My name is Bill Carruthers. I am a person in long term recovery. This means that for 40 years of my life I was in active addiction, I have an extensive criminal history spanning 4 decades and have spent many years behind bars. It also means that in the last eleven years I have been clean and sober and have had no negative interactions with law enforcement.

I have also moved even further away from that life by dedicating my career to help others in need. I’m now a Certified Psychiatric Rehabilitation Practitioner and Certified Peer Specialist for Mental Health, Addictive Disease, Whole Health, and a Forensic Peer Mentor. I have worked locally and nationally with state and local organizations and behavioral health agencies as a service provider and program designer. I have done hundreds of presentations and workshops designed to lend a recovery voice and to share the value of lived experience in the recovery transformation of our existing systems. I have traveled and spoken at 6 CIT conferences, am the project developer for the Stepping Up Initiative in Rockdale County, and have contributed to the Presidents Data Driven Justice Initiative.

Yet with all my experience and efforts, I’m still facing so many barriers because of my past. I totally understand that there have to be vetting processes to protect our systems and the people that we serve. However, I have changed; I have paid my debt by serving my sentence; I have been in long-term recovery and got involved with peer support. Peer Support has been established as a best practice model and is probably one of the most powerful mediums for facilitating change. This theory is based on the power of sharing our lived experience and I have dedicated my life to these processes for others. My question is, “when is the debt paid?”

Every time someone runs a background check on me, charges come up from the 80’s and 90’s; each time, different charges come up. I have had challenges finding a place to live, challenges with moving forward, and challenges with places that need my help as a peer mentor but feel like they can’t involve me because of my past.

Let me speak to the exasperation that I and many others have experienced after we have given our absolute best to not just change our own lives but to become the facilitators of change. I just want a chance to become who I am designed to be! I have seen many people whose lives have been totally derailed by these barriers and I have also seen people lose their lives over them. When will our debts be paid? For this reason, I stand with the Second Chance Campaign and lend my voice to this honorable process for those who are coming and deserve this opportunity for change.

My life is currently on hold. I have a misdemeanor theft by taking charge in my record from about 5 years ago after a co-worker stole some money and they thought I took some too. It’s the only thing I have in Georgia besides a few traffic offenses.

I’m 43 years old and have 7 children. The most important things for me in life are my kids. My youngest daughter is thirteen years old. I want to make her a strong woman. You have to lead by example. I want to be able to support my family. I don’t want fancy house, fancy car, and a lot of money. I just want to show my kids how they can live an honest, decent life. I’ve done so much since that one mistake, but I keep getting turned down. Yet, I keep trying for my kids.

My 22 year old son got shot accidentally, and he almost died. I left my job for 2 months to go take care of him. I was working at a place that knew me for a long time; they saw past my record and knew that I am a dedicated employee. Since I had to leave, I started looking for jobs again. Ever since that, I can’t find a job that pays enough and meets my experience. Everywhere that I apply to and interview hires me; I’ve been working, I’m experienced, and I work well with people. But then the background check comes back and I’m let go. This past August, someone gave me a chance. It was a $17.50/hour job—the manager liked me and saw my experience. She disregarded my background, knowing that it didn’t represent me. I was so happy, and got to work for about 3 days. Then, HR came. The manager that hired me got transferred to a different division, and the new person ran background checks so I was fired. I fell in a huge depression.

But I have kids and I can’t give up. I worked at a gas station for a while, and then I got my current part-time job that is decent-paying. I got my GED this past year. If I can get this conviction out of my background, the whole world will open up to me. I want to go to DeKalb Medical; they have a program starting every September in radiology. But I don’t want to waste my time if a hospital will not hire me after I graduate. I want this off my record so that I can work at a hospital, raise my kids by example, and help others.

My name is Brent. I am a recovering alcoholic and have been active in the program of AA for nearly 10 years now. I am 42 years old today. I started drinking and doing drugs as self-medication for depression when I was 14 years old. At 18 I was arrested for possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. I pled first offender and was placed on probation. As an alcoholic and drug addict, probation was very difficult to complete. I was finally sentenced to a treatment center in Atlanta in 1998. I stayed sober for a number of years but went back to drinking after the death of a very close friend.

In 2009 I was managing a shoe store and addicted to drugs and alcohol. I took money out of the deposit to support my habit and was arrested for two counts of Fiduciary theft for $500. I took a plea and was given a felony. At the time I thought that after 5 years you could have your record expunged, so I had no reason to fight the felony part.  I was already very active in recovery when I went back to court and an AA buddy had told me how he cleared up his record after he got sober, and figured I could do the same. I believe in a spiritual path and believe that if you do the right thing, things will work out.  But I later learned that Georgia is different from the state he lived in, and there is nothing I could do about my felony conviction in Georgia. 

Since my sentencing ten years ago, I have accomplished many things in my life. I completed probation early for excellent behavior.  I have remained sober. I kept the same full time job for for three years before returning to school. I graduated from Mercer University with a degree in Accounting in 2016. I was one the first members of Mercer’s honor accounting society. My average at Mercer was a 3.75. It wasn’t until after graduation that I did the research and found out that in Georgia you could never have your record expunged.  It was devastating.

I am married with two children and I fear I wasted all my time working on this degree only to never be able to work in the field that I was so good at in school. My wife and I opened a retail store (one in Macon and one in East Cobb) that has done well, but the shadow of my record always looms over my head.  Owning your own business is always risky.  We are making it by on one income, but it’s been hard. 

My record is holding me back from reaching my potential.  I am too embarrassed and scared to try to apply for a CPA license because of my record.  If I could get a job in the accounting field and earn a second income, it would provide more financial security to my family. Even if is too late to help me, I want to help others who fight so hard to change their lives get a chance at a clean slate. Working with alcoholics and addicts on a daily basis I see people make complete and radical changes.  I witness people go from complete darkness to being the most honorable and trustworthy humans that I have ever met.  We all deserve another chance at being the citizens that we were always meant to be.

I was convicted of a felony in 2003 and served five years on probation.  I received a pardon five years after that.  But that didn’t help at all.  16 years later, 10 years after the pardon, I still can’t get hired by a company that does a background check. In the public’s eyes, there is no difference between my felony conviction and someone convicted of murder.  Unless I can get my conviction expunged, I will never get a job with benefits and insurance because of the mistake I made.

I applied to and was denied at least 20 jobs.  Volkswagen, Erlanger Hospital, UPS, Fed Ex.  I was up front about my record and was told by one company that since I had a pardon, I would get hired, but then after two weeks of training, I was let go.  Even with Ban the Box, I get hired, go to training, only to be fired after my background check comes back.  I ended up moving away from Georgia to Texas where I had family who would hire me, but when my wife and I went to apply for an apartment, the landlord told me they couldn’t rent to us because of my background.  I will never forget the look on my wife’s face.  I was in my 40’s and still can’t provide for my family. I felt like a real failure. 

When I got arrested, I lost my job which messed up my credit really bad.  But in the 16 years since, I have worked on my credit.  My wife and I just bought a house two years ago.   I have a job now, but it’s in South Georgia so I have to be away from my family all week and only see them on weekends.  There is no retirement for me, no benefits. That hurts. I took full responsibility for my actions and pled guilty, but I didn’t know the consequences of my sentence would last a lifetime.  I’m a Trump supporting Republican and am pro-law enforcement.  But I also know that not everyone is a career criminal. At 49, it’s too late for me, but I hope my story will help others have a second chance for a life. 

I grew up in a suburban, upper middle class community. I got mixed up with drugs when I was a teen and obtained my first misdemeanor convictions as a juvenile. I continued using drugs into adulthood and at age 23 was arrested on 2 felony charges that were drug related. I later pled down to 2 misdemeanors. While I’m grateful that I do not have a felony conviction on my record, I am still burdened by my criminal record.

I have been sober for 9 ½ years. For 2 of those years, I served as the volunteer guest speaker for a pre-trial diversion program through the City of Holly Springs Superior Court, speaking to first offenders about my experience in addiction. In early recovery, I obtained my GED, and applied for college entry. At the time, I was well below the poverty income line, and so I qualified to receive the Pell Grant. However, if I had been convicted of a felony, I would not have been eligible for this fortunate opportunity to better myself through an education. I went on to graduate with a 3.9 GPA and an Associate’s Degree in Computer Information Systems Technology. While enrolled in college, I worked in retail. During the application process, I unfortunately lied on the application form for the question about having ever committed a crime. There was a chance they would run my background and find my record, and then I would likely not be hired. However, if you check the box, you are typically automatically disqualified and not even considered for employment anyways, so I had to take my chances and hope they did not run a background check. I have been in this position several times in my life since having a criminal record.

I currently work for a mobile payments technology engineering company in midtown as an IT Operations Analyst. I triage software problems and manage a database containing millions of credit cards and transactional data. When I interviewed for this position 6 years ago, I had to divulge my criminal record during the process of the required background check. However, the company has a history of hiring people in recovery and I was lucky that my past convictions were not an issue for me during the hiring process. Unfortunately, many companies are not willing to overlook this for most applicants. Even if someone’s charges aren’t relevant to the job, most employers will not hire people with any past convictions.  I have several friends in long term recovery who have trouble finding employment due to their past convictions.  They are contributing members of society with families to support, that can never escape the burden of their past mistakes and secure employment. 

Over the course of almost a decade in recovery, I have a college degree, a successful career, a son that I can afford to raise. I spent years cleaning up my credit enough to purchase my first home, got married, have a savings account and take vacations with my family. I can do all of these regular things that are taken for granted by the average person. Despite all of my recovery success, I still feel the need to hide my past in many social and professional situations in my work environment. I feel that I can never leave this company for fear that I would have to go through the application process again, and the next company may not be so understanding. I hope the law will change so I can remove my old convictions, be free from my past mistakes and be seen for who I am today.