6 ms·

In his case, it sounds like the problem isn't homelessness itself, but: 1. A crappy background check system that reports him as an ex-con/drug dealer when he's

In his case, it sounds like the problem isn't homelessness itself, but: 1. A crappy background check system that reports him as an ex-con/drug dealer when he's been exonerated. 2. Companies using those systems and judging him without giving him a chance to speak up.

nickff 11y ago
Even the president is in favor of punishing people who have been suspected of crimes; it seems to be a popular position that people are not really innocent until proven guilty.[1][2] I find this trend deeply troubling, but it does seem at least somewhat popular. #2 is at least partly due to the fact the if the companies allowed him an opportunity to refute the claim, they would be incurring various legal liabilities. The rules meant to protect job candidates often result in them being passed over at the first stage where it is realized they are 'complex' cases. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/12/04/can-americans-be-denied-second-amendment-rights-because-the-attorney-general-suspects-theyre-terrorists/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/12/06/what-could-possibly-be-the-argument-for-allowing-a-terrorist-suspect-to-buy-a-semiautomatic-weapon/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...
- sdrothrock 11y ago
  > #2 is at least partly due to the fact the if the companies allowed him an opportunity to refute the claim, they would be incurring various legal liabilities. Interesting! I'd thought it was simply done in the name of efficiency.
  - kiba 11y ago
    You're too old. You have a criminal background. You're too overeducated. We think you'll sue. You're too young. It seemed that companies are loathed to take risk on employee. At the same time, lot of environments contained toxic working conditions, so it's not clear if their choice of employees matter much. But people must find a job to keep themselves afloat or depend on someone having a job. It didn't matter if you're bad at social grace or if you have mental illness or if you're a felon, old or young. Without food, shelter, and peace of mind, I think people would be hard pressed to be economically productive.
    - raverbashing 11y ago
      At the same time, there are a lot of employees suing companies "just because", so the feeling has some justification.
      - kiba 11y ago
        And where do those employees find the money to sue the corporation? Don't forget that it doesn't prevent the creation of toxic working environments.
        morgante 11y ago
        > And where do those employees find the money to sue the corporation? Often from lawyers who work on contingency and then take the bulk of the damages.
        gambiting 11y ago
        My home insurance includes legal cover in case I wanted to sue my employer for almost any reason, or if I am sued by them(up to half a million pounds, so ~$750k).
      - coldtea 11y ago
        Only in places like the modern US, where suing is a kind of hobby, and you can be sued for anything. In other places (and in the US in the past) neither the companies expect to be sued and take pre-emptive measures, nor the employees sue "just because". At least not any significant numbers.
        rmc 11y ago
        Really? But the right wing in the UK keep insisting it's because of all that red tape from Brussels and the EU? How can the USA, being free from the yoke of Eurocrats, have such similar problems???
        dgoldstein0 11y ago
- ekianjo 11y ago
  > it seems to be a popular position that people are not really innocent until proven guilty Shouldnt that be instead: "people are somewhat guilty until proven innocent" based on the links you shared?
  - jpindar 11y ago
    Parse it as: people are not really "innocent until proven guilty".
elcct 11y ago
Not sure what's the problem with drug dealing? If he was selling weed, then he was in fact doing a public service against fat cats in pharma industry. Also nobody is forced to buy drugs.
- cshimmin 11y ago
  Well, for one thing the charge was for selling crack cocaine...
  - aianus 11y ago
    Sounds like an entrepreneur to me.
    - ctdonath 11y ago
      While the morality & legality may be deplorable, I do respect the can-do entrepreneurial aspect. Way back, my nurse-in-training GF cared for a man who was seriously ill and permanently bedridden; I was deeply impressed that despite the debilitating conditions he _still_ was able to create and operate an, er, undocumented pharmaceutical distribution service. There is a way, if one chooses to have the will.
    - wavefunction 11y ago
      Sure, if you disregard all the damage that crack cocaine specifically does to individuals and society.
      - JupiterMoon 11y ago
        Except that in this case he did not actually sell crack cocaine.
      - zardo 11y ago
        You don't have to make the world a better place to start a business.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
netcan 11y ago
In a roundabout way, this is related to the big data world we live in, even though background checks & credit checks are not new. From the perspective on a motor insurance company, for example, they don't need to serve everyone. If they can classify the world of potential drivers as high, medium & low risk, that's enough. Whether or not an individual falls into one of these categories "incorrectly" is not important, they're average figures and as long as they are "correct" for the people who take out a policy all is well. For an individual that ends up in the "high risk" category, it's inequitable and unfair. They might share characteristics with "truly" high risk individuals but not in ways that actually affect their chances of causing on an accident they just happened to be in a statistical cluster. The BMI is an interesting example too. Weight bands for height works fine when looking at a population. You can fall into an obese weight/height band by being heavily muscled or broad bodied. Mike Tyson at his youngest, slimmest prime would have been classed as obese and very obese later in his career. Possibly "extremely obese" between matches. This is a good example because you can easily se how BMI works well enough for evaluating insurance risk but not for being "fair" for our puny human defections of fairness. We are moving to a world of more data and more data based decision making. Online advertising for example, has transformed a big industry to one that is mostly driven by data based decision making. The side effects of this will be many. There are certainly efficiency gains because that statistics are predictive. Having been arrested or serving time is probably predictive of risk, even if a conviction is overturned. There are also feedback loops that we don't want, biases and "traps." A homeless person is obviously high risk in that he shares measurable characteristics with other homeless people and they (almost by definition) actualize those risks. There are real society-affecting risks here. It could become more expensive to be poor, as credit and financial services becomes a bigger part of how we purchase things.
- SilasX 11y ago
  Okay, but it should work in the reverse too. Just as there are ways to grind through the data and find non-obvious signals against an employee, there should be the same for signals in favor of an employee. And there should be just as much incentive for big data techniques to help identify undervalued employees. For example, I'm sure you can find a separation between "vagrants who can code" and "vagrants who can't". (An old-school example of such an insight would be early-GEICO's discovery that, "Hey, government employees have more reliable income than others'. So they're not as risky. We can use that!" So I heard.)
ithkuil 11y ago
> A crappy background check system that reports him as an ex-con/drug dealer when he's been exonerated The article states: > Three months after his conviction, though, the King County deputy whose testimony led to Simmons’ conviction, James Schrimpsher, was fired for dishonesty in a different drug case [..] Simmons insists he didn’t sell drugs and believes he was profiled [..] he served the full prison term at the Washington Corrections Center in Shelton, plus a year of probation when he got out. This means it has not been exonerated. The background check superficiality is not what this case is about. The problem in this case is a system where it's not easy for a convicted person receive a retrial unless the defendant has big money. > That the deputy was being investigated for lying at the same time as Simmons’ trial had not been disclosed to Simmons’ attorneys. Point 2 still holds.
- sdrothrock 11y ago
  > This means it has not been exonerated. The background check superficiality is not what this case is about. The article also says > What’s alarming about Simmons’ story is that his drug-dealing conviction was eventually stricken from the record. He was retroactively exonerated in 2010 . . . He is listed on the National Registry of Exonerations as being wrongly convicted. which seems to directly contradict your claim that he was not exonerated.
  - ithkuil 11y ago
    oops, I'm sorry, I guess I just skipped that paragraph. I was put off by the wording of "Simmons insists he didn’t sell drugs and believes he was profiled."; this wording seems to me like a personal claim and not a fact.
DominikR 11y ago
The other side of the coin is that a manager of a company that allows an ex-convict to work in sensible areas can and will be held accountable if something goes wrong. If you were a person that has put 20+ years of hard work into your career at some company would you be willing to risk it all (and by extension the life you built for your family) to put someone who as been convicted for hacking or fraud in the past in a position where he/she could cause considerable damage? I think this can only be solved by laws that forbid employers to use or acquire this data. In that case no one could touch you for giving someone that chance. The question is if the outcome of such a law would be positive and where there should be exceptions to it. (for example convicted hackers being employed by banks)
- serge2k 11y ago
  He's not an ex-convict.
  - DominikR 11y ago
    It was a general statement not targeted at a specific person. The parent of my comment mentioned ex-convicts as well in a general statement.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
fweespeech 11y ago
The truth is we've gone from a system where you are innocent until guilty to guilty to proven innocent [for everything that matters]. It really is a sad transformation.
lloyd-christmas 11y ago
Not to say that the system is working correctly, but from a quick glance to the comment section of the article, I'm not really sure if either of these is the real deal breaker. If it actually is him responding in the comments, he seems incapable of writing basic sentences. He also plays the race card several times in his commentary. For someone struggling to get a job, I find it utterly mind-boggling he would attach his name to comments like: > ,,And ME thinks ,,,That maybe YOU should THINK !!! LOLOL > Again ,,,Your Kind ,,convict MY kind ,,,ALL the time !!!!! > You probably have a hard time accepting anything from a Black Person There are countless more. From my perspective, most (definitely not all) are in response to non-inflammatory commentary. If I were HR and a basic google search turned this up, I wouldn't touch him with a 10 foot pole, let alone even bother with an actual background check. I use full sentences and am reasonably respectful with my username as "lloyd-christmas". If I used my real name, I'd likely be even more PC/respectful/cautious. For someone that has first hand experience in regards to the impact of background checks, he's sure not making it any easier on himself.

nickff 11y ago

Even the president is in favor of punishing people who have been suspected of crimes; it seems to be a popular position that people are not really innocent until proven guilty.[1][2] I find this trend deeply troubling, but it does seem at least somewhat popular. #2 is at least partly due to the fact the if the companies allowed him an opportunity to refute the claim, they would be incurring various legal liabilities. The rules meant to protect job candidates often result in them being passed over at the first stage where it is realized they are 'complex' cases. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/12/04/can-americans-be-denied-second-amendment-rights-because-the-attorney-general-suspects-theyre-terrorists/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/12/06/what-could-possibly-be-the-argument-for-allowing-a-terrorist-suspect-to-buy-a-semiautomatic-weapon/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

sdrothrock 11y ago
> #2 is at least partly due to the fact the if the companies allowed him an opportunity to refute the claim, they would be incurring various legal liabilities. Interesting! I'd thought it was simply done in the name of efficiency.
- kiba 11y ago
  You're too old. You have a criminal background. You're too overeducated. We think you'll sue. You're too young. It seemed that companies are loathed to take risk on employee. At the same time, lot of environments contained toxic working conditions, so it's not clear if their choice of employees matter much. But people must find a job to keep themselves afloat or depend on someone having a job. It didn't matter if you're bad at social grace or if you have mental illness or if you're a felon, old or young. Without food, shelter, and peace of mind, I think people would be hard pressed to be economically productive.
  - raverbashing 11y ago
    At the same time, there are a lot of employees suing companies "just because", so the feeling has some justification.
    - kiba 11y ago
      And where do those employees find the money to sue the corporation? Don't forget that it doesn't prevent the creation of toxic working environments.
      - morgante 11y ago
        > And where do those employees find the money to sue the corporation? Often from lawyers who work on contingency and then take the bulk of the damages.
      - gambiting 11y ago
        My home insurance includes legal cover in case I wanted to sue my employer for almost any reason, or if I am sued by them(up to half a million pounds, so ~$750k).
    - coldtea 11y ago
      Only in places like the modern US, where suing is a kind of hobby, and you can be sued for anything. In other places (and in the US in the past) neither the companies expect to be sued and take pre-emptive measures, nor the employees sue "just because". At least not any significant numbers.
      - rmc 11y ago
        Really? But the right wing in the UK keep insisting it's because of all that red tape from Brussels and the EU? How can the USA, being free from the yoke of Eurocrats, have such similar problems???
        dgoldstein0 11y ago
ekianjo 11y ago
> it seems to be a popular position that people are not really innocent until proven guilty Shouldnt that be instead: "people are somewhat guilty until proven innocent" based on the links you shared?
- jpindar 11y ago
  Parse it as: people are not really "innocent until proven guilty".

elcct 11y ago

Not sure what's the problem with drug dealing? If he was selling weed, then he was in fact doing a public service against fat cats in pharma industry. Also nobody is forced to buy drugs.

cshimmin 11y ago
Well, for one thing the charge was for selling crack cocaine...
- aianus 11y ago
  Sounds like an entrepreneur to me.
  - ctdonath 11y ago
    While the morality & legality may be deplorable, I do respect the can-do entrepreneurial aspect. Way back, my nurse-in-training GF cared for a man who was seriously ill and permanently bedridden; I was deeply impressed that despite the debilitating conditions he _still_ was able to create and operate an, er, undocumented pharmaceutical distribution service. There is a way, if one chooses to have the will.
  - wavefunction 11y ago
    Sure, if you disregard all the damage that crack cocaine specifically does to individuals and society.
    - JupiterMoon 11y ago
      Except that in this case he did not actually sell crack cocaine.
    - zardo 11y ago
      You don't have to make the world a better place to start a business.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

netcan 11y ago

In a roundabout way, this is related to the big data world we live in, even though background checks & credit checks are not new. From the perspective on a motor insurance company, for example, they don't need to serve everyone. If they can classify the world of potential drivers as high, medium & low risk, that's enough. Whether or not an individual falls into one of these categories "incorrectly" is not important, they're average figures and as long as they are "correct" for the people who take out a policy all is well. For an individual that ends up in the "high risk" category, it's inequitable and unfair. They might share characteristics with "truly" high risk individuals but not in ways that actually affect their chances of causing on an accident they just happened to be in a statistical cluster. The BMI is an interesting example too. Weight bands for height works fine when looking at a population. You can fall into an obese weight/height band by being heavily muscled or broad bodied. Mike Tyson at his youngest, slimmest prime would have been classed as obese and very obese later in his career. Possibly "extremely obese" between matches. This is a good example because you can easily se how BMI works well enough for evaluating insurance risk but not for being "fair" for our puny human defections of fairness. We are moving to a world of more data and more data based decision making. Online advertising for example, has transformed a big industry to one that is mostly driven by data based decision making. The side effects of this will be many. There are certainly efficiency gains because that statistics are predictive. Having been arrested or serving time is probably predictive of risk, even if a conviction is overturned. There are also feedback loops that we don't want, biases and "traps." A homeless person is obviously high risk in that he shares measurable characteristics with other homeless people and they (almost by definition) actualize those risks. There are real society-affecting risks here. It could become more expensive to be poor, as credit and financial services becomes a bigger part of how we purchase things.

SilasX 11y ago
Okay, but it should work in the reverse too. Just as there are ways to grind through the data and find non-obvious signals against an employee, there should be the same for signals in favor of an employee. And there should be just as much incentive for big data techniques to help identify undervalued employees. For example, I'm sure you can find a separation between "vagrants who can code" and "vagrants who can't". (An old-school example of such an insight would be early-GEICO's discovery that, "Hey, government employees have more reliable income than others'. So they're not as risky. We can use that!" So I heard.)

ithkuil 11y ago

> A crappy background check system that reports him as an ex-con/drug dealer when he's been exonerated The article states: > Three months after his conviction, though, the King County deputy whose testimony led to Simmons’ conviction, James Schrimpsher, was fired for dishonesty in a different drug case [..] Simmons insists he didn’t sell drugs and believes he was profiled [..] he served the full prison term at the Washington Corrections Center in Shelton, plus a year of probation when he got out. This means it has not been exonerated. The background check superficiality is not what this case is about. The problem in this case is a system where it's not easy for a convicted person receive a retrial unless the defendant has big money. > That the deputy was being investigated for lying at the same time as Simmons’ trial had not been disclosed to Simmons’ attorneys. Point 2 still holds.

sdrothrock 11y ago
> This means it has not been exonerated. The background check superficiality is not what this case is about. The article also says > What’s alarming about Simmons’ story is that his drug-dealing conviction was eventually stricken from the record. He was retroactively exonerated in 2010 . . . He is listed on the National Registry of Exonerations as being wrongly convicted. which seems to directly contradict your claim that he was not exonerated.
- ithkuil 11y ago
  oops, I'm sorry, I guess I just skipped that paragraph. I was put off by the wording of "Simmons insists he didn’t sell drugs and believes he was profiled."; this wording seems to me like a personal claim and not a fact.

DominikR 11y ago

The other side of the coin is that a manager of a company that allows an ex-convict to work in sensible areas can and will be held accountable if something goes wrong. If you were a person that has put 20+ years of hard work into your career at some company would you be willing to risk it all (and by extension the life you built for your family) to put someone who as been convicted for hacking or fraud in the past in a position where he/she could cause considerable damage? I think this can only be solved by laws that forbid employers to use or acquire this data. In that case no one could touch you for giving someone that chance. The question is if the outcome of such a law would be positive and where there should be exceptions to it. (for example convicted hackers being employed by banks)

serge2k 11y ago
He's not an ex-convict.
- DominikR 11y ago
  It was a general statement not targeted at a specific person. The parent of my comment mentioned ex-convicts as well in a general statement.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

fweespeech 11y ago

The truth is we've gone from a system where you are innocent until guilty to guilty to proven innocent [for everything that matters]. It really is a sad transformation.

lloyd-christmas 11y ago

Not to say that the system is working correctly, but from a quick glance to the comment section of the article, I'm not really sure if either of these is the real deal breaker. If it actually is him responding in the comments, he seems incapable of writing basic sentences. He also plays the race card several times in his commentary. For someone struggling to get a job, I find it utterly mind-boggling he would attach his name to comments like: > ,,And ME thinks ,,,That maybe YOU should THINK !!! LOLOL > Again ,,,Your Kind ,,convict MY kind ,,,ALL the time !!!!! > You probably have a hard time accepting anything from a Black Person There are countless more. From my perspective, most (definitely not all) are in response to non-inflammatory commentary. If I were HR and a basic google search turned this up, I wouldn't touch him with a 10 foot pole, let alone even bother with an actual background check. I use full sentences and am reasonably respectful with my username as "lloyd-christmas". If I used my real name, I'd likely be even more PC/respectful/cautious. For someone that has first hand experience in regards to the impact of background checks, he's sure not making it any easier on himself.