Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

Black Ex-Felons Are Slow to Vouch for Other Former Offenders
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
04 May 2020
🖨️ Print Article

Margaret Kimberley · Black Ex-Felons Are Slow to Vouch for Other Former Offenders

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, Black former offenders “need to see strong evidence" that the formerly incarcerated person has really changed, said Sandra Susan Smith, a University of California professor of sociology who did a study on the subject. Smith discovered that ex-offenders who have good jobs are reluctant to put their own reputations at risk by vouching for recently released friends and relatives. The employed ex-offender’s attitude is, “If I don’t see evidence of real change, then I’m not doing anything.”

Mass Black Incarceration

Related Podcasts

Involuntary Servitude in the Prison System
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Involuntary Servitude in the Prison System
24 June 2022
Savannah Eldrige is the founder of Coaliton to Abolish Slave
White Capitalist Law vs “Uncontrollable Blackness”
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
White Capitalist Law vs “Uncontrollable Blackness”
01 September 2020
The United States “criminalizes Black Americans,” but Black men “are not looking to be controlled” by this racist system, said Douglas
 Getting Out the Word: #PrisonsKill
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
Getting Out the Word: #PrisonsKill
25 August 2020
The Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, IWOC, “is committed to the militant organizing of prisoners that takes its leadership and focus from

More Stories


  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    SPEECH: A Black Man’s Protest, Lamine Senghor, 1927
    14 May 2025
    “It is a lie that slavery has been abolished. It has only been modernized.”
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Southern Panther Malik Rahim
    14 May 2025
    In “A Southern Panther,” movement elder Malik Rahim talks about his lifetime of battling racism and fighting for peace and environmental justice.
  • Jon Jeter
    Fleeing Imaginary Persecution at Home, South African ‘Refugees’ May Find the Grass is Not Greener in America
    14 May 2025
    The Trump administration’s decision to fast-track asylum for white South Africans—claiming "persecution"—is a political stunt, ignoring that they remain among the wealthiest globally, still…
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    How the GOP is Saving the Fossil Fuel Industry From Trump…With Help From the Democrats
    14 May 2025
    Despite Trump’s tariffs battering the fossil fuel industry, bipartisan policies, including Democrat-backed subsidies, are rescuing Big Oil, locking in climate destruction while working-class…
  • Black Alliance for Peace Haiti/Americas Team
    The Black Alliance for Peace Calls for Resistance Against the Accelerating Imperialist War on Black/African Peoples in Our Americas
    14 May 2025
    Accelerating crises of imperialism in Haiti, Ecuador, and beyond highlight the urgent need for regional Pan-Africanist, anti-imperialist unity and strategy.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us