A new bill just introduced to the Indiana State Senate is looking to give felons job training while they’re in prison. At the very top of the list of jobs deemed acceptable for the recently incarcerated? Truck driving.
Indiana Senate bill 173 allows for currently incarcerated felons who qualify to get free “specialized vocational training” for several jobs including truck driving, manufacturing, plumbing, construction, and diesel technology.
To qualify, inmates have to be in a minimum security location and “eligible to work outside a perimeter fence.” The bill goes on to stipulate other criteria including that inmates must have less than two years left in their sentence and that they must not be a “security risk,” but interestingly, a proposed amendment to the bill would remove that additional criteria.
Many prisons across the nation already provide vocational training for inmates and supporters of the programs claim that such initiatives are essential for helping former inmates reintegrate into society in a productive way and for helping them avoid returning to prison.
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Just another way to fill the empty positions. If you want to fill the empty position without cons, pay drivers more and let them drive less. Screw these 14 hour days, they suck.
More proof that the industry has reached the bottom and is still digging
Or, more proof the industry would rather try anything, rather than improving conditions for the drivers they already have.
“Felons who qualify . . . ” Oh boy! We all know where this is going. Left up to interpretation and the fact that prisons are overcrowded = more misfit drivers. Aren’t there enough already??? My point is justified by the last sentence of the second to last paragraph. – security risk. Next step will be govt telling the companies to hire these people and then you’re fighting (no pun intended) with a felon for your next job. Stupid!
Not being able to discriminate against felons is already in the works. He will get the job, instead of you, because trucking companies will face discrimination charges and fines for not hiring the felon. We just need to keep repeating “it is all for the sake of safety.”
Yet, with misdemeanor convictions, certain companies won’t hire ME!! I hate to imagine if I were to have a felony…?
Dido!!!!
I’m all for giving someone a second chance. And I’m all for job training in prisons. It provides a means for the convict to support themselves workout having to return to crime. But this is a bad idea just from the perspective that no one will hire them and DOT will make it difficult if not impossible for them to obtain a CDL.
The state issue’s the cdl. Not the dot. And the dot can not discriminate against ones background during an investigation. Ex-cons/ felons have been in trucking for ever. The problem is. Parole board won’t allow parolees just out. To travel across state lines.
This actually makes sense to me.
Once you are free from the system, you should be a full citizen again.
I’ve got to imagine many people after lengthy incarcerations might was to be a bit solitary as they get used to society again. Truck driving is a decent job for those wanting minimal contact with people and allows someone to reintegrate back into society at their own pace.
I’d certainly rather have someone who is trying to go down the straight an narrow behind the wheel than many of the people I’ve run into.
Sounds like a personal problem! You running in to people!
Please tell us how many trucking companies hire recently released felons, much less anyone who has been convicted of a felony within the last ten years? This program only makes sense if one has no problem throwing away the taxpayers money.
Carolina Cargo does all the time. Also, please remember that there are different types of felons. Not all are rapists, pedophiles, murderers, etc.
The majority of people in prison in this country are there for drug-related criminal activity, which us an automatic disquslification for holding a CDL in many states or for holding a TWIC card of having a hazmat endorsement at the Federal level. Used to be people in front of a judge were given a choice between military service and prison. These days the military doesn’t want felons either, and prison cells are being built faster than low-income housing (like if you work at Target or Walmart). At least Target, Walmart, and prison construction generate a need for more truck drivers…which leads us back to where we started…
,,, “we tried a training program once to make them (the inmates) lawyers, politicians and bankers, but it turned out they were overqualified for jobs in those fields.”
Just sayin’
ROFLMAO
Are things really that bad that the industry needs to pursue felons to fill the depleted ranks of drivers?
Yes
So I had to pay to go to school to get my license and now you are going to pay to send these guys to school….Pretty good deal if you own the school and the taxpayers pay the tuition?…And now we are going to be sending all of these drivers to places that require security clearances too?
And to think I had my WIA grant yanked a week before I was supposed to start CDL school because of a three-year-old suspension for a FTA on a fix-it ticket.
My sentiments exactly. They can train for jobs at McDonalds. Taxpayers are already paying to house them and educate them – last thing we need is having them flood the market and drive down salaries. Plus if you paid for your own classes and license, it’s just another slap in the face from the gov’t. These senators have to go!!!
What a joke! Giving Felons training for a job that they aren’t going to be able to get!
So are they going to be barred just like a driver that is checked upon his criminal record(I dont have a criminal record)? Hey you know darn well their very strick depending on the type of crime on most applying for a driver position. If they stole, are they going to just hire a prisoner outright, I mean how about stolen freight? Now were going to have crooks hauling freight? lol..just seems ironic…but hey what else is new…nothing surprises me these days…You never know who is parked next to you at the truck stop..stay tuned for the prisoner show program!!…LOL
I dunno, lately it seems like most of the stuff I’ve been hauling is trash.
(Sorry, raw materials for recycling)
I can’t imagine anyone being happy to sneak home with 29k# of used shopping bags.
In the old days of trucking lots of drivers had records and trucking was the go to job. Most just arent old enough to know this.Especially the lower paying food companies. Main qualification was leave your wine bottle outside the gate! Lots of owner-operators know about crooks in the trucking industry . They would(still) get promised one thing and get another, if and that is a big IF they got paid at all!Come to think of it, that includes all truck drivers.
In the “old days”, the insurance companies weren’t calling the shots.
There are still crooks in trucking. We call them “brokers”
(See also: management)
Like we need more reasons for people to distrust and dislike truck drivers.
Something else the taxpayers have to pay for! I find it interesting that people that have never been in trouble have to pay for their training but someone that has been in trouble gets theirs free! Damn going to prison has more perks than walking the straight and narrow and working your butt off. Go figure
Karen, in the 1980s, the ONLY heavy construction equipment training schools in the country were in prisons. The only way to learn to drive heavy equipment then was to know someone else who would teach you or go to prison. Many of the people in prisons are simply people without any employable skills.
This policy may sound bad on the surface, but there could be some merit to it given our country’s bizarre fixation on first incarcerating people who use certain relatively harmless drugs recreationally, then shafting them incessantly after they come out. About a year ago I met a real-life Walter White at a warehouse who did several years then became an OTR truck driver. Not that meth is one of the drugs I was referring to above, but this guy was totally reformed and didn’t seem the least bit undeserving of a trucking job.
If these drugs are so harmless, why aren’t truckers able to use them?
Why don’t they train them to be Government officials at least then they would be right at home.
Why would anyone hire them? I wouldn’t.
It’s one thing to give free training and school. The hard thing will be finding someone that will hire them. I recruit for 45 different companies and I tell ya. It is hard to find these guys and gals a job. Sure…free? Yeh, but they’ll pay the price trying to get placed somewhere.
Cheryl, I had a felony conviction 30 years ago and I have trucking companies contacting me all of the time asking me if I was willing to work for them. Most OTR companies simply requires that a driver does not have any felonies within the past 5 years. My experience has been that companies who refuse to hire drivers with any felony history are usually the same companies who hire drivers which have the least driving experience. Companies which drivers are better off staying away from. And local driving jobs seem to be available everywhere.
What warehouse/MFG would want felons in care of their very expensive freight? Truck jackings could suddenly rise. It doesn’t surprise me though the Feds have always thought of us as criminals.
Unless they have company’s willing to hire them its just a waste of money. Maybe someday truck drivers will be paid a decent living and work a normal 40 hour week . Unless they can come up with some grant money to teach monkeys how to do our job then they will try that next.
Nothing wrong with trying to help someone out. Just gotta find the ones “who truly want to go straight “. What I have to take issue with is the ones who don’t . To them they may look at it as a way to commit a crime and maybe get away with: if they land a job as a OTR driver,this will definately seem like the perfect scenario to them. Commit a crime and the person will be a couple states over when someone finds out a crime has been committed
The way to keep felons from becoming repeat offenders is by giving them skills where they can make a reasonable legal living. Prisons have been offering educational training in construction and heavy equipment for decades. Offering them training as truck drivers is not out of line. This country has a shortage of people willing to work in blue collar jobs which pay a reasonable wage.