https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/04/...
The US has about 4.4 percent of the global population and about 22 percent of the global prison population.
The numbers are more startling using a different measure in the report: the prison population rate. Criminologists say this is a reliable way to compare incarceration practices between countries.
The United States had the highest prison population rate in the world, at 716 per 100,000 people. More than half of the countries and territories had rates below 150 per 100,000. The United States had a much higher rate compared to other developed countries: about six times Canada’s rate, between six to nine times Western European countries, and between two to 10 times Northern European countries.
So, I will suggest you work hard to frame it as "Many American citizens have a criminal record for the crime of being an American citizen. The system is broken and many people with criminal records really don't deserve to have them at all."
In other words, don't tell them "give a criminal a second chance." Tell them that many people with criminal records simply shouldn't have them and you are making a terrible mistake to hold that against them, both in practical terms by cutting out talent from the hiring pool for specious reasons, and in moral terms because you are denying someone an opportunity to recover from having been shafted by a broken system to begin with.
FYI: I'm a copywriter by trade.