Community takes steps to help previously incarcerated.

by Angelia Davis // davisal@greenvilleonline.com

Jerry Blassingame is a pastor, the CEO of a Greenville nonprofit, and a recipient of national and local awards for efforts to revitalize low income communities.

Yet, it's a challenge for Blassingame to get a job.

Blassingame tried to get a part-time job to earn extra money during the Christmas holidays and said he couldn't get hired because of a drug conviction more than a decade ago. He served three and a half years in prison.

It "hit home" then that if he, the founder and CEO of the 15-year-old Soteria Community Development Corp., which among other things, helps other [previously incarcerated individuals] re-enter the job market, can't himself get a job, "we still have a problem."

It's a problem Blassingame has been trying to tackle through Soteria which, among other things, helps [previously incarcerated individuals] get jobs.

"Because I know how hard it is for guys to get jobs with a criminal background record, part of our vision is to create businesses so that guys don't have to go through what I've been through and what I'll continue to go through if they don't change the laws," Blassingame said.

Senator Karl B. Allen who represents District 7 in Greenville is among the lawmakers trying to do just that.

He believes there are many [previously incarcerated individuals] deserving of a second chance, which is also the name of a bill he has filed and the name of a forum he held recently at the West End Community Center.

Allen said legislation has also been introduced that would create a study committee to revise the expungement laws in South Carolina to increase the nonviolent crimes that are eligible for expungement.

*Note: Soteria supports positive language to describe those with criminal backgrounds so that we are not indefinitely defined by our past. We use “previously incarcerated” instead of “ex-felons” or “ex-offenders” to clarify that the crime is not who we are.