For years, the Georgia Center for Opportunity (GCO) has worked with families all across the state to learn what policy reforms Georgians most urgently need. Through all this work, one issue has continually made itself evident: Georgians who have interacted with the criminal justice system suffer uniquely difficult challenges that prevent many from getting a job and having the resources to provide for themselves or their families.

GCO’s mission is to fight for quality education, fulfilling work, and a healthy family life for all Georgians. As they learned more about the pernicious problems facing ex-offenders, GCO dedicated themselves to finding the best way to reform Georgia’s criminal justice system. For over a year, GCO gathered policy experts, former government officials, nonprofit leaders and former incarcerates to learn the exact challenges facing ex-offenders and the policy reforms needed to help them regain their life and put themselves on a path to a job and successful life.

After a year, this working group developed a set of policy solutions that—if enacted— would remove bureaucratic barriers for employers wanting to hire ex-offenders, and would give ex-offender job seekers tools that would make it easier to find work.

GCO’s campaign laid the groundwork for multiple new laws in all these categories. In 2015, Georgia also became the first state to officially “ban the box,” which prevented employers from discriminating against ex-felons who had completed their sentences.

Creating solutions with and for real people

While every expert, lawmaker, and researcher brings valuable perspectives and information to policy reform discussions, for GCO, there was one expert whose perspective was especially valuable. Tony Kitchens spent 12 years in prison in the 1970s and 1980s for a relatively minor crime. For years after he was released, he struggled to rejoin society because of the same challenges and roadblocks that face ex-offenders every day. It wasn’t until he was able to find work with the North American Missions Board and mentor ex-offenders himself that he found the opportunity and stability to fully escape his life in prison.

Tony knows the unique challenges of daily life that ex-offenders face—the ones most people rarely, if ever, think about. Tony helped GCO experts know the importance of giving ex-offenders greater access to regular but important things like drivers’ licenses, occupational licenses, and work licenses as they’re leaving prison. Tony and GCO also fought for stronger employer incentives to hire returning citizens (bonding, tax credits, and liability protection), and greater consideration of ex-offenders for government jobs.

Criminal justice reform is an issue that impacts every facet of society. The damages from harmful criminal justice policies can hurt so many people without discrimination, but fighting for positive reforms can also bring together wide coalitions of people, organizations, and causes. As GCO and many other SPN members have found, fighting for effective criminal justice reform is a bipartisan, community-wide opportunity to champion policy solutions that address the realities of heroes like Tony.