COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – In spite of strides made in economic development across the state, Mississippi has the lowest labor force participation in the country.
It also has the highest imprisonment rate. A national organization said those numbers are connected in more ways than one.
Alesha Judkins of Forward US was in Columbus sharing the group’s message of lowering employment barriers for people with criminal convictions.
That includes 29% of Mississippi’s population. One in 20 Mississippians has been to prison, and when those people return to society they find themselves having to start back over.
Many end up underemployed, or they drop out of the workforce altogether in a state that currently has 85,000 job openings.
Forward US believes that with criminal justice reform, those who have been in the system can become productive members of the economy.
“Mississippi has the highest imprisonment rate in the country, but we also have the lowest labor force participation rate. And what that means is the number of people who are actively seeking work in the state. And as we mentioned earlier, we have 660,000 people who have a criminal conviction. That’s a lot of people that are untapped, full of potential, and who could be a part of the workforce and growing our state’s workforce and our state’s economy,” said Judkins.
Forward US is a bipartisan group that works to educate the public about the immigration and criminal justice systems.
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