A second chance: Governor wants to see more jobs for former offenders, restoration of voting rights 'Our ratio of good employees coming out of that system is equal to or better than if I go to a temp agency or try to recruit them myself, on my own, so it’s just good business.' — Co-op CEO Tony Bedard

Stephen Gruber-Miller | The Des Moines Register

Show Caption Hide Caption Gov. Reynolds talks about her passion for pursuing criminal justice reform Governor Kim Reynolds gives remarks during the 7th annual Iowa summit on justice and disparities.

People in prison should have an easier time adjusting to life when they get out, Gov. Kim Reynolds said in launching a pair of initiatives this week.

Former inmates should be able to learn job skills while incarcerated so that when they're released they can find work, pay off their debts, care for their families — and avoid going back to prison, she said.

"We have a moral responsibility to think differently," the Republican governor said Wednesday at the Iowa Correctional Institute for Women in Mitchellville. "Prison shouldn’t be one stop in a circle that leads back to prison. It needs to connect people with the opportunities to improve themselves and their skills."

Reynolds visited Mitchellville for the first in a series of events to encourage employers to hire ex-inmates. On Thursday, Lt. Gov. Adam Gregg led the first meeting of a committee that will develop recommendations for legislation to reduce recidivism and bias in the criminal justice system.

The events bring together a pair of Reynolds' priorities: workforce development and her "second chance" initiative on criminal justice issues, which includes a push to restore voting rights for felons through a constitutional amendment.

Group discusses streamlining voting rights restoration

One of the issues the criminal justice group hopes to address is how to streamline the process for felons to apply to have their voting rights restored. Current law requires felons to get individual allowances from the governor to vote after they have served their sentences.

Reynolds has called for a constitutional amendment to make the process automatic. That proposal failed to pass the Legislature earlier this year, and the process of amending Iowa's Constitution takes years.

Betty Andrews, president of the Iowa-Nebraska NAACP and a member of the criminal justice working group, said she'd like to see the voting rights restoration application become something that inmates complete automatically when they finish their prison sentence or parole.

"That’s important to my agenda and the NAACP’s agenda, just making sure that that is something where when people actually step off of correctional supervision that they have submitted that application," Andrews said.

The NAACP also supports an executive order immediately restoring voting rights for felons who have completed their sentences, but that's something Reynolds has ruled out.

Gregg said he's encouraged that many of Iowa's prisons are educating inmates about the process for requesting restoration of their voting rights, but said there's more the state can do.

"It has been institutionalized, somewhat, in the prison system, but, oftentimes, it’s just handing them the documentation or telling them where the website is, and, I think where this conversation is leading is maybe we can do better than that," he said. "Maybe we can help fill out that information and get it into the right hands literally as they’re walking out the door rather than sort of giving them a stack of papers and a pat on the back and saying, 'You should really consider this.'"

Iowa and Kentucky are the only states in which felons must apply to the governor's office individually to have their voting rights restored. But Iowa may become even more of an outlier if Democrat Andy Beshear, the apparent winner of Kentucky's gubernatorial election this month, follows through on his campaign promise of "restoring voting rights for more than 140,000 nonviolent felons" in Kentucky.

Reynolds encourages employers to hire people with criminal histories

On Wednesday, a group of Iowa employers gathered at the women's prison in Mitchellville to learn about post-prison training programs.

"I know some of you have probably never been in a prison, especially when you’re looking for candidates to fill jobs," Reynolds told the group. She encouraged employers to get out of their comfort zones when looking to hire new employees.

Wednesday's employer and re-entry breakfast roundtable is the first of a series of events at Iowa prisons aimed at educating employers about how formerly incarcerated Iowans can help meet their workforce shortage.

"This is an amazing opportunity for us to enable ex-offenders to get their lives back on track and to at the same time address our workforce needs," Reynolds told the group.

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The event included a panel of employers who are working to hire Iowans with criminal records. One of the panelists was Tony Bedard, the CEO of Frontier Co-op in Norway. He said his company has hired several people through a "second chance job fair" in Cedar Rapids that helps people find jobs after they are released from prison.

"Our ratio of good employees coming out of that system is equal to or better than if I go to a temp agency or try to recruit them myself, on my own, so it’s just good business," Bedard said.

The employers talked about the challenges — like lack of transportation and housing — that people face when trying to find jobs after completing prison sentences, but said the employees they have hired are willing to work hard if given a chance.

"I don’t know that it matters whether it’s a reentering citizen," said Randy Van Dyke, CEO of Iowa Lakes Regional Water in Spencer. "We all have issues and we all have dilemmas that we have to work on, and as an employer, we look at it as it’s our family and we need to support those people and we need to create an opportunity for them to be successful."

Stephen Gruber-Miller covers the Iowa Statehouse and politics for the Register. He can be reached by email at sgrubermil@registermedia.com or by phone at 515-284-8169. Follow him on Twitter at @sgrubermiller.