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May 2, 2011
"Internet Lets a Criminal Past Catch Up Quicker"
The title of this post is the headline of this recent New York Times piece, which includes these interesting passages with data on criminal histories and their potential employment impact:
The pool of Americans seeking jobs includes more people with criminal histories than ever before, a legacy in part of stiffer sentencing and increased enforcement for nonviolent crimes like drug offenses, criminal justice experts said. And each year, more than 700,000 people are released from state and federal prisons, a total that is expected to grow as states try to reduce the fiscal burden of their overcrowded penal institutions.
Almost 65 million Americans have some type of criminal record, either for an arrest or a conviction, according to a recent report by the National Employment Law Project, whose policy co-director, Maurice Emsellem, says that the figure is probably an underestimate....
In a 2010 survey by the Society for Human Resources Management, almost 90 percent of the companies surveyed, most of them large employers, said they conducted criminal background checks on some or all job candidates. Advocates for workers say that the indiscriminate use of background checks by companies has made finding employment extremely difficult for millions of Americans....
There is no federal law that prohibits discrimination against people with criminal records. But the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has set guidelines on how employers can use such records. Because African-Americans, Hispanics and other minorities have higher rates of criminal convictions, a blanket policy that screens out anyone with a criminal history will discriminate against these groups, the commission says, and is unlawful under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.... The studies have been cited in some lawsuits over criminal background checks. Taken collectively, they indicate that “it is no longer accurate to say that individuals with criminal records are always a higher risk than individuals without a criminal record,” said Shawn Bushway, an associate professor of criminal justice at the University at Albany, one of several researchers who have conducted redemption studies.
May 2, 2011 at 09:42 AM | Permalink
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The estimate is that every year alive, the lawyer destroys $million of value in our economy. This effect should be added to the cost of having so many lawyers. They over-criminalize conduct, without proving harm. Then they imprison too many people, but the worng ones. They fail to respond to 90% of FBI Index felonies, which are real crimes. Next, they pass regulation mandating background checks, and exclusions of people with their bogus convictions. They sue employers for negligent hiring. Meanwhile, illegal aliens, some of whom are mass murderers? No problem.
People emerge from prison, and want to make an honest living. They cannot get licenses, nor even any interviews. I would like to see an economic analysis of the contribution of this rent seeking lawyer incompetence as a factor in unemployment or serious under-employment. Naturally, black folks bear a disparate burden under the regime of the racist feminist lawyer and its male running dogs. The early leaders of the feminist movement believed in eugenics and the elimination of the inferior races. That was the originator of Planned Parenthood in eugenics movement. It seems to be working for them. The number of legal abortions is triple their fraction of the population of black babies. We compared the excess murder rate of 5000 blacks a year to the 5000 lynchings of the KKK over 100 years, and the immunities of the prosecutor and his agents the police for failing to protect black males, just as they failed to prosecute photographed lynch mob members. If you count abortions as part of the plan, add 250,000 extra judicial eradications without Fifth Amendment Due process, every year. Over 40 years that comes to 10 million people.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | May 2, 2011 10:43:11 AM
WARNING -- OFF TOPIC. This is about Osama. Those wishing to scroll, here's your chance.
This blog is, broadly speaking, about delivering justice. Justice got delivered big time yesterday to Osama, and it wasn't in court.
Congratulations and thanks to President Obama for authorizing bin Laden's thoroughly deserved killing and to the brave men in the armed services who, at great risk, did the job.
Congratulations are due especially to the President's recogniton that he didn't have to check it out with the World Court, Human Rights Watch, the UN or anyone or anything else except service to the interests of the United States as defined by the United States.
The operational necessity to kill Obama was open to doubt; whether he maintained significant control over al Qaeda operations is a matter of speculation. What is not a matter of speculation is that the USA wanted revenge, was justified in wanting it, and got it.
The public's admiration for this operation is very widespread, as you'd expect. But sooner rather than later you know there'll be snarling on Obama's left flank that "an eye for an eye, and the whole world is blind;" or "it's wrong to kill" or the usual thought-free, feel-good, holier-than-thou bromides. There will also be grousing that we just decided for ourselves that Osama should be killed. No legal process -- no court hearings, no lawyers, no subpoenas, just the delivery of substantive justice not larded with years of process.
Although this story is not about sentencing, it carries enormous implications about what sentencing is supposed to achieve, that being what the malefactor has earned. It likewise carries implications about the most controversial sentence out there, to wit, the death penalty. The fact that Osama was killed rather than captured has saved abolitionism from a debate it could not possibly have won and that was going to cost it even more credibility than the McVeigh case.
Abolitionists should be grateful to President Obama for his actions here, and so, for entirely different reasons, should the rest of us.
Posted by: Bill Otis | May 2, 2011 11:02:21 AM
Bill:
I suspect that objections to yesterday’s actions from the Left will be no more numerous than those on the Right who continue to claim that Obama was born in Kenya.
Also, as far as I can tell, this was not an assassination per se: they were prepared to take Bin Laden alive, had he not so vigorously resisted capture. This result is unquestionably more satisfying, I must admit.
Will you agree that if we had had this conversation three years ago, you would have been among those who would doubt that Obama (or indeed just about any Democrat) had the cajones to do this?
Posted by: Marc Shepherd | May 2, 2011 11:32:03 AM
hey kids! What about jailing the terrorist Luis Posada Carriles ???
Posted by: Dott. claudio giusti, italia | May 2, 2011 1:14:46 PM
Marc --
"Will you agree that if we had had this conversation three years ago, you would have been among those who would doubt that Obama (or indeed just about any Democrat) had the cajones to do this?"
Very likely. But I also would have said that Obama is a lot shrewder than Jimmy Carter, and would learn from the disastrous political fallout from Carter's weak response to the hostage crisis.
There will be those who say that Obama authorized this because, what with gas prices and his falling approval rating, he needed something with pizzaz. Personally, I care less about WHY he authorized it than THAT he authorized it. On its face, it unilaterally and unapologetically imposes American justice on a fellow who earned what he got, and that's good enough for me.
As to those on the Right who go on with this birther stuff: I do not have and have never had an interest in where Obama was born. To me, it's just so much silliness. If Donald Trump wants to run with it, let him. It's merely further proof that he is one of the biggest jerks in public life. Every time I see him on the tube, I immediately switch channels. The guy is just insufferable.
Posted by: Bill Otis | May 2, 2011 2:53:09 PM
claudio --
Do you approve or disapprove of President Obama's decision to use unilateral American force to kill Osama bin Laden?
Posted by: Bill Otis | May 2, 2011 3:14:32 PM
I think it was a present from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
If they had not him in a frigidaire, of course
Posted by: Dott. claudio giusti, italia | May 2, 2011 3:39:18 PM
claudio --
That's interesting, but the question was whether you approve or disapprove of President Obama's decision to use unilateral American force to kill Osama.
I can't believe you don't have an opinion on that. I've never heard you say a single positive thing about this country, but maybe today that will change. I'm interested in your thoughts.
Posted by: Bill Otis | May 2, 2011 4:31:50 PM
i have to agree. good riddance to bad rubbish. Maybe now the govt won't be able to use him in their continual removal of the rights of it's citizens.
Posted by: rodsmith | May 2, 2011 5:36:47 PM
Regarding the initial post, it's quite interesting that some of the commenters to the original New York Times story stated that they felt confident that a person's criminal record - and they meant *any* criminal record - was on its face sufficient grounds not to hire someone, for any job,de facto. What a simple world that would be to deal with, yet the reality is, we live in a society where over-incarceration occurs in some cases, and where lying and cheating, happens in other cases, unprosecuted, even to the point of criminal liability, at the highest levels of power. (The Oscar-winning film "Inside Job" displays this). What an easy, almost complacent position it would be to condemn all ex-felons to a jobless (and thereby) condemned future, even after serving their proscribed sentence.
Ex-felons who have demonstrated their employability post-incarceration through volunteer work, recommendations, and through their steady efforts to be part of a community have in a sense proven themselves far more than those who have not been imprisoned.
The more challenging, and in my view, more realistic question, for employers would be: how accurately can you judge someone *without* a criminal record in today's society? Perhaps they just escaped prosecution. And what about in contrast to an applicant who has surpassed the challenges post-conviction, and in fact risen above despite many obstacles? Which applicant would have shown more strength of character?
Regarding Bin Laden and the DP, I have not seen nor heard any information indicating that Bin Laden's death occurred in anything less than a combat/war context. And I don't see how that is specifically relevant to the implementation (or not) of the DP to all those on death row in the United States -?
Posted by: anonymous | May 2, 2011 6:20:46 PM
anonymous --
Once it is conceded that governmental power may be used intentionally to kill in wartime, it is necessarily conceded that not all intentional killing by the government is wrong. The next logical question is, in what other circumstances is it right? With that, the death penalty is squarely on the table.
Posted by: Bill Otis | May 2, 2011 6:33:34 PM
I was almost prepared to agree with everything Bill Otis wrote until: "Although this story is not about sentencing, it carries enormous implications about what sentencing is supposed to achieve, that being what the malefactor has earned." And I really don't disagree with this as long as loony nuts like Otis don't get to decide what defendant's earn. I take a federal judge every time over Otis.
Posted by: Steve Prof | May 2, 2011 7:28:16 PM
"The more challenging, and in my view, more realistic question, for employers would be: how accurately can you judge someone *without* a criminal record in today's society? Perhaps they just escaped prosecution. And what about in contrast to an applicant who has surpassed the challenges post-conviction, and in fact risen above despite many obstacles? Which applicant would have shown more strength of character?"
anonymous@6:20:46PM you are correct in all respects. Thanks for posting a comment that is on point. It would have been good to have a discussion on this topic but since Bill Otis indulged in his usual tactic of distraction it looks like that will not happen.
A felony conviction in this country whether a first time non-violent offense or a much more egregious violent offense pretty much have the same collateral consequences once the offender has completed his/her sentence. Whether that sentence is only a term of probation or a long term of incarceration, the lifetime stigma of the conviction is equally imposed on both. In many incidences the stigma of the felony conviction becomes, in effect, a civil death sentence. It matters not what they have done to redeem themselves or how much tim has passed, current policy does not allow them an even playing field.
Maybe Professor Berman could be persuaded to re-post this article or post others on this issue. Maybe we could then have a discussion "on topic".
Posted by: Thomas | May 3, 2011 10:19:20 AM
Getting background screening check done can help you know the person you are dealing with is reliable or not. It is completely legal to accomplish this process on any individual that matters.
Posted by: Alvin | May 11, 2011 3:26:45 AM
