In an impor­tant vic­to­ry for for­mer­ly-incar­cer­at­ed work­ers fight­ing employ­ment dis­crim­i­na­tion, Calif. Gov. Jer­ry Brown signed Assem­bly Bill 1008 into law on Octo­ber 14, estab­lish­ing some of the strongest ​“Ban the Box” leg­is­la­tion in the coun­try. Brown’s sig­na­ture can be attrib­uted to tire­less orga­niz­ing on the part of for­mer­ly incar­cer­at­ed indi­vid­u­als and their advocates.

One of the biggest chal­lenges fac­ing peo­ple return­ing from prison is employ­ment. Many jobs require appli­cants to check a box if they have ever been con­vict­ed of a crime, but offer no oppor­tu­ni­ty to explain the cir­cum­stances of their arrest. Employ­ers often dis­re­gard for­mer­ly incar­cer­at­ed indi­vid­u­als, regard­less of their giv­en sit­u­a­tion. ​“Ban­ning the Box” removes this ques­tion from appli­ca­tions, requir­ing busi­ness­es to assess the job-seek­ers’ crim­i­nal back­ground only after the individual’s qual­i­fi­ca­tions have been considered.

Under AB 1008, or the Cal­i­for­nia Fair Chance Act, restric­tions on employ­ers’ crim­i­nal back­ground checks have been extend­ed to pri­vate com­pa­nies. This means that, as of Jan­u­ary 1, 2018, no Cal­i­for­nia busi­ness with five or more employ­ees will be allowed to ask about or con­sid­er an applicant’s con­vic­tion his­to­ry before an employ­ment deci­sion is made.

The leg­isla­tive vic­to­ry is the cul­mi­na­tion of a fight that has last­ed more 14 years, as the grass­roots orga­niz­ing project All of Us or None start­ed the cam­paign dur­ing the ear­ly 2000s. All of Us or None sprung out of the group Legal Ser­vices for Pris­on­ers with Chil­dren (LSPC.)

LSPC’s Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Direc­tor Mark Fuji­wara spoke with In These Times about the bill. For­mer­ly incar­cer­at­ed him­self, Fuji­wara empha­sized that his group’s orga­niz­ing was pri­mar­i­ly led by indi­vid­u­als who had spent time in prison — and have expe­ri­enced the sys­tem first­hand. ​“Hav­ing a grass­roots orga­niz­ing project like All of Us or None is key to cre­at­ing a sense of com­mu­ni­ty and empow­er­ment for direct­ly-impact­ed peo­ple and our fam­i­lies, as every aspect of the prison indus­tri­al com­plex is designed to sep­a­rate and iso­late peo­ple,” he said.

San­dra John­son is anoth­er for­mer­ly incar­cer­at­ed mem­ber of LSPC who was on the front­lines of California’s ​“Ban the Box” fight, tes­ti­fy­ing dur­ing hear­ings and advo­cat­ing to leg­is­la­tors. She told In These Times that she was fired from her job of six years after her for­mer employ­er accused her of con­ceal­ing her con­vic­tion his­to­ry. ​“It was dev­as­tat­ing,” she told In These Times, ​“I don’t want any­one else to feel what I felt.”

AB 1008 also received a vis­i­bil­i­ty boost from high-pro­file sup­port­ers like the musi­cian John Leg­end. About a month before its pas­sage, Leg­end wrote a let­ter to Gov­er­nor Brown call­ing on him to act on the issue. ​“For too long, these men and women have been defined by the worst moments of their lives,” Leg­end wrote. ​“They have been stig­ma­tized, even after pay­ing their debt to soci­ety, and​ ​they​ ​have​ ​seen how​ ​a​ ​criminal​ ​record​ ​takes​ ​a​ ​wrecking​ ​ball​ ​to​ ​future​ ​employ­ment.”

“Ban the Box” leg­is­la­tion is par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant in Cal­i­for­nia. Accord­ing to the Nation­al Employ­ment Law Project (NELP), near­ly one out of every three Cal­i­for­nia adults has an arrest or con­vic­tion on their record. That’s rough­ly 8 mil­lion peo­ple statewide. ​“The old approach didn’t serve any of us well,” NELP staff attor­ney Phil Her­nan­dez told In These Times. ​“When 8 mil­lion peo­ple across the state are effec­tive­ly shut out of employ­ment, that shrinks the econ­o­my, under­mines pub­lic safe­ty, and harms fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties. For those rea­sons, this new law — which aims to give peo­ple with records a fair chance at employ­ment — will ulti­mate­ly ben­e­fit all of us.”

NELP stud­ies also show how restric­tive hir­ing prac­tices have a dev­as­tat­ing impact on chil­dren and fam­i­lies. Almost half of U.S. chil­dren have at least one par­ent with a record. Accord­ing to a sur­vey with fam­i­ly mem­bers of for­mer­ly incar­cer­at­ed indi­vid­u­als, 68 per­cent said that those who were par­ents had trou­ble pay­ing child sup­port after being released from prison. One study of for­mer­ly incar­cer­at­ed women revealed that 65 per­cent of them were rely­ing on a fam­i­ly mem­ber for finan­cial support.

The fair hir­ing move­ment has gained con­sid­er­able steam in recent years. AB 1008 makes Cal­i­for­nia the 10th state to ban the box for pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tor work­ers. Twen­ty-nine states now ban the box for pub­lic employ­ees, and five of them have done so this year: Utah, Neva­da, Penn­syl­va­nia, Indi­ana, and Ken­tucky. In 2015, Pres­i­dent Oba­ma endorsed the prac­tice for fed­er­al employ­ees. There are also increas­ing efforts to extend ban the box poli­cies to col­leges. In June, Louisiana became the first state to block pub­lic uni­ver­si­ties from ask­ing appli­cants about their crim­i­nal history.