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>According to Jennifer Ellis, The Last Mile’s chief operating officer, tech companies are often resistant to hiring the formerly incarcerated One of the things

>According to Jennifer Ellis, The Last Mile’s chief operating officer, tech companies are often resistant to hiring the formerly incarcerated One of the things I truly don't understand about our justice system. If time served is "repaying your debt to society" then why do anyone but law enforcement have access to your record? If it isn't, then why do we incarcerate people at all?

donarb 7y ago
It's not that employers have access to your criminal record. It's more that employers have routinely asked on employment applications if you've ever been convicted of a crime or been incarcerated. That has led to movements such as "Ban the Box", which aims to remove the checkbox on applications that ask that question. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ban_the_Box https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ban_the_Box
- delfinom 7y ago
  Many times, that question is because of insurance companies doing stupid shit (i.e. they factor in the chance a former convict may reoffend and do so at your workplace). Shit, my company didn't even have a drug & alcohol "testing if you are suspected" policy until a few years ago when we switched insurance companies. And companies really have no choice but to do what the insurer says because the options are slim.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    Presumably, the “stupid shit” insurance companies do allows them to offer competitive premiums compared to other insurance companies, allowing them to stay in business. The solution would be to forbid all insurers from factoring in former convictions from calculated premiums.
- Spooky23 7y ago
  It’s something that you are allowed to discriminate on at hiring, but can get in trouble for later. Some contracts also make it difficult for companies to do business with them if they hire someone with a criminal record. Government contracts in particular.
  - skissane 7y ago
    Also can be an issue if you do business with the finance sector. Finance sector companies (especially banks) have a lot of concern about theft and fraud, and one of the ways they try to mitigate this risk is by having policies restricting the employment of people who have criminal records for theft and fraud. (If you've done it before, you are more likely to do it again.) Often, those policies will be extended to apply to vendors. So vendors will be asked to ensure that none of their employees working for that client have a criminal record for those sort of offences. They usually satisfy this requirement by running background checks during the hiring process.
    - tbyehl 7y ago
      And PCI DSS requires background checks. And HIPAA. SSAE16 / SOC technically doesn't, so far as I know, but it's going to end up in a company's policy due to (PCI | HIPAA | Insurance | Customer requirements | it was in the template) and therefore has to be enforced to pass audits.
- sbierwagen 7y ago
  As that Wikipedia article notes, prohibiting questions about criminal records makes employers substantially less likely to hire African-Americans, since race is a strong proxy for arrest rate: https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/133/1/191/4060073?redirectedFrom=fulltext https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/133/1/191/4060...
  - cameronbrown 7y ago
    We have to break the cycle at some point.
- jstarfish 7y ago
  I've even seen some that asked if you were ever arrested and the reason, whether or not you were even charged with any crime. It's nuts.
chongli 7y ago
Society is caught up in a long-running debate over whether the purpose of justice is rehabilitation or retribution. The contradictions you see are the result. Neither side is particularly happy with the outcome, mind you, but I see no obvious way to break the impasse. Additionally, there is an element of risk-aversion among employers. Why take a risk on hiring an ex-con when you can hire someone without a record for the same effort/cost?
- nradov 7y ago
  The primary purpose of incarceration is not rehabilitation or retribution, but rather crime prevention. Convicts aren't out committing more crimes (at least not among the general public).
  - chongli 7y ago
    That's incarceration. My comment is about justice in general. Incarceration is only one of many avenues of justice. Others include capital punishment, corporal punishment, fines, asset forfeiture, exile, expulsion from school, or registration on a public list (such as the sex-offender registry). The effects of all of these vary widely, and many of them have very long-running debates on their merits (or lack thereof). I think it's premature to claim that any one of these concepts has a primary purpose, let alone a universally agreed-upon one.
- kstenerud 7y ago
  America is caught up in a long-running debate, but most civilized countries have gotten past this, or at the very least does far better.
JimmyAustin 7y ago
Blocking access to a former convicts records isn't enough. In a world of social media and google, a black hole in your resume of time while you were inside stands out. An alternate solution might to give prisoners the ability to open access to their records. Yes, you committed crime X, but the records at the prison show that you kept your head down and did X qualifications. The reason people don't hire prisoners is that it comes with risk. If we open up information, you can lower that risk.
- rifung 7y ago
  Alternatively we could just make it a protected class like we do with age/sex/race. That has its own issues but at least it'd be consistent.
  - JimmyAustin 7y ago
    Protected classes are typically things that people cant change about themselves, which largely doesn't apply to people who have been convicted of crimes. It also has the downside of not allowing employers to avoid hiring people who have committed crimes in relation to their occupation. I might be fine hiring someone who embezzled as a software engineer, but I probably wouldn't hire them as my CFO.
    - megous 7y ago
      They can't change the fact that they did something in the past. But that shouldn't be the reason alone to make it a protected class.
cortesoft 7y ago
I mean, we incarcerate people for two reasons... to protect society from criminals and to deter others from being criminals. How good the system works is up for debate, but that is the idea. Why would providing people info on past incarceration history be contrary to either of those goals?
closeparen 7y ago
There are several theories of criminal punishment [0]. Much ink is spilled debunking rehabilitation and deterrence, but from what I can tell, incapacitation fits like a glove. Reducing access to positions of trust is as much a part of that as restricting movement. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punishment#Possible_reasons_for_punishment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punishment#Possible_reasons_fo...
WalterBright 7y ago
If you hire a delivery man for your company, and he's an ex-con, and he assaults someone while on the job, you're extra liable for hiring an ex-con. It should not be allowed in court to use the fact that someone has paid their debt to society to punish the company that hired them.
- megous 7y ago
  If the records was not public, it would not be possible to punish the company, so this can't be the reason.
SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
Most states do offer a program to truly clean your slate, restricting access to your record to only law enforcement, but those programs have pretty strict requirements. People don't think you deserve a clean slate just because you managed to serve a jail sentence. We incarcerate people because we have to do something and incarceration is something. Nobody thinks it's ideal, to force a bunch of criminals to hang out with only other criminals and expect their criminal tendencies to somehow go away. But it's not obvious what a better alternative would be.
- ekianjo 7y ago
  Putting criminals away and making them lose years behind bars is at least helpful to reduce their penchant for violence as violent crimes tend to more likely in your younger years. 50-60 years old dudes killing people make headlines as outliers because they are not common at all. So yeah, not ideal, but aging people out of violence still kind of works.
Ididntdothis 7y ago
My company once fired an intern after a month because the background check turned out bad. The guy was perfectly normal and it seems everybody regretted it but due to liability concerns there is a policy that ex-cons don't get hired.
Noos 7y ago
Because the employer deserves to know so they can weigh the risk adequately. It's up to them whether or not they want to bet on Convict A not committing another crime. And it a decent risk.

donarb 7y ago

It's not that employers have access to your criminal record. It's more that employers have routinely asked on employment applications if you've ever been convicted of a crime or been incarcerated. That has led to movements such as "Ban the Box", which aims to remove the checkbox on applications that ask that question. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ban_the_Box https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ban_the_Box

delfinom 7y ago
Many times, that question is because of insurance companies doing stupid shit (i.e. they factor in the chance a former convict may reoffend and do so at your workplace). Shit, my company didn't even have a drug & alcohol "testing if you are suspected" policy until a few years ago when we switched insurance companies. And companies really have no choice but to do what the insurer says because the options are slim.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  Presumably, the “stupid shit” insurance companies do allows them to offer competitive premiums compared to other insurance companies, allowing them to stay in business. The solution would be to forbid all insurers from factoring in former convictions from calculated premiums.
Spooky23 7y ago
It’s something that you are allowed to discriminate on at hiring, but can get in trouble for later. Some contracts also make it difficult for companies to do business with them if they hire someone with a criminal record. Government contracts in particular.
- skissane 7y ago
  Also can be an issue if you do business with the finance sector. Finance sector companies (especially banks) have a lot of concern about theft and fraud, and one of the ways they try to mitigate this risk is by having policies restricting the employment of people who have criminal records for theft and fraud. (If you've done it before, you are more likely to do it again.) Often, those policies will be extended to apply to vendors. So vendors will be asked to ensure that none of their employees working for that client have a criminal record for those sort of offences. They usually satisfy this requirement by running background checks during the hiring process.
  - tbyehl 7y ago
    And PCI DSS requires background checks. And HIPAA. SSAE16 / SOC technically doesn't, so far as I know, but it's going to end up in a company's policy due to (PCI | HIPAA | Insurance | Customer requirements | it was in the template) and therefore has to be enforced to pass audits.
sbierwagen 7y ago
As that Wikipedia article notes, prohibiting questions about criminal records makes employers substantially less likely to hire African-Americans, since race is a strong proxy for arrest rate: https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/133/1/191/4060073?redirectedFrom=fulltext https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/133/1/191/4060...
- cameronbrown 7y ago
  We have to break the cycle at some point.
jstarfish 7y ago
I've even seen some that asked if you were ever arrested and the reason, whether or not you were even charged with any crime. It's nuts.

chongli 7y ago

Society is caught up in a long-running debate over whether the purpose of justice is rehabilitation or retribution. The contradictions you see are the result. Neither side is particularly happy with the outcome, mind you, but I see no obvious way to break the impasse. Additionally, there is an element of risk-aversion among employers. Why take a risk on hiring an ex-con when you can hire someone without a record for the same effort/cost?

nradov 7y ago
The primary purpose of incarceration is not rehabilitation or retribution, but rather crime prevention. Convicts aren't out committing more crimes (at least not among the general public).
- chongli 7y ago
  That's incarceration. My comment is about justice in general. Incarceration is only one of many avenues of justice. Others include capital punishment, corporal punishment, fines, asset forfeiture, exile, expulsion from school, or registration on a public list (such as the sex-offender registry). The effects of all of these vary widely, and many of them have very long-running debates on their merits (or lack thereof). I think it's premature to claim that any one of these concepts has a primary purpose, let alone a universally agreed-upon one.
kstenerud 7y ago
America is caught up in a long-running debate, but most civilized countries have gotten past this, or at the very least does far better.

JimmyAustin 7y ago

Blocking access to a former convicts records isn't enough. In a world of social media and google, a black hole in your resume of time while you were inside stands out. An alternate solution might to give prisoners the ability to open access to their records. Yes, you committed crime X, but the records at the prison show that you kept your head down and did X qualifications. The reason people don't hire prisoners is that it comes with risk. If we open up information, you can lower that risk.

rifung 7y ago
Alternatively we could just make it a protected class like we do with age/sex/race. That has its own issues but at least it'd be consistent.
- JimmyAustin 7y ago
  Protected classes are typically things that people cant change about themselves, which largely doesn't apply to people who have been convicted of crimes. It also has the downside of not allowing employers to avoid hiring people who have committed crimes in relation to their occupation. I might be fine hiring someone who embezzled as a software engineer, but I probably wouldn't hire them as my CFO.
  - megous 7y ago
    They can't change the fact that they did something in the past. But that shouldn't be the reason alone to make it a protected class.

cortesoft 7y ago

I mean, we incarcerate people for two reasons... to protect society from criminals and to deter others from being criminals. How good the system works is up for debate, but that is the idea. Why would providing people info on past incarceration history be contrary to either of those goals?

closeparen 7y ago

There are several theories of criminal punishment [0]. Much ink is spilled debunking rehabilitation and deterrence, but from what I can tell, incapacitation fits like a glove. Reducing access to positions of trust is as much a part of that as restricting movement. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punishment#Possible_reasons_for_punishment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punishment#Possible_reasons_fo...

WalterBright 7y ago

If you hire a delivery man for your company, and he's an ex-con, and he assaults someone while on the job, you're extra liable for hiring an ex-con. It should not be allowed in court to use the fact that someone has paid their debt to society to punish the company that hired them.

megous 7y ago
If the records was not public, it would not be possible to punish the company, so this can't be the reason.

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago

Most states do offer a program to truly clean your slate, restricting access to your record to only law enforcement, but those programs have pretty strict requirements. People don't think you deserve a clean slate just because you managed to serve a jail sentence. We incarcerate people because we have to do something and incarceration is something. Nobody thinks it's ideal, to force a bunch of criminals to hang out with only other criminals and expect their criminal tendencies to somehow go away. But it's not obvious what a better alternative would be.

ekianjo 7y ago
Putting criminals away and making them lose years behind bars is at least helpful to reduce their penchant for violence as violent crimes tend to more likely in your younger years. 50-60 years old dudes killing people make headlines as outliers because they are not common at all. So yeah, not ideal, but aging people out of violence still kind of works.

Ididntdothis 7y ago

My company once fired an intern after a month because the background check turned out bad. The guy was perfectly normal and it seems everybody regretted it but due to liability concerns there is a policy that ex-cons don't get hired.

Noos 7y ago

Because the employer deserves to know so they can weigh the risk adequately. It's up to them whether or not they want to bet on Convict A not committing another crime. And it a decent risk.