After 10 years in prison on a drug trafficking charge, Conan Harris, husband of Massachusetts Rep. Ayana Pressley, was able to reintegrate back into his community by the time the two married in 2014.

But he says that he had support around him that eventually helped him get back on his feet, allowed him to re-enter the workforce, eventually becoming a senior public safety adviser at Boston’s City Hall, and later director of My Brother’s Keeper Boston. Now he and his wife are placing their combined attention on advocating for people who are coming out of incarceration and back into society and in an interview with criminal justice website The Appeal, they speak about how the federal government can play a role in helping.

“It is so crucial and important to do the work internally while you’re inside the institution before you come out,” said Harris. “When I came home, I had to be prepared and ready for the resources that my family and other supports would be able to help me with. I think that one of the main things that was supportive was finding a safe place to sleep, rest my head, so I could collect my thoughts.”

Both Harris and Pressley are pushing for the The People’s Justice Guarantee, which is a proposal to incentivize localities to significantly decrease prison populations. 

Pressely, whose father had also done time in prison, described the proposal as “calls for the establishment of a federal agency with the sole responsibility of improving supports and services for returning citizens. It includes removing restrictions on occupational licenses, because even if you are doing training behind the wall for barbery or cosmetology, if folks are denied pursuing a license because they have a record, then that was in vain.”

The proposal would also call for the restoration of voting rights to people who are incarcerated. Only Vermont and Maine allow people serving time for felony convictions to vote. 

Harris said that it takes “political will” to make changes like this happen. For him, his family was able to serve as a safety net, giving him a place to stay when he returned, and enough time to reacclimate. He even had a job waiting for him when he got out. But not every ex-prisoner gets that chance, he says.

“When we look at different cities and states, we see cranes up in the air, buildings being built, people being pushed out of their neighborhoods because rent is going up high,” Harris explained. “But we don’t see a political will to have transitional housing for folks coming home from incarceration.”

In addition, Pressley says the formerly incarcerated aren’t coming home with much else, but are being asked to pick up where they left off before they were locked up.

“They’re leaving with little money, they don’t have an ID, perhaps they’ve been away for 20 years and they don’t know how to use a phone or a computer,” she said. “And now we’re saying, go make a contribution, go get a job, and if you don’t do that, you’re likely to recidivate and it’s simply because you want to be here.

“We have got to have re-entry programming, workforce development training, that begins behind the wall. Access to behavioral health, because … 95 percent of incarcerated people will be released from prison, returning to society—95 percent.”

A gender specific, responsive approach is what Pressley recommends and that includes getting an ID, registering to vote, if state laws allow, and lining up employment. 

“The People’s Justice Guarantee calls for the establishment of a federal agency with the sole responsibility of improving supports and services for returning citizens,” Pressley said. “It includes removing restrictions on occupational licenses, because even if you are doing training behind the wall for barbery or cosmetology, if folks are denied pursuing a license because they have a record, then that was in vain. We have to remove those barriers.”