We recently sat down with three Chrysalis team members who spoke about incarceration—not in the abstract, but as individuals who lived it.
Kendra is a Supervisor with a division of our employment social enterprise called Roads, overseeing freeway maintenance crews. Anthony is a Program Manager at our Downtown LA center, where he oversees daily operations in the lobby and often facilitates client curriculum. Nesta is a Senior Employment Specialist at DOORS, supporting justice-impacted clients with resources. As former clients themselves, they each bring their lived expertise to the work they do every day.
In this conversation, Kendra, Anthony, and Nesta spoke—plainly and personally—about what are known as collateral consequences of incarceration.
Put simply, collateral consequences are the legal and regulatory restrictions that can follow a criminal conviction—often long after a sentence has been served. These restrictions can limit access to jobs, professional licenses, housing, education, and other basic opportunities that many people rely on to rebuild their lives. The National Inventory of Collateral Consequences of Conviction reports 42,763 specific consequences.
Some collateral consequences serve a clear public purpose. For example, laws that restrict access to firearms after violent offenses, prohibit people convicted of abuse from working with children or seniors, or bar individuals convicted of fraud from positions of financial trust are designed to protect public safety.
But many other consequences are far broader—and harder to justify. Some apply regardless of the nature of the offense, the time that has passed, or the person’s rehabilitation. Others have little connection to public safety at all and make it difficult for people to work, secure housing, or fully participate in their communities.
What our team members describe below is how those consequences show up in real life—not just on paper, but in people’s well-being, sense of belonging, and access to opportunity.
The Moment of Reentry
When people come home from incarceration, they must immediately learn a new system, as well as meet society’s expectation of immediately getting on their feet. Our team members shared some of the challenges they faced when they first came home.
“I had been homeless for several years, and all I had was the clothes on my back. I didn’t know what to expect,” shared Kendra. She faced a five-year prison sentence but was given the option to reduce her sentence if she participated in a treatment program. As part of the program, she re-learned simple life tasks, chores, and a stable routine in a home with 16 other women. About this experience, she reflected, “It was a big adjustment for me—from having had so much freedom before, in a sense, being homeless. For me, that was a challenge: just to learn how to live again, honestly.”
Nesta faced a similar challenge, learning how to live as an adult for the first time.
“I was incarcerated from the age of 17 until last year. I never had a real job, so coming home, I really didn’t have a sense of direction. I didn’t know what I was going to do,” says Nesta. The transitional program Nesta enrolled in offered temporary housing and documentation assistance, but support was limited when it came to employment.
“I was just lost,” Nesta reflected on his early days back home. “When it came down to getting into employment or a work setting, I never had training or I was unaware of the skills that I actually had or equipped [myself with] over the years of incarceration, which can now apply in a job.”
For Anthony, he found himself lost in a more literal sense, starting over in an unfamiliar place without a clear sense of how to get the resources he needed.
“I’m not from L.A. and had been here a limited amount of time. I was 15 when I was incarcerated. I knew people in L.A., but I didn’t know how to get to them, I didn’t know where they were at. I had no idea where I was when I landed at Union Station.”
Hidden Barriers
These immediate challenges don’t just linger—they compound. Our team members highlighted the barriers they faced navigating new social environments, a completely changed technology landscape, and structural limitations for formerly incarcerated jobseekers.
Anthony’s immediate sense of feeling lost morphed into mental shock. For the first few months back home, Anthony highlighted some of the mental and social challenges he faced, such as “not being able to be in really crowded places or loud places or not feeling comfortable with people standing in lines.”
Beyond adapting to a new social environment, Anthony also had to navigate a completely new technology landscape with limited digital literacy: “When I was initially arrested, the Internet existed, but it was not commonplace. Most households didn’t have it. I was fortunate while I was incarcerated to become a clerk, so I had some experience behind non-network computers on older Windows platforms… But navigating the Internet to do anything like finding resources or filing my taxes or doing job applications, it becomes a nightmare.”
For Nesta, he was eager to work upon release but felt that restrictions set by his transitional program limited his opportunities. Transitional reentry programs commonly have blackout periods during the first 30 to 90 days, during which residents are not allowed to leave the facility as they get adjusted to their environment.
“Not being able to leave the program for a certain amount of time to actually conduct work, that job opportunity went away. So now I had to scramble,” Nesta recalls.
Kendra, on the other hand, did have the opportunity to apply to and get hired at jobs; however, her record seriously limited her chances at a long-term role.
“When I went to go get jobs, I would get hired and I’d work for two weeks. Then they’d call me the next day and say they couldn’t keep me anymore because of my record. I had so many missed opportunities [because of] my record that I had picked up in the past decade.”
Opportunities to Succeed
There are a host of obstacles that individuals face as they navigate the long-term consequences of incarceration. But there are also resources and opportunities that make the reentry journey more equitable and dignified.
For Kendra, more doors are now open to her after recently getting her record expunged—a process whereby courts dismiss arrests and convictions based on a variety of factors.
“It just gives me so much more opportunity. For example, when I was applying for apartments two months ago, I had to mark the box that said I’m a felon. Today, I can confidently mark that I’m no longer a felon, and it will help increase my chances of getting approval for not only that but also maybe renew my real estate license.”
Expungement may not be an option for everyone, but many organizations like Chrysalis offer comprehensive resources that help individuals succeed despite their record. As a Sr. Employment Specialist, Nesta connects his clients to transportation assistance (such as gas cards or TAP cards) as well as education and employment support (helping them complete their GED or high school diploma). These are resources that helped Nesta along his journey, and today he continues to pay it forward.
Beyond structural processes and supportive services, what truly helps individuals succeed is the goodwill of others who believe in them and believe in fair chances.
“There’s a lot of people who…just don’t believe in fair chances. They don’t believe in second chances. They don’t believe in restorative justice. And they’ll get in your way,” Anthony shared of his experience. “But Chrysalis was the first environment that I was in regularly where I felt like I wasn’t on parole anymore. It built the consistency and the lane [that helped me go from] getting by to seeing me off parole in a successful career.”
Want to make a difference and support fair chances? Volunteering with Chrysalis will help individuals who are determined to get on their pathway to success. With 65 percent of Chrysalis clients reporting being justice-impacted, you could be a part of what’s needed to rebuild a life. Learn more at ChangeLives.org/Volunteer or sign up here to have an informational video sent to your inbox.