Discussion on:

Ban the Box seeks to prohibit companies from asking about criminal records on applications

This has the potential to be good or bad. The bad side I can see is a company such as a bank might like a candidate's qualifications only to find out they have a fraud conviction. Then the bank is out the money and hassle of interviewing someone and has to start from square one. On the other hand I don't believe people should be barred from employment simply because they have a criminal record. A good friend of mine who is an honest and hard working person has a manslaughter conviction and you would never know it. Basically someone broke into his home and threatened his family so he lost control of his temper and the guy ended up dieing. There are always circumstances to everything.

Unfortunately it is how much justice you can afford
That is why some states have a "Castle Doctrine"
and if some scum bag breaks into my house I will splatter them all over and not think twice about it. I guess judges do not get the news? Everyday around here someone is murdered, sometimes in their own house and that is bull$hit and it will only stop when we kill all the criminals.
Oh and for all you Liberals who are about to flame me, grow a pair, some of us are sick of scum bags

its not a liberal \ conserative thing, its a common sense thing. Conservatives are the only dbags that pull the "hey you suck liberal" crap. Yes I agree, if someone breaks into my home and threatens my family or property, thats a dead or seriously injured person and I'm a democrat .. with common sense. You are a dbag conservative with none.

I am not a conservative. I am informed, sick and tired of the pu$$ies in this country. (ie liberals like you) you probably feel sorry for the criminal.
BTW is dbag douche or dick? Knowing the Liberal it is probably douche as that is what pu$$ies use......

Can we leave the politics and profanity at home, and just discuss the issue at hand like adults?
If you don't want to admit past criminal acts on an application then don't commit crimes. It seems very cut and dried. BTW - I'm not a Liberal or a Conservative. I'm an AMERICAN who can think for himself

I like a good argument

then you should be fully aware that the "liberals" are not the only ones to blame for our current circumstances...

Then you would understand I never blamed liberals for anything?

Oh and for all you Liberals who are about to flame me, grow a pair, some of us are sick of scum bags

Given that this is a variation on the standard conservative response to anything that smacks of being "soft on crime", it sure sounds like blaming to to me.

We all know what Richard is long for.

He should have been commended instead of convicted.

Why are barriers to people with criminal records unfair? If you don't want to be barred by your criminal record, DON'T COMMIT CRIMES. Questions about circumstances should be expected, and can be covered in a cover letter.

I'd like to see replies from those who cast '-1' votes.

The majority of society is made up of good, caring people. I've met successful doctors who visit the lake house and enjoy smoking some pot. Now they do this confided in their own property where getting caught by police is impossible. Or if a drunk patron at a restaurant bumps into you, throws a fist, and you defend yourself and the manager is friends with that guy and say you started it. This happened to me at my one and only bar fight. Convicted of disorderly conduct. I feel most people have commited multiple crimes and haven't been caught. Some get caught and that one mistake, whether it was intentional or wrongly accused, shouldn't prevent a career from blooming. Also, 18-22 year olds can have a much different mentality at those ages then later in life. So should you be denied a job at 25 or 30 for a minor crime or two commited at 18-22? I had an interview a couple years ago and these people went as far as to explain a noise complaint. The law was broken. Loud music on a weekend after 10pm. Should one be denied due to this?

The majority of the applications I've ever seen only require candidates to disclose felony arrest records, or perhaps misdemeanors that resulted in your incarceration (i.e. as opposed to simply paying a fine).

Note that, by those definitions, "small" offenses (i.e. speeding/parking tickets) wouldn't even come up on a candidate's application.

As for the criminal record affecting your employment...if employers are already starting to cull candidates based on their social media profiles (i.e. posting of photos of their drunken antics on Facebook), then yes, they should be taking into consideration actions where you were arrested & found guilty. However, by the same token, a candidate that lists a single arrest for public intoxication is not going to be viewed in the same light as someone with multiple instances of vandalism, drug possession, & trespassing, let alone someone with multiple counts of robbery, manufacture and/or sale of drugs, embezzlement, or more severe crimes.

As to whether it's "fair" or not... ask the victims of their crimes whether what the ex-criminal did to them was "fair".

What about crimes where there is no "victim" ?

Every action has a consequence. That consequence is felt somewhere, sometime, by someone or something.

I could argue that if you post drunken photos of yourself on Facebook, then you're effectively volunteering that information (whether you realise it or not) by publishing it to a public forum.

I don't think too many people would publicly publish (or wish to be published) their criminal history, so they're not volunteering that information.

I think it makes sense to have some limits on what potential employers can discover about candidates, even if they use their superior negotiating position to coerce candidates into to signing release forms and the like.

There needs to be a balance between the interests of employers and the wider community. Besides, have you considered that even past criminals needs jobs, otherwise they're just going to commit more crime for an income and you're effectively creating a professional criminal class.

"The majority of society is made up of good, caring people."

Toni's statistics are correct: 1 in 4 Americans have criminal records.

Does anyone honestly think that 25% of the US population are evil people? Or is it that we just have too many laws, or too many stupid laws?

???The more laws are enacted and taxes assessed, the greater the number of lawbreakers and tax evaders??? -- Lao Tzu

No one is saying that an employer should be obliged to hire murderers, rapists, pedophiles, thieves, vandals, or the like. People generally understand that there is a difference between those who commit crimes like these and those who commit victimless crimes or crimes of self-defense.

After all, laws are written by human beings, not carved in stone by gods. And laws are written by powerful people who have motivations which might not be entirely noble or in the best interest of the citizens who are expected to abide by them. The Fugitive Slave Act was a law too. A bad law. A law that many compassionate people were willing to break. This is just one example from our early American history, but it is not the only bad law ever enacted by our legislature. There are a plethora of laws out there, and when Charles Bundy says that good people break these laws everyday, he is absolutely correct. When I worked at AAA, they used to say that a person breaks 7,000 traffic laws to every one in which he gets caught. Is that person a criminal, then?

Weeding out the good applicants from the bad is not a simple task, and it certainly can't be determined by whether or not the applicant indicated on an application that he/she had a criminal record. Your applicant might have no criminal record and pass a drug test and yet still have the sticky fingers that makes him a very bad bet on the job.

"No one is saying that an employer should be obliged to hire murderers, rapists, pedophiles, thieves, vandals, or the like."
But they can't ask if the people they're hiring have been convicted of those things? How else would they determine it? I think a conviction in court should get more weight that weather the person looks like a thief to the employer.

A) I think you meant "DON'T GET CAUGHT" as I'm pretty sure we all commit crimes every day.
B) Crime and its subsequent punishment should fulfill the transaction principle of "atomicity" in the discipline department. Or are you advocating punishing people for eternity?

I mean, "Don't commit crimes", exactly as I stated it. People who commit criminal actions on the 'Don't get caught' theory are EXACTLY the ones I don't want to hire.

I'm not punishing anyone; that's a choice to be made by the hiring authority. If the interviewer or HR department doesn't have a problem with a 20-year-old littering citation or night in the drunk tank, I don't either. My point is only that the best way to insure your criminal record doesn't reflect poorly on you is to don't do the things that may result to a criminal record.

Have you checked your state code lately? I can find statutes that I've broken every day. Some are just shy of felony e.g. It's a class 1 misdemeanor for failing to yield to an emergency vehicle with its lights on in most states.

So thus I have to call BS on your not so veiled assumption that you, me and everyone reading TR right now hasn't committed a crime today. The only difference between those that have criminal records and those that haven't is how pervasive and intrusive law enforcement and the judicial system are in their ability to catch and prosecute crazy laws dreamed up by the legislature. e.g. Check out Title 16, Chapter 15 of the South Carolina code for some doozies involving 'Offenses Against Morality and Decency.'

I'm normally not a conspiracy theorist but an underlying issue to this 'never mind their criminal past' might be a political state that wants wage earning tax payers who are unable to vote or run for office... Which means upping the felony ante... Talk about having your cake and eating it too...

regarding your unveiled assumption that other members here committed crimes today.

Why would you not yield to an emergency vehicle? I can only assume you toss that one out as an example of something you've done, something you think I've done. I get the heck out of their way as safely as my braking speed and traffic conditions allow. Who knows, it may be my house the fire truck is headed for, or one day me in the back of the ambulance.