It's not similar at all. Trials in America are public. You have no right to privacy in the court system. You do have a right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. You just equated police brutality to a background check. And it should be (and is). That doesn't change the fact that these problems can be easily avoided by obeying the law. No one is getting denied employment because they got a couple of speeding tickets or rolled through a stop sign, these are real crimes that must be consciously committed that are holding people back. It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that people are less willing to hire thieves and drug users than the average person. People's willingness to submit to authority (something of interest to employers) can certainly be reflected by having been convicted of even drug offenses. I am of the personal belief that there should be no drug laws, but that is neither here nor there. The point is, for anyone that has ever filled out a job application, it isn't a surprise that having a criminal record is going to negatively impact your chances of getting hired. At that point, you can chose to smoke weed and risk getting caught and negatively impacting your job prospects or (all together now) DON'T BREAK THE LAW.
I thought going to PRISON was PAYING YOUR DEBT TO SOCIETY. I guess prison is just a down payment on a debt you can never pay off. Rocket River
I think there's a difference between paying your debt to society and not being hired at certain jobs. When I think of paying your debt through prison, I'm thinking this person who burned a building or did whatever is able to walk free again in our society.
You thought wrong. Prior convictions, in addition to being looked at by employers, are relied on heavily in sentencing for subsequent convictions. Prior convictions can also make previously legal behavior (for example possession of a firearm) illegal, or deprive someone of rights such as voting. Prior convictions can also require things like lifelong registration after a prison sentence is served (depending on the crime). Prison time is one punishment that the government applies to convicted criminals, but it is not some magic ritual that wipes the slate clean.
But, what does welfare fraud have to do with driving a bus? In an ideal system, I would agree with you. You are looking at an individual and their past actions and judging their character. That sounds perfectly good. Except the data is seriously flawed. Given that minorities are convicted of felonies far out of proportion with their rate of committing them vis-a-vis whites (not to mention poor vs rich, uneducated vs educated, and so on), you get a flawed profile of the character you are assessing. If companies counterweighted convictions with the chance for discrimination in the judicial system, that might help. But, just rejecting people on a binary criterion just gives minorities another handicap in society and perpetuates a vicious cycle of underperformance. Imo, a lot more rules should be put around using criminal and credit background checks for employment. An employer should have to be able to demonstrate why the disqualifier is relevant.
I don't know, and that should be the merits of her complaint. Her being Latina doesn't make sense as an argument. It's pretty messed up if she is trying to say that she was only convicted of welfare fraud because she's Latina. She messed up in life and got convicted of fraud. She got fired from a job because her employer found out. That's nothing new to me. I don't mind her suing for perhaps her circumstances are unique, but I just don't see a case of discrimination from her employer here. Unless other non-Latina bus drivers had similar criminal offenses and did not get fired, I don't see her winning.
I would think credit history is less important than criminal history. I don't think it could really tell much about a person. It is possible to be terrible at managing your money and personal life but just having rich parents bail you out.
As Casey said, I also think credit history doesn't make a great indicator. And in response to the mortgage mess, a huge problem was that no-doc loans were being approved for HUGE amounts of $$ purely based on credit. Yes, sub-prime was a huge issue, but so was no-doc. There were many out there that didn't have the income necessary to sustain their lifestyle long term. People were getting huge loans b/c they had good credit and didn't have to prove financial stability or their ability to pay things back. Also just ran across this, which fits in perfect for this thread: Former felons feel boxed in by crime question http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/aug/15/former-felons-feel-boxed-in-by-crime-question/
Why must they justify their hiring standards to you or anyone else? If you think a company is too intrusive, don't apply there. Don't presume to dictate what they can and can't ask.
I agree with this, but I would like for there to be a more clearcut way to highlight the issue. Such as a national list of shame for comapnies who do this. That would be fair.
and if they don't wanna hire black folx, gays or women . . .then those folx should just not apply Rocket River
I think most of the difference is guilty rich people getting off though, as opposed to innocent poor/minority people being convicted. If that is the case, then the criminal background check will not eliminate innocent victims, but rather will let through the factually guilty who managed to get off. That being the case, not committing the crime in the first place is still a viable option for avoiding the negative consequences, and using the background check is still judging someone by the content of their character, it is just that some will have an advantage in gaming the system. I don't see a problem in eliminating convicted felons on a first pass through the application file. Hopefully subsequent measures will sift out those with poor character that were wrongfully acquitted.
I think the problem is greater than just the transaction between someone who needs to hire labor and someone who needs a job. Minority communities that don't have economic success because of their past criminal problems are probably going to have more criminal problems in the future. The cycle needs to be proactively broken. One front is more fairness in the judicial system. But, more fairness in the labor marketplace would also be helpful in building structures to keep members of minority groups from breaking laws and from being viewed as law-breakers.
Yes they are. Yes it does. This is where you go off the rails to me. You know what would do more to break the cycle of crime in those neighborhoods? The people not committing crimes. Blaming varied conviction rates and applicant screening based on prior convictions is not getting to the heart of the matter. If they were not committing crimes, they would not have to worry about relative conviction chances or being passed over based on a prior conviction. There are millions of poor people in this country that do not turn to crime, despite being poor. I don't have a lot of sympathy for the ones who do, and I especially don't want to make it illegal to reject them based on that behavior.
That is similar to something I read from the article: I don't think I'm on board with eliminating the ex-con box from screening, but I do think more pro-activeness in getting ex-cons work would be good. It's just damn hard to do in a recession.
Good point. They will be helpless when the corporations tells them to hand in their hand guns if they want to eat and have a job.
