Need a job to stay out of prison; denied jobs for having been in prison. Such is the dilemma for the 600,000 prisoners released from state and federal prisons in 2012…
Countless more prisoners are released from local and county jails to the same debilitating circumstances. It’s no wonder that 65% of California’s ex-cons wind up back in jail within three years, according to a report by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. In an increasingly competitive job market, employers are quick to dismiss ex-cons’ applications to avoid the opportunity cost of hiring and training a potentially unreliable or incompetent employee.
However, the method by which these unreliable or incompetent applicants’ resumes are filtered out is startlingly lazy. A simple checkbox affirming one’s having been arrested or convicted for a crime (even those wrongly arrested) is keeping these hundreds of thousands of ex-cons out of work — and back in jail.
Some states have taken action to help curb the barring of ex-cons from work. Hawaii, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and Connecticut have removed “the box” from their public job applications, and Massachusetts has taken a further step and required private employers to remove “the box”. Corporations like Target and Walmart have begun to remove “the box” from their initial job applications.
As these actions have only recently been taken, it is difficult to tell if they will help ex-cons integrate into society and stay out of jail. Some supporters of “the box” include specialized employers like daycare centers and private security firms, who argue that it makes sense to filter out ex-cons convicted of certain crimes.
As “ban the box” movements gain momentum across the country, legislators and petitioners both must be sure to draft reasonable laws that can effectively reduce systematic discrimination against ex-cons while allowing employers bar certain ex-cons from sensitive positions.
Text by: Bobby Woo
Jam the Revolving Door 