Kelly D. Brown left prison with one overriding mission — to never again let her hot temper lead to another stint behind bars.

"I was so reckless when I was young," says Brown, 32.

The last time she let her anger explode, she shot at some girls who were trying to enter her home following a fight. She was convicted of second-degree attempted murder and served six years of an eight-year sentence. When she entered the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women in 2004, her son was 3.

"When I got out he was a whole little man with his own way of thinking," Brown says. "I had pictures of him from before I got locked up, and then after. His joy was gone, and I did it. I took the joy from his life."

While incarcerated, Brown got help for her anger issues and began to style other inmates' hair. A week after being released from prison, she started taking cosmetology classes and got her license in less than a year.

She got a job as a stylist at a Hair Cuttery in Baltimore. Brown was upfront about her criminal past — hoping, praying someone would give her a chance. The local manager of the salon decided to give Brown an opportunity to prove herself.

Brown started March 26. But then ...

... But then I decided to profile Brown as part of the latest installment of a series I began earlier this year in which I looked at the difficulties ex-offenders have managing their personal finances. However, I found we couldn't even really concentrate on this because of the many other factors that intervene to prevent ex-offenders from succeeding — some personal, some the result of public and private policies.

Brown's story was supposed to be positive. She asked someone up the chain of command at Hair Cuttery, a division of Ratner Companies based in Vienna, Va., if it was OK for her to be photographed working on her customers.

The corporate office had her fired.

The salon leader said Brown was "honest about everything" concerning her criminal history. The regional field recruiter for Hair Cuttery was also aware of Brown's felony conviction.

The company's response is typical of so many employers when it comes to ex-offenders.

"Kelly Brown did indicate on her application that she had been convicted of a crime; and yes, she explained her circumstances to the salon leader," Diane Daly, director of public relations for the Ratner Companies, wrote to me in an e-mail. "Unfortunately for all involved, this information was not communicated to our Human Resources department; had it been, the application would have been denied.

"Our company does not begrudge any person's attempt to make a positive transition in his or her life, but we have an obligation to ensure the safety and well-being of our stylists and our clients."

Brown, crestfallen, said, "I could see this happening if I didn't tell them." She drops the phone. For several minutes I hear her weeping in the background, her young son trying to comfort her. "I've overcome so much," Brown said when she returned to the phone. "This is so unfair. I worked with razors and scissors every day for seven months and nobody ever got hurt."

A job is one of the leading factors in preventing ex-offenders from ending up back in prison, says Nancy La Vigne, an expert on crime prevention and prisoner re-entry and director of the Urban Institute's Justice Policy Center. "There are costs to actively avoiding hiring ex-offenders. Everyone needs to realize that if we don't help people succeed when they get released, that increases victimization."

This issue is so important there is a growing campaign around the country to eliminate questions about past convictions on public employment applications. Proponents of the "Ban the Box" movement say eliminating the question of a felony conviction could help keep ex-offenders from being summarily rejected for a job interview.

It would be naive to say that employers shouldn't be careful in hiring someone with a criminal past.

But if employers refuse to consider ex-offenders on a case-by-case basis, then what we get is higher recidivism, meaning more people headed back to prison.

At the beginning of the year, I profiled ex-offenders Christine Foote and Stephanie Harris. Foote asked to end her participation halfway through the Color of Money Challenge. She couldn't take the public scrutiny and abuse.

Much like the situation with Brown, Foote says she also lost an employment opportunity because of her criminal past.

But on my last check, Foote was back in school and earning money with part-time jobs.

Harris also dropped from the challenge. She was hired to clean the streets of Baltimore as a "clean sweep ambassador" for the nonprofit Downtown Partnership of Baltimore, and was doing well at first.

But then something changed. She no longer works for the partnership.

Harris does not answer my calls, but she has been checking in regularly with her parole officer as required, according to a spokeswoman for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.

All these women are examples that some efforts work and some don't.

Nonetheless, we have to keep trying even when some ex-offenders fail because, given the opportunity for redemption, many will prove they are not a threat to the community. That's what Brown is trying to do.

Readers can write to Michelle Singletary c/o The Washington Post, 1150 15th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20071. Her e-mail address is singletarym@washpost.com Comments and questions are welcome, but due to the volume of mail, personal responses may not be possible. Please also note comments or questions may be used in a future column, with the writer's name, unless a specific request to do otherwise is indicated.

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