in the private sector. He had broken off contact with his family, had huge fines to pay, and as a result, no driver’s license.

Curtis Bell, who at the time was a working for Spectrum Resources, helped him find a place to stay that night and fill out the necessary paperwork to get food stamps and the rest of the basic essentials he lacked.

“People don’t realize that when you get caught doing a crime,” said Bell, “the hoops you have to go through to get back on your feet – it’s a lot.”

After attending to Randall’s basic needs, Bell immediately began working with him to help him find work, including giving him several job applications to places such as the Firestone Agricultural Tire Division and buying clothes suitable for job interviews.

“We act as a mediator with an employer to help get them into a job situation where the obstacles are limited,” Bell said. “We have got to make certain that when you do your time, your time is up.”

After a month of being out of prison, Randall found a job with Freeman Decorating Co., helping set up equipment for conferences and other large events. Randall, who wants to become a computer programmer, realizes, like many non-violent ex-offenders, that the jobs he can get right now are far from his ultimate goal.

Although Stites was lucky enough to have the support of his family, who helped pay his fines so he could get his driver’s license back, and offered him a place to stay, he cannot find a position in sales, his desired career, with a burglary misdemeanor on his records. Most companies tell him to come back in five years, if at all.

“I hope it doesn’t take me five years,” he said. “I’m settled with what I have to do now. I have to have a paycheck. Whether it’s flipping burgers at McDonald’s or doing what I want to do, I have to have some income.”

Reasons for struggle

“I never did much work my whole life,” said Anthony Smith, who has three felony convictions on drug charges. “I never thought it would be this hard. Others look at me as nothing but a felon.”

This is a common situation for many people who come out of prison ready to start life on the right foot. Most lack basic interview skills, need to further their education and above all, lack confidence.

“Our society moves rapidly as far as business and job skills and types of things you need to be able to do,” said Egly. “Necessary skills may no longer be there if they had some skills before.”

The Iowa Department of Corrections helps ex-offenders gain education and employment skills by placing people in programs such as Spectrum Resources or helping them register for classes at Des Moines Area Community College, said Gary Sherzan, the department’s judicial district director for the 5th Judicial District.

“They are no different from anyone else,” Sherzan said. “You have to have the skills the employers are looking for, and you have to get the education or training in something that employer is looking to hire. Many employers in the Des Moines area are willing to give ex-offenders an opportunity depending on what their skill level is.”

But for someone like Stites, it’s nearly impossible to get a job in sales, even with skills and experience. If an employer is willing to hire, it’s usually in construction, manufacturing or some other kind of labor or entry-level position.

Stites said, when he goes into an interview “it kind of feels pointless. Especially in sales, with my background, nobody is going to care why I did it.”

Building ex-offenders’ confidence is especially important in helping them make a good impression in employment interviews, which is why programs like Spectrum Resources encourage their employees to develop a relationship with their clients.

“The act of getting support helps them maintain their sanity,” Brantley said. “They have the ability to talk to someone when problems arise rather than react.”

For many, it’s realizing that they need to start at the bottom and work their way up.

“For the most part, most of our people are employed,” Sherzan said. “It doesn’t mean at the level they wish to be, but you have got to keep trying and working it until you prove yourself again.”

Greater consequences

Not being able to find a job affects restitution payments and other physical needs, as well as emotional relationships with family and friends.

“It hurts when you know you can’t provide for [your family] as well as yourself,” said Smith, who is trying to take care of his 9-month-old twin sons and 3-year-old stepdaughter. “When you fill out an application for a job, you get your hopes up, they never call back. It’s very hard.”

Many who served time for non-violent offenses come out of prison with the intention of starting over, but consider reverting to crime when they become discouraged.

After a week of being unable to find a job, Stites contemplated attempting to steal again to help pay bills. He still owed money to the government, to his father and to the bank after he overdrew his account to pay bills. Sitting in an interview to work at the Nutty Bavarian vendor at Adventureland, which would have paid him $7 an hour for about 25 hours a week “made me want to go out and do what I’d done before, because I knew I could get flat even right there that minute and just be done.”

Instead, he chose to take his truck to Jiffy Lube to get it worked on, where he met a friend who landed him a sales position there.

Randall said that if he hadn’t started walking toward Spectrum Resources when he got off the prison bus, he’d likely be on the road back to prison as well, simply because the only place he would have found to stay at would be a place swarming with criminal activity.

Helping former inmates not just find work but achieve career goals is key to keeping them from ending up behind bars again. Already the Directors Council has had a high success rate with its few clients and believes the same will be true as it expands its services.

“We believe that if we can show success, funding will follow,” Delpesce said. “People who paid their dues want to get back into society, but they need help.”