Erykah Yasmine Kangbeya is a community leader and Research and Advocacy fellow at the DESTA Black Community Network based in Tiohtià:ke/ Montreal. She holds a Master’s degree from Concordia University in Public Policy and Public Administration with a concentration in Feminist Critiques of Public Policy. Her work in the non-profit and government sectors has covered diverse subject matters, including gender-based violence, employment after reentry, and various other racial justice initiatives. A fervent feminist, writer, and activist, she works at the intersection of policy, advocacy, and community engagement.
Labour Market Discrimination After Incarceration, Hindered Livelihoods, and The Pathway to Dismantling Both
by Erykah Yasmine Kangbeya
This piece was selected as part of SHIFT's special edition issue Research by and for Community (September 2026), which invited pieces from our community related to explore what it would mean to have research and learning environments that better reward relationship-building, curiosity, co-inquiry, and shared power. This piece in particular was written by one of the 2025-26 SHIFT Research & Advocacy Fellows about their community-led research project.
Regardless of whether we exist at the center or margins of society, employment provides income, social connection, and feelings of societal contribution that are closely intertwined with notions of self-worth. Employment is important for the average person, but even more influential in the reentry journey of someone with a criminal background.
Upon reentry, formerly incarcerated people (FIP) navigate complex logistical and social processes such as securing identification and documentation, finding emergency housing when estranged from family, meeting parole oversight requirements, navigating social dynamics, and sometimes completing mandatory programming. Employment is an important part of their economic reintegration and financial stability. Yet, direct accounts, ethnographic interviews, academic literature, and, most importantly, close attention to their lived experiences, underscore the stigma and discrimination that FIP face in securing employment. This discriminatory landscape is in part a result of personal circumstances tied to the reality of having been incarcerated, such as diminished agency, educational and financial obstacles, and internalized stigma; but it is also the consequence of many other social and structural barriers. FIP often reenter a society where stigma and social labeling dominate, and family strain or the lack of positive social capital can also limit their access to supportive community groups and networks. These factors are more often than not coupled with housing insecurity, transportation limitations, and supervision burdens.
Research underscores that the perceived risk to the workplace that hinders employers’ decisions to hire FIP [formerly incarcerated people] is often exaggerated.
At the DESTA Black Community Network, a Montreal-based organization supporting the re-entry of formerly incarcerated people, many of our participants experience sustained difficulty in securing employment. Like a mirror, research reflects their lived experiences: FIP are the least desirable of all disadvantaged workers. In fact, individuals with a history of incarceration have up to a 30% lower chance of being hired than those without criminal records. This makes employers an important subgroup to turn our attention to: their past experiences employing FIP, as well as their reluctance to do so, offer a crucial entry point for understanding and strengthening employment pathways for FIP.
The cost of being seen as a risk
When making hiring decisions, employers experience a fundamental tension between wanting to believe in what they call the “redeemability” of FIP and not wanting to jeopardize workplace safety and business image.
Industries most likely to employ FIP (construction, transportation, warehouse logistics) are characterized by high turnover and low-skills positions. Employers facing these tight job markers are drawn to FIP as they seeks individuals willing to take on tough jobs in low-skill areas. The pull towards wanting to believe in the “redeemability” of FIP is also a result of a desire to give back to the community as a part of employers’ organizational commitments.
Yet, employers also experience feelings of reluctance that are mostly the result of fears associated with the reality of having a criminal record: perceptions of (un)reliability, work history concerns, risk to the workplace, legal repercussions. Among them, hiring policy restrictions and the doctrine of negligent hiring repercussions stand out as the most recurrent fears employers have. Some companies have structurally embedded “no-hire” policies directed at those who have committed certain types of crimes, such as fraud, or sex-related crimes. Often, fear of being held legally responsible for potential crimes committed by employees under the doctrine of negligent hiring is simply fear rooted in the unknown.
Under the surface, this push-and-pull dynamic indicates an existing desire to consider hiring FIP, but an overpowering fear of potential consequences, for themselves as decision-makers, for other employees, and for the company at large. Research underscores that the perceived risk to the workplace that hinders employers’ decisions to hire FIP is often exaggerated. In a study conducted by Jerry Goostein and Damon Petrich, one employer noted: “A lot of my number one employees that I’ve ever had here were guys on parole. Then when they were done with their parole and did everything, they moved back to their families and carried on with their lives. But they’re so grateful for every day they got to be here.” This is the experience of more than one employer. Yet, some employers speak of less positive experiences after hiring FIP. The issues that arise in these cases are often closely intertwined with the realities of being someone navigating a process as complex and oftentimes filled with contradictory instructions as reentry. They include delays caused by a lack of reliable transportation, limited soft skills, and a general lack of professional polish in both everyday behavior and interview preparation.
[W]orking together is a community-based tool at our disposal. And we can start using it now.
Doing away with siloes
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the act of leaning on and leveraging community addresses many of these challenges. For FIP, external support from employment-based reentry organizations such as DESTA, nonprofit reentry organizations, and community employment centers takes the form of continued guidance on how to prepare for and navigate interviews and the workplace at large. In a context where employers often cite limited soft skills as a hindrance to their hiring processes, having this external support may take the form of being connected with skills development programs and structured transitional employment, being provided with transportation resources, and being offered interview preparation programs. This external support network is most effective when coupled with support from an internal network of people—supervisors, mentors, and coworkers—who are able to contribute to the social inclusion of FIP in the workplace.
As we seek to address the labour exclusion of formerly incarcerated people, many of the answers lie in connecting the various community organizations working to serve FIP in their corners of Montreal, from Little Burgundy to Montreal-North. The process of identifying the concerns and needs of employers when it comes to hiring FIP reveals a clear picture of the ideal candidate they are seeking: one with strong interpersonal skills, who has experienced transitional employment after release, and who has access to mentors and trusted community partners able to support them and their employers in cases when issues may arise. All of these distinct services exist in the city. Various organisations have reentry mandates, others offer job-search services to those facing barriers to labour market integration, and some even provide skills development training. The test is whether we can commit to collectively sit at the same table. The practice of working together and staying connected has the power to strengthen employment pathways for FIP, but the work of destigmatizing incarceration and reimagining the employment realities of FIP also certainly rests with employers themselves. And, dare I say, with the municipality, city officials, and Correctional Services Canada.
Still, working together is a community-based tool at our disposal. And we can start using it now. More than once. Again and again. Until our work reflects the reality that we serve the same populations, and that those populations need our connection.
