4 ms·
At least in the US one thing that has made this worse is universal cheap access to criminal background checks. That didn't used to exist, so a criminal backgr
by tyingq 5y ago
At least in the US one thing that has made this worse is universal cheap access to criminal background checks. That didn't used to exist, so a criminal background blocked access to jobs with big companies that could do background checks. But, you could get a job at smaller companies. That's gone now...a criminal background gets a "no" from almost everyone.
Other countries have a system where some government agency provides a "does this person have any past offenses relevant to this job?" service. Where they look at the type of job, any criminal history, and make sure the specific criminal history isn't an issue for the type of job being sought.
- WalterBright 5y agoYeah, I wouldn't want a former embezzler in a bookkeeping job at my company.
- bombcar 5y agoThat's the point - a former embezzler being hired as a plumber is different than hiring them as a bookkeeper. However, until the employees are more scarce than jobs, there's no reason to hire an ex-con and every reason to skip over them (bureaucratically speaking). To counter that you'd need to offer incentives TO hire them - tax write-offs or something, or liability protections. Or you have to expunge records at some point, which is another issue because that only affects government records, not other things background checks may find.
- WalterBright 5y agoThere's another reason why companies don't want to hire felons - liability. I've seen many companies successfully sued over the years because one of their employees committed a crime against a customer. The lawsuit was because the company hired an ex-con. To get companies to hire ex-cons, liability laws need to be amended to protect companies from that sort of liability.
- bombcar 5y agoYeah - hence the liability issue. There’s have to be some sort of bonus but is should be workable - something like if the company follows procedure and hires an excon who later commits a crime they’re not liable. Or just let the state hire them all as they can immunize themselves from prosecution.
- chrisseaton 5y agoWhat's the alternative to public conviction information? Secret trials?
- Zak 5y agoSome countries have a concept of a right to be forgotten. After a certain amount of time passes, information about criminal convictions is no longer public; disseminating such information is generally illegal; making employment decisions based on it is also illegal. It's not airtight, but it wouldn't need to be to alleviate the problem. It would restrict what mainstream background check providers could offer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten
- chrisseaton 5y agoSounds a bit dystopian requiring everyone to pretend that a trial never took place when people know it did?
- mjevans 5y agoIt is dystopian to be sentenced to social death without any chance of reform. All the more so if we can ever figure out the medical stuff and live a lot longer and/or repair injury and defect that might hinder rational thought. There's got to be a method for redemption and being recognized as redeemed. The issue today is that hiring processes are not really fair, they can't be objectively run with subjective measures and random entropy pools. If hiring were fair and redeemed people treated the same as never convicted people then there wouldn't be a need for the EU's current bandaid.
- chrisseaton 5y ago> There's got to be a method for redemption and being recognized as redeemed. Surely forgiveness, rather than feigned amnesia?
- 5y ago
- jsnodlin 5y ago