I don’t know how you’re supposed to rehabilitate yourself once you’re trying to correct the mistakes in your life.  I mean, I admit it.  I was an idiot and have a few things on my record.  But I’m trying to start a new lease on life.  I got some education, and I’m a pretty intelligent person.

But no one, especially in this economy, will overlook my record once they see it on my background check.

This really upsets me because I thought the whole point was to go to jail to learn to be a better person.  For the rest of my life, every time someone does a  criminal conviction check, I’m going to get rejected.  So how am I supposed to contribute to society?  How am I supposed to rehabilitate?  I mean, if I can’t get a job then what am I supposed to do-just keep on mooching off the state the exact same way I did while in jail?  Talk about giving me incentive to become a criminal again:  I might as well steal or sell drugs to support myself, because if I get caught, I’m no worse off than if I was living in some group home or facility.  Oh, sure, I  can work for a meat-packing plant or be an itinerant farm worker or something, but I trained myself for a white-collar job just so I wouldn’t need to take section 8 housing away from someone else on the waiting list, and also because I’m capable of doing so much more.  Pardon the pun, but it’s really criminal.  If I were an employer I would for sure do a background check to make sure I’m not getting some completely unscrupulous character, but I’m not that person!  Maybe time will tell and someone will run a check AND take into consideration what I’m done with my life since making my mistakes.

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