Should you be able to escape your past?

The Seattle City Council recently passed an ordinance forbidding questions about criminal history on initial applications. In later rounds of the hiring process it can be asked, but the idea is that many employers won't even read an application if the 'Convicted of a Felony' box has been checked. At least this way the application will be read. This should help improve the employment opportunities of released felons and reduce their recidivism rate, at least that is the theory.

Thoughts?

http://crosscut.com/2013/06/11/seat...ouncil-changes-rules-employee-background-che/

It doesn't matter if it's asked. Once you're in the data base(es) your potential employer can screen your record that way.

For example (though this is military not civilian) a relative of mine can't get in the Navy because at 14 years old (weighing in at 90 pounds with a 50" reach) he struck a 40 year-old man in the face during a domestic incident. The man was his mom's drunken shitbag of a boyfriend. In shitbags mugshot he doesn't evan have a mark on his face. Anyway, The kid was never even arrested, but the police did write up a report on the incident. Thus, the kid is in the data base, so the Navy considers him having "history of violence" and he can't get in.

Well, I know I have a hard time finding jobs because of shit that happened 20 years ago. Most warehouse and factory work is through temp agents now, so I'm screened out of 3/4ths of assignments without further consideration. It's also affected educational co-op placement possibilities.

My conviction record as an adult stands at a couple of minor pot possessions in college with my total incarceration measurable in hours. For this I've been barred from opportunities most folks wouldn't want.

Out of curiosity, was his dismissal sometime in the last three years? 'Cause I was in boot camp with a girl that had been arrested TWICE for domestic violence against her BF/babydaddy. Granted, she was a reservist, but I would think even they need to be able to handle a weapon at some point.

If we're talking about 'should', then yes, absolutely, with the following understood:

If what you did was heinous enough that it can follow you around fucking up your opportunities for the rest of your life, you should still be in prison.

If what you did wasn't so bad that you're still in prison for it, it shouldn't be permissible for people to deny you opportunities over it. Because the way things are currently set up, recidivism is practically guaranteed when practically the only way you have to survive is to return to crime.

I don't know what you mean by "dismissal". He was never arrested or even charged. The police have a statement on the incident, and that's all he has against him. The incident was about 3-1/2 years ago when he was 14. As for the woman who had two DV arrests, the "loophole" is you have to be convicted for DV. If your job requires handling weapons (like police or military) it's a Federal law that you can't tote a gun anymore, thus you will be fired.

I have a bud (recently Army retired) who had a DM arrest but not conviction, and it held up his Security Clearance for years. So he played the "interim" clearance loophole because his clearance was under review for years until The Army forgot about it anyway. Also it depends on who is doing the clearance investigations. The government contracts this out these days.

I meant his dismissal from enlisting...which I was asking about, since all the branches have tightened up on waivers and are looking for any reason not to take a recruit. Even the program that I heard some states offer to kids in juvie to enlist to avoid for jail time is gone, and if you gradated from anywhere other than a traditional 4 yr high school, don't even waste your time.

I prefer higher quality recruits.

Except 'recruits' are probably what you call your shoes.

More likely is with the new rules, you'll be getting recruits of higher intelligence that will realize very early on in their careers that they can get much higher paying work on the outside than staying in. Because honestly, anyone that thinks outside the box or offers up new ways of doing shit is going to get fed up with the military really quickly.

In general, I think everyone not currently in prison (as others said above) deserves new chances in life. But the way this is set up, it doesn't make much sense to me.

First of all, if you can still consider a criminal record at a later stage, the law basically says you must not have information earlier because the government doesn't trust you to know whether you will consider it important later. That's stupid; adults should be trusted to regard or disregard all ultimately available information by their own judgement.

Secondly, aren't there already laws that allow you to erase your criminal record after a certain time? That is the case here in Germany. If so, let's not make another, different law in a different section with different conditions and timeframes. Overcomplicated laws only serve lawyers.

Every time I change teaching jobs, I'm required to undergo an FBI and state police background check (unless the jobs are in the same county and then the schools share records).

That hasn't been a problem. Though it is annoying that most schools make you pay for your own.

Stupid law. If an employer doesn't want to hire a convicted felon, the law just wastes their time.

If you don't want to have to cop to a felony on a job application, don't commit one. The burden shouldn't be on others for you to "escape" your past.

...then, he's so infantile he doesn't deserve clothes.

Thanks to this NSA stuff, everyone's going to be a felon.
Everyone.

The felon is the human of the future.
Better get with the times.

creating criminals creates employment. Private prisons are the stock to invest in.

Sorry, that should say "correctional service contractors".

and hey, Paladin's right. Why should someone who has paid their "debt to society" expect to be allowed to rejoin it. (White collar criminals may be excepted)

The whole "debt to society" thing is bullshit. If a person committed a crime, he has no debt "to society." It isn't a balance one pays off a day at a time sitting one's ass in prison. If there was any kind of debt, it would be to the person wronged/harmed by the crime. And, in fact, one's cost to society doesn't end with the crime because society still pays to house and feed the convict during his incarceration. Prison is punishment, not reimbursement. No accounts are settled, no injustice undone, no wrong righted.

And I'm not saying a convict has no right to "rejoin" society. Only that the law shouldn't allow him to do so while concealing important information about his past. It's especially silly in that the employer would not be allowed to ask about conviction history "in the first round" of hiring--as if the jobs most convicts are eligible for are going to go through elaborate vetting processes--but would be free to do so later.

I hear and understand the argument that owning up to their pasts may make life difficult for convicts and may be a factor in their going back to crime. I don't care. A businessowner shouldn't be gagged in order to help preclude that possibility.

Restraining someone else's freedom to speak and choose on the grounds that it might lead you to choose to act unlawfully is extortion. I shouldn't have to live with restraints because of circumstances YOU put yourself in.

There's also this to consider -- if you're going to get turned down for a job because of your past, it's better both for the employer and for the applicant that the applicant is turned away immediately so that both parties can continue the search for a good employment match, rather than after weeks of wasted time for both. And, really, it's not like it's the company that's going to be going hungry because they don't have one more guy in the back of the store unloading trucks. The applicant, on the other hand, is in a whole different situation.

I'll just say....

Jean Valjean

Maybe cap it with a certain number of years. Like "In the last three years have you been convicted of a felony?"

Then our criminal justice system is a lie.

Glad to see you coming around.

You're obviously far more dangerous than John Zawahri, who was banned from owning guns for a mere seven years following his hospitalization vs. imprisonment for repeated violent episodes.



As for the OP, it depends on what that "past" consists of. Assault, bodily harm, arson, manslaughter, murder should go on your Permanent Record. In an age where a pot bust follows someone around for life, and stealing an iPod is considered a felony, anything else should be negotiable.

With one exception: White collar crime that costs people their life savings. Life in general pop without parole.

I think it should depend on first & foremost, the crime committed, and how long ago, and then the type of job being applied for.

Saw this earlier and wanted to address this after I got home to a computer versus cell phone....

This is exactly the reason why reoffending rates are so high. Let's face it, the average run-of-the-mill criminal is not and was never in danger of becoming the next Bill Gates. Should someone in possession of an ounce of pot be forever barred from employment with McDonalds or Wal-Mart? As an employer at such locations, I'd be less inclined to hire someone with a repeated history of theft or the like.

That being said, Paladin brings up a good point about the rather arbitrary line in the sand at the initial application--everyone's history can be researched and looked up online now, so this is just silly. That and what JC mentioned about not wasting both parties' time with a job that the employer is going to dismiss him out of hand for anyway.

Of course it is.

Incarceration should be about punishment.

Do-gooders like to speak about "repaying debts to society" or "rehabilitation," but that's all bullshit. They've turned prisons into responsibility-free zones for people who thrive on avoiding responsibility. Recidivism is high because prison isn't a place the really hard assholes fear.

Spend 5 years in a comfortable cell with cable TV and the occasional conjugal visit? Easy.

Spend 5 years busting rocks in the hot sun? You'll never want to go back. Honest work starts looking appealing.

I'm not saying we should necessarily bring back chain gangs, but prison should be a place engineered to be an unpleasant experience. Someone who emerges from a stint in prison should be well-motivated to NEVER return.

...or we could go the Doc Savage route, and do brain surgery to cure evil, and reprogram the patient with a useful trade.

If only there was some place we could just dump all the criminals. A really, really big island, for instance. Maybe a really big island covered with big fackin' snikes.

It IS desirable to have a population of peaceful people who go about productive work, but not all methods of getting there are acceptable. For example, you might think giving to those less fortunate is virtuous, but forcing others to give is not virtuous. They didn't choose to do it.

Philosophically speaking, I think people should always have the CHOICE to be evil/unlawful/wrong. Doing the right thing loses its value if doing the wrong thing was never a possibility. In other words, there is no virtue if there is no vice.

I got fed up during the physical in 1975.

Yeah, those white collar country clubs are not exactly disincentivizing.

Incarceration for everyone else, though, in those 200-300% capacity corporate-run joints with the free nightly gang-rape, on the other hand...

Studies show 9/10 participants of gang rape enjoy it.