Few Americans are aware that someone convicted of a crime in the United States emerges from the courtroom condemned to a lifetime of discrimination. Individuals with a criminal record are required to declare their conviction to prospective employers, who are overwhelmingly averse to hiring them, and to prospective landlords, who are averse to housing them. They are prohibited from practicing a wide range of professions, many of which bear no relation whatsoever to the crime they may have committed. They are barred from public housing and limited in their recourse to food stamps and other forms of government assistance, if not outright prohibited from it. These and other forms of systemic, legalized discrimination against individuals with criminal records means that the end of a prison sentence marks not the end of punishment, but only a transition to its next stage.