In previous centuries, there were plenty of jobs with low trust requirements - chiefly, unskilled manual labor. A criminal record wasn’t such a barrier to that type of employment. Someone could spend time in prison, and then still find work on the outside. Not great work perhaps, but a living - a way forward for them, to re-integrate back into society. A way to slowly rebuild trust.
The shift away from unskilled manual labor towards higher-skilled, higher-impact jobs, raises the trust bar, locking out those with criminal records, leaving them few opportunities to re-integrate with the mainstream economy, and an incentive to fall further into the criminal economy.
> In previous centuries, there were plenty of jobs with low trust requirements
These still exist in the modern era, primarily in industries with high turnover like the restaurant industry, farm labor, and other unsavory industries such as meat processing.
From what I've read and heard, most truck driving jobs (every thing from rollback/tow trucks to long distance OTR) are full of ex-cons or ASPD type individuals-- it may even be a pre-requisite for towing companies.
Day labor like roofing, sheetrock, landscaping, etc. also typically have similar representation. Any temp agency for factory work will have a threshold or types of conviction that they will overlook, but they may be even more hostile towards their workers.
I wonder if the growing number of WFH jobs would help alleviate this. I'm a software engineer who mostly works from home. We sell (mostly) support for OSS. This seems like a situation where an ex-con might have an opportunity.
This misses the point. There's an obvious solution: disallow employers (except in outlier cases where there are safety concerns) from using criminal background checks in hiring decisions.
Helping people with criminal records get jobs is good.
Letting then vote is also a good first step.
The focus should be on helping them -before- they end up
with a criminal conviction of some sort on their permanent
record.
Sadly we are engineering society to be less
and less compatible for young men and this will
only get worse over time.
And then these angry young men get older they beget their own angry young men.
Everyone is not compatible with sitting still and shutting up for 4 - 8 hours a day for 12 years + uni. (And far more men than women are incompatible).
That this has become the common requirement in society is a growing issue.
We need a way to productively allow these men to partake in society
at their own terms, or at least a lot closer to it than we are now.
That means creating jobs and frameworks that are compatible.
Crime is natural choice.
It a great outlet for adrenaline and aggression and asserting ones
freedom from the chains of society. It is dangerous, sometimes
lethal. and looking good for the ladies. (or other men)
You even make easy money, (a lot of t, if you happen to be among
the 1% of criminals). It is a highly compatible venture.
Instead of inventing new psychological diagnosis and inventing an
ever bigger stream of pharmaceuticals meant to neuter them and
force compliance we should do the opposite.
I'm always amazed that some Western countries don't let former convicts vote. In Serbia even current convicts can vote, atleast in republic level elections, not sure about local elections.
"By age 35, 64% of unemployed men have been arrested and 46% have been convicted of a crime, with the rates varying only slightly by race and ethnicity."
Well, executing criminals for minor offenses seems to be out of fashion.[1] Transportation to Australia or Siberia is no longer an option. There's no frontier to ship them off to. And the US military doesn't want criminals; each soldier today has too much firepower.
There are ways back, but it's hard to scale them. Delancey Street Restaurant in SF is staffed by ex-cons. (I recommend the chicken.)
It's idealistic but hear me out. Think of all the minor things in your neighborhood or town/village/city/parish/etc. that need to be fixed. Potholes, poor road markings, overgrown or unmaintained greenery. Uneven sidewalks. Litter, grime.
Think of the local government or contracted services that are understaffed. New construction and renovation. Forest management, wetlands management, park maintenance. Homeless shelters and soup kitchens and community centers. Crossing guards and bus drivers.
Many of these are run by organizations that restrict felons, or perversely use convicts nearly exclusively via prison release programs and monitored community service.
Does the military consider criminal records even for support jobs? Theres a very broad variety of military jobs outside of being a solider, and the military offers structure, potential long term friendships with people from different backgrounds, a long term career based on good behavior, or a launching pad into a wide variety of other post-military jobs. I know it's not glamorous work but reliable and well respected throughout a broad part of American society.
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.
One of the few 501(c)3's I will give money to is an organization that helps offenders go straight when they get out of jail and I see my name on a very short list of private donors.
In the 1990s I was a victim of what I would call "Domestic Terrorism", the ringleader of the group didn't go to prison for his actions against me and other people at my college but I did hear that he went to prison for drug charges not long after.
I still haven't forgiven the college administrator who chose not to take action against this person (would that person have said "there is nothing they can do" if his daughter was the victim?) but if I heard the ringleader of that gang had gotten out of prison and managed to find work and stay out of trouble I would want to shake his hand because that is something that is against the odds and so hard to do.
Forgiveness can be extremely difficult; well done for recognizing that your individual experiences aren't a reason to restrict the opportunities of others - that's more than many people are able to manage.
Why does a college administrator have anything to do with whether the legal system would prosecute someone in a criminal matter where you were the victim?
This is why I find the German system so civilized:
Nobody but you, the police, and the courts have access to your criminal record.
Nobody but the police has access to your arrest record.
Nobody is allowed to publish your name in relation to reports of arrests or convictions, or collect such data.
Employers can request from you a criminal record check (because you're the only one who can order one), but this is only done for the most sensitive of jobs and only for relevent offences.
You can also have most offences expunged from your record after a time.
Thus, you don't end up spending the rest of your life wearing a scarlet letter.
They need to study deeper, why these young men engage in criminal activities in the first place, only to find themselves arrested and later ineligible for any job.
Do they think that benefits from criminal activities outweigh the risks of being caught and not being able to pass any background check for entire life?
First step if to stop young men from engaging in criminal behavior, to stop feeding jails with fresh blood so to speak.
Next step is rehabilitation program for previously convicted felons, does the current program work or not, how it can be improved?
You can’t just ask businesses to stop doing background checks and employ convicted felons and hope they will not embezzle funds from their new employer. The risk is too high.
> They need to study deeper, why these young men engage in criminal activities in the first place, only to find themselves arrested and later ineligible for any job.
To be fair, almost all of the young men I knew growing up (in an affluent chunk of society) engaged in what were then criminal activities. Almost nobody established a criminal record because everyone was wealthy enough to be insulated from law enforcement (they could do the criminal activities in parents' basements and college dorms).
Maybe part of the issue is that many non-harmful behaviors have been criminalized.
> You can’t just ask businesses to stop doing background checks and employ convicted felons and hope they will not embezzle funds from their new employer. The risk is too high.
How many felons, or rather what classes of felony, make you think that they will embezzle money? And what percentage of jobs have embezzlement as an option?
Like, are you worried that the person caught with (felony amount of marijuana) is going to embezzle (any amount of money) from their employer if they are hired as a (fry cook)?
Now, if you're saying that hiring a white collar criminal as an auditor is obviously bad.
> You can’t just ask businesses to stop doing background checks and employ convicted felons and hope they will not embezzle funds from their new employer. The risk is too high.
No, you can't.
The problem is that the criminal history prevents employment for life, not just for the few years while someone is getting back on their feet after jail.
For example, when I was in college, my fraternity paid our cook cash. He (the cook) always seemed to have side-hustles or was picking up odd cooking jobs.
After I got to know him for a few years, he told me that he was convicted approximately 20 years prior for cocaine distribution. He implied that he had a lot when he was caught. Then he told me he couldn't get a normal job because of his record.
My point is that, after a certain period of time with no recidivism, (maybe 5 years,) the criminal record should not be a barrier to general employment.
Having just done 8 years inside, I saw the split two ways: (1) a lot of people with a huge variety of undiagnosed mental health issues that made regular jobs difficult; and (2) those that had been indoctrinated since birth to believe that working a regular job was a loser path and that gaining income through crime was the only route acceptable due to peer pressure.
It is not so cut and dry. In my experience, most criminal activity in the is done by people who don't really feel like they belong in our society. This could be because of their race/ethnicity or because of addiction or because of some trauma which left them feeling like an outcast.
If we look at the issue through this lens it becomes obvious that when one feels like they don't belong to a society then there is little perceived value in playing by the rules since nobody else seems to be doing so.
This trap is especially easy to fall into when you are young.
> You can’t just ask businesses to stop doing background checks and employ convicted felons and hope they will not embezzle funds from their new employer. The risk is too high.
There is a reasonable solution to this, and it's "ban the box" or "fair chance hiring" laws. These laws make it illegal to perform background checks prior to making a conditional offer. The best ones make companies provide substantive, written justification for turning someone down after a background check, provide avenues for appeal, and make the companies front the legal fees so it doesn't just turn into a game of Who Has The Most Money. They still allow employers to reject candidates for whom there are legitimate concerns. But they give candidates, as the name says, a fair chance.
You can’t just ask businesses to stop doing background checks and employ convicted felons and hope they will not embezzle funds from their new employer. The risk is too high.
You can, actually. Businesses exist at the pleasure of the state and the state can fix these problems. Unfortunately, we've been run by right-wing enablers and crooks (in the sense of unethical rule-breakers, not people with criminal records) for so long, we've forgotten that the left has been proposing workable solutions to these problems for decades.
Unless physical safety is at risk, nothing in a person's past should ever be made a legal reason to deny someone a job. If companies want to stay independent, they should be decent. Otherwise, nationalize them and run them as utilities.
Maybe I'm nuts, but I don't think a person's record should be available. Maybe in extreme circumstances, like they're still a danger to those around them, but beyond that, once the sentence has been completed it should be 100% back to normal.
As in anything, some middle-ground is where things generally sit.
The no record available once the sentence is completed is fine until someone gets killed or their daughter raped by someone with extensive criminal record of things not related to murder or rape.
The unfortunate reality is, a certain type of people will continue to commit crimes all their life and many of them aren't even premeditated, it's a "it just happened" thing.
Having said that, a "no second chances for anyone" approach would have the same results as the secret records approach you described. IMO most of the crime problems are attached to the culture and their vicious cycles, but that's an ultra-radioactive topic and every discussion easily goes south, so, just another day I guess..
If “Black men” is capitalized, shouldn’t it be “White men” also, except where one is referring to a man that is the color white, for example due to having been painted?
1. Rising in impact, so employers simply have to rank candidates mercilessly, ...
Think: Creatives, White Color Workers, Executives, ...
2. ... Or becoming homogenized in order to be easily scalable and easily replaceable, so employers have no incentive not to weed mercilessly
Think: Driver, Warehouse Worker, Restaurant/Retail Chain Employees of all Kinds, Low Level Managers, ...
This is natural trend for LOCAL-OPTIMIZED action in an economic system continually optimizing for efficiency. Trust is a huge efficiency.
But while I am a fan of ever rising standards, GLOBAL OPTIMIZATION of the economy requires rising standards to be coupled with on-ramps and advancement support. So people can also efficiently rise to those higher standards.
Easily identifiable on-ramps, and self-advancement opportunities are important for those with lack of experience, and overlooked talents, but also victims of inequitable or self-inflicted history.
Acceptance of dead ends for people creates immediate local problems (unemployment, family stress), but also metastasizes into global societal problems (political instability, tribalism, crime, less capable work force, less wealthy consumer class, retirement problems, social support oversubscription, etc).
> "Employers need to understand that one big reason they cannot find the workers they need is too often, they exclude those who have had involvement with the criminal justice system,"
Pretentious academics need to understand that one big reason employers exclude those who have involvment with the criminal justice system is because they have a history of criminal behavior.
This is horrifying. You have a huge number of disfranchised people, who can't normally participate in society -- they can't get a job, they can't a mate. On this path lies radicalization and violence. I'm not sure you understand how truly chilling this is. These people, with nothing to lose, absolutely nothing to lose, have easy access to weapons and ammunition.
You are sitting on a very very large powder keg and it will take just one spark, one charismatic leader, to unite them and blow the whole shebang up.
It has already happened, notice how any BLM type protest quickly erupts into looting and chaos at dusk. Also organized retail crime in San Francisco, train theft in Los Angeles, crime gangs in south Chicago, etc.
Defunding police also serves them well to run rampant crime without the fear of prosecution for their crimes
A criminal record in a database forever is a punishment that isn't talked about. When someone files bankruptcy, they are only punished for 7 years then the record is dropped.
Once you are labeled a criminal, you carry that mark for life. It's easy to see how that could cause resentment and anger and lashing out.
I think there should be time limits on criminal records just like there are time limits on jail time.
OK, let's start by saying that this is specifically for US young men. And since the USA has a higher percentage of citizens either behind bars or having been inside this is not so surprising. Other developed countries support the unemployed, so they're much less likely to commit crime to survive.
See, this is why in my ideal society the cronically criminal are put for life in gulags. This mind simply can't coexist with nirmal people in modern society.
[+] [-] jl6|4 years ago|reply
The shift away from unskilled manual labor towards higher-skilled, higher-impact jobs, raises the trust bar, locking out those with criminal records, leaving them few opportunities to re-integrate with the mainstream economy, and an incentive to fall further into the criminal economy.
[+] [-] chaostheory|4 years ago|reply
These still exist in the modern era, primarily in industries with high turnover like the restaurant industry, farm labor, and other unsavory industries such as meat processing.
[+] [-] vgeek|4 years ago|reply
Day labor like roofing, sheetrock, landscaping, etc. also typically have similar representation. Any temp agency for factory work will have a threshold or types of conviction that they will overlook, but they may be even more hostile towards their workers.
[+] [-] deeg|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] earspider|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ThinkBeat|4 years ago|reply
The focus should be on helping them -before- they end up with a criminal conviction of some sort on their permanent record.
Sadly we are engineering society to be less and less compatible for young men and this will only get worse over time.
And then these angry young men get older they beget their own angry young men.
Everyone is not compatible with sitting still and shutting up for 4 - 8 hours a day for 12 years + uni. (And far more men than women are incompatible).
That this has become the common requirement in society is a growing issue.
We need a way to productively allow these men to partake in society at their own terms, or at least a lot closer to it than we are now. That means creating jobs and frameworks that are compatible.
Crime is natural choice.
It a great outlet for adrenaline and aggression and asserting ones freedom from the chains of society. It is dangerous, sometimes lethal. and looking good for the ladies. (or other men)
You even make easy money, (a lot of t, if you happen to be among the 1% of criminals). It is a highly compatible venture.
Instead of inventing new psychological diagnosis and inventing an ever bigger stream of pharmaceuticals meant to neuter them and force compliance we should do the opposite.
Recognise it as a resource for society.
[+] [-] darebak|4 years ago|reply
I'm always amazed that some Western countries don't let former convicts vote. In Serbia even current convicts can vote, atleast in republic level elections, not sure about local elections.
[+] [-] lachstar-x|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Animats|4 years ago|reply
Well, executing criminals for minor offenses seems to be out of fashion.[1] Transportation to Australia or Siberia is no longer an option. There's no frontier to ship them off to. And the US military doesn't want criminals; each soldier today has too much firepower.
There are ways back, but it's hard to scale them. Delancey Street Restaurant in SF is staffed by ex-cons. (I recommend the chicken.)
[1] https://www.nationaljusticemuseum.org.uk/museum/news/what-wa...
[+] [-] jimmygrapes|4 years ago|reply
Think of the local government or contracted services that are understaffed. New construction and renovation. Forest management, wetlands management, park maintenance. Homeless shelters and soup kitchens and community centers. Crossing guards and bus drivers.
Many of these are run by organizations that restrict felons, or perversely use convicts nearly exclusively via prison release programs and monitored community service.
Why not open these up more?
[+] [-] kylehotchkiss|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tyingq|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] PaulHoule|4 years ago|reply
In the 1990s I was a victim of what I would call "Domestic Terrorism", the ringleader of the group didn't go to prison for his actions against me and other people at my college but I did hear that he went to prison for drug charges not long after.
I still haven't forgiven the college administrator who chose not to take action against this person (would that person have said "there is nothing they can do" if his daughter was the victim?) but if I heard the ringleader of that gang had gotten out of prison and managed to find work and stay out of trouble I would want to shake his hand because that is something that is against the odds and so hard to do.
[+] [-] jka|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simmanian|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jevoten|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daniel-cussen|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gjs278|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Terry_Roll|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] kstenerud|4 years ago|reply
Nobody but you, the police, and the courts have access to your criminal record.
Nobody but the police has access to your arrest record.
Nobody is allowed to publish your name in relation to reports of arrests or convictions, or collect such data.
Employers can request from you a criminal record check (because you're the only one who can order one), but this is only done for the most sensitive of jobs and only for relevent offences.
You can also have most offences expunged from your record after a time.
Thus, you don't end up spending the rest of your life wearing a scarlet letter.
[+] [-] slt2021|4 years ago|reply
Do they think that benefits from criminal activities outweigh the risks of being caught and not being able to pass any background check for entire life?
First step if to stop young men from engaging in criminal behavior, to stop feeding jails with fresh blood so to speak.
Next step is rehabilitation program for previously convicted felons, does the current program work or not, how it can be improved?
You can’t just ask businesses to stop doing background checks and employ convicted felons and hope they will not embezzle funds from their new employer. The risk is too high.
[+] [-] InitialLastName|4 years ago|reply
To be fair, almost all of the young men I knew growing up (in an affluent chunk of society) engaged in what were then criminal activities. Almost nobody established a criminal record because everyone was wealthy enough to be insulated from law enforcement (they could do the criminal activities in parents' basements and college dorms).
Maybe part of the issue is that many non-harmful behaviors have been criminalized.
[+] [-] HWR_14|4 years ago|reply
How many felons, or rather what classes of felony, make you think that they will embezzle money? And what percentage of jobs have embezzlement as an option?
Like, are you worried that the person caught with (felony amount of marijuana) is going to embezzle (any amount of money) from their employer if they are hired as a (fry cook)?
Now, if you're saying that hiring a white collar criminal as an auditor is obviously bad.
[+] [-] gwbas1c|4 years ago|reply
No, you can't.
The problem is that the criminal history prevents employment for life, not just for the few years while someone is getting back on their feet after jail.
For example, when I was in college, my fraternity paid our cook cash. He (the cook) always seemed to have side-hustles or was picking up odd cooking jobs.
After I got to know him for a few years, he told me that he was convicted approximately 20 years prior for cocaine distribution. He implied that he had a lot when he was caught. Then he told me he couldn't get a normal job because of his record.
My point is that, after a certain period of time with no recidivism, (maybe 5 years,) the criminal record should not be a barrier to general employment.
[+] [-] kingcharles|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ilovetux|4 years ago|reply
If we look at the issue through this lens it becomes obvious that when one feels like they don't belong to a society then there is little perceived value in playing by the rules since nobody else seems to be doing so.
This trap is especially easy to fall into when you are young.
[+] [-] _moof|4 years ago|reply
There is a reasonable solution to this, and it's "ban the box" or "fair chance hiring" laws. These laws make it illegal to perform background checks prior to making a conditional offer. The best ones make companies provide substantive, written justification for turning someone down after a background check, provide avenues for appeal, and make the companies front the legal fees so it doesn't just turn into a game of Who Has The Most Money. They still allow employers to reject candidates for whom there are legitimate concerns. But they give candidates, as the name says, a fair chance.
https://www.nelp.org/publication/ban-the-box-fair-chance-hir...
[+] [-] earspider|4 years ago|reply
You can, actually. Businesses exist at the pleasure of the state and the state can fix these problems. Unfortunately, we've been run by right-wing enablers and crooks (in the sense of unethical rule-breakers, not people with criminal records) for so long, we've forgotten that the left has been proposing workable solutions to these problems for decades.
Unless physical safety is at risk, nothing in a person's past should ever be made a legal reason to deny someone a job. If companies want to stay independent, they should be decent. Otherwise, nationalize them and run them as utilities.
[+] [-] betwixthewires|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PedroBatista|4 years ago|reply
The no record available once the sentence is completed is fine until someone gets killed or their daughter raped by someone with extensive criminal record of things not related to murder or rape.
The unfortunate reality is, a certain type of people will continue to commit crimes all their life and many of them aren't even premeditated, it's a "it just happened" thing.
Having said that, a "no second chances for anyone" approach would have the same results as the secret records approach you described. IMO most of the crime problems are attached to the culture and their vicious cycles, but that's an ultra-radioactive topic and every discussion easily goes south, so, just another day I guess..
[+] [-] enterthematrix|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] da39a3ee|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Nevermark|4 years ago|reply
1. Rising in impact, so employers simply have to rank candidates mercilessly, ...
Think: Creatives, White Color Workers, Executives, ...
2. ... Or becoming homogenized in order to be easily scalable and easily replaceable, so employers have no incentive not to weed mercilessly
Think: Driver, Warehouse Worker, Restaurant/Retail Chain Employees of all Kinds, Low Level Managers, ...
This is natural trend for LOCAL-OPTIMIZED action in an economic system continually optimizing for efficiency. Trust is a huge efficiency.
But while I am a fan of ever rising standards, GLOBAL OPTIMIZATION of the economy requires rising standards to be coupled with on-ramps and advancement support. So people can also efficiently rise to those higher standards.
Easily identifiable on-ramps, and self-advancement opportunities are important for those with lack of experience, and overlooked talents, but also victims of inequitable or self-inflicted history.
Acceptance of dead ends for people creates immediate local problems (unemployment, family stress), but also metastasizes into global societal problems (political instability, tribalism, crime, less capable work force, less wealthy consumer class, retirement problems, social support oversubscription, etc).
[+] [-] grammarnazzzi|4 years ago|reply
Pretentious academics need to understand that one big reason employers exclude those who have involvment with the criminal justice system is because they have a history of criminal behavior.
[+] [-] GeoAtreides|4 years ago|reply
You are sitting on a very very large powder keg and it will take just one spark, one charismatic leader, to unite them and blow the whole shebang up.
Act now before it's too late.
[+] [-] slt2021|4 years ago|reply
Defunding police also serves them well to run rampant crime without the fear of prosecution for their crimes
[+] [-] dahfizz|4 years ago|reply
Isn't it illegal to buy a gun if you have a felony?
Putting aside the whole "they're criminals, they don't follow the law". Unless that was your point
[+] [-] frogperson|4 years ago|reply
Once you are labeled a criminal, you carry that mark for life. It's easy to see how that could cause resentment and anger and lashing out.
I think there should be time limits on criminal records just like there are time limits on jail time.
[+] [-] steelstraw|4 years ago|reply
It's crazy to me that this hasn't been done.
[+] [-] Perenti|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rurban|4 years ago|reply
> a stigma that poses a barrier to them participating in the nation's labor force.
No, it poses a barrier to them participating in elections. That's the idea behind their racist politics-police-court system.
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] hogrider|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RickJWagner|4 years ago|reply
Here's where the solution lies. Strong families make the bedrock of a strong society.