Imagine a room full of former CEOs, lawyers, and entrepreneurs - but the twist is, they all have criminal records. That’s the White Collar Support Group, a nonprofit founded by and for professionals who’ve navigated the white-collar justice system and are now mobilizing for sweeping national reforms.
The group is making headlines after announcing its partnership with Yale School of Management Professor Erin Frey on a groundbreaking study into what it really takes for justice-impacted individuals to reclaim their personal and professional lives.
Dr. Frey’s research, already underway, aims to spotlight the real barriers and accelerators to personal and professional restoration, with findings poised to influence business practices and policy nationwide.
“By centering the voices of people who have actually been through the justice system, Dr. Frey’s study has the potential to create meaningful, human-centered change,” says Jeff Grant, the group’s co-founder and attorney. “We’re putting the full weight of our 1,400 members behind this effort.”
As Dr. Frey shared in a blog post on the White Collar Support Group website announcing the partnership, the professor is “interested in talking to people at all stages of the process – pre-sentencing, pre-incarceration, post-supervised release.”
The goal, per the White Collar Support Group’s press release, is “to identify key factors that either accelerate or hinder personal and professional restoration, with the ultimate goal of informing better practices, policies, and support structures for justice-impacted individuals.”
In addition to its research partnership with Dr. Frey, the White Collar Support Group has set its sights on two policy initiatives with significant business implications: expanding pathways for expungement and ensuring banking access for those with criminal records.
Expungement has become a critical tool for restoring economic opportunity to those with past offenses.
In California, recent legislative changes have significantly expanded eligibility for expungement, allowing many individuals with misdemeanor and certain felony convictions to petition for relief once they have completed their sentences and demonstrated rehabilitation. And while these state-level reforms are opening new doors, there is still no comprehensive federal expungement process, leaving many justice-impacted professionals without a path to full reintegration.
Grant’s White Collar Support Group seeks to change that as it has the opportunity to create better outcomes for the justice-impacted.
Along similar lines, the group is also pushing for a federal right to banking. As steering committee member Drew Chapin explains, a felon’s “exclusion from the banking system mirrors the denial of health insurance to those with preexisting conditions. It perpetuates systemic inequities and is destabilizing for those who desperately need some stability.”
“Every person should have the right to open a bank account, hold funds, and participate fully in the economy, regardless of the poor choices they’ve made in the past.”
For more information about the White Collar Support Group and its advocacy, visit the White Collar Support Group website.
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