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Kim Kardashian has practically done it all at this point in her career from taking over reality television, owning boutiques and a couple marriages under her belt that for her to seek to do something more meaningful with her time is only to be expected. That’s why her decision to start helping with prison reform wasn’t that much of a surprise, despite it going against what you would typically expect from her.
Thursday night she appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon where she let him know that she had more cases she was working on. You might remember her helping with getting the sentence for Alice Marie Johnson commuted by President Trump last June.
“I was honestly just on my phone and someone that I follow on Twitter must’ve reposted a news story and I saw it,” she told Fallon on Thursday. “I always say that Alice’s story came to me and I just felt something inside of me that if I had the power to help I was going to try.”
While she’s working on effecting change for the criminal justice system, she’s now moved on to making sure those that are out of prison are able to obtain gainful employment.
“I think there’s such a stigma on people hiring formerly incarcerated people,” she said. “There’s so many people that are incarcerated for life for murder that maybe they were just next to someone and they were a group of people and a fight broke out and somebody unfortunately died but they didn’t even hit the person, didn’t even have a weapon and were serving life.”
Kim says if the criminal justice system is willing to give these people “a second chance at life,” so should employers. A 2010 A 2010 study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research shows that an estimated $57 to $67 billion in lost economic output happens every year from not hiring ex-offenders. Twelve states have removed the question from job applications requiring the applicant state whether they’ve been incarcerated before.
“I would love to hire formerly incarcerated people. And I think I would love to spread that message that other companies and big companies can do that, too.”
During the President’s State of the Union speech this week, the 63 year old grandmother Kim brought to the president to have her sentence commuted after serving 22 years was in attendance.
“Seeing her at the State of the Union was just such a message of hope because there are so many people like her that really deserve that — and I was just so proud to see her,” Kardashian said.
This is the Kim Kardashian I like to see. She’s using her celebrity status for something useful and not just vanity and being self-centered even though no one can do that better than she can. Remember her selfie book she published not long ago? I rest my case. Either way, good job, Kim.
Photo Credit: ANDREW LIPOVSKY / NBC
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