Small businesses put ex-cons to work

In her continual search to find dependable employees,  Debbie Jakacki, owner of Jakacki Bag & Barrel in Chicagolearned about the Safer Foundation, a Chicago-based nonprofit that helps people with criminal records find gainful employment, and while she wasn't immediately sold by the idea of hiring ex-cons, she decided to give it a try.

In the last decade, Jakacki figures she has hired over 100 former prisoners through the Safer Foundation to do mostly physical tasks like cleaning barrels and driving delivery trucks when and if they attain commercial operator licenses. It's a business tactic that may give most pause but it has worked for Jakacki; To find employees she can depend on, she hires ex-cons. But it's not without its drawbacks.

The employees that have come from prison are just as hard working and motivated as anyone else she has on staff, she says, in part because they're so grateful to be given work. For the last decade or so, she says she hasn't worried about abnormal absenteeism, and if she does have a problem with someone showing up late or slacking off, she calls the Safer Foundation, which intervenes and tries to get the employee back on track.

But there is also another reason to hire ex-cons beyond less absenteeism: federal tax breaks. Employers can qualify for a tax credit of up to 40 percent of income taxes on the first $6,000 of wages paid to each former prisoner hired.

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