Criminal Background Checks
March 14, 2012
Many businesses and individuals have concerns about hiring people with criminal or arrest records. Other have concerns about the serious unemployment problems this presents for ex-offenders and those arrested but later cleared. Either way, the evidence is clear that background checks disproportionately impact non-whites. Read what some in the hotel industry advise here. What are your thoughts?
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CJS-360 Diversity Issues 
Criminal background checks are a good thing in my mind because they can tell you about the person that you are hiring. If a person who worked with money in the past got fired for taking some of that money then chances are you aren’t going to hire that person to work with money for your job. However, racial bias always plays a part during these. While reading chapter 4 we learned how race can play a huge difference in the criminal justice system. A thought I had for stopping this would be to not have people tell you there race in their application. That way the employer wouldn’t have any idea what race the person was before they meet them for the formal interview. I know telling what race you are is optional in all application, but many people fell “forced” in telling what race they are so it doesn’t seem like they are hiding anything. Instead just leave that section of the application out altogether.
This is an interesting issue that I haven’t really given much thought prior to now. However, a couple questions after the reading.
“The EEOC’s investigation revealed that over 300 African American applicants were adversely affected by Pepsi’s criminal-background policy.”
This statement while disturbing, is very vague. I am curious what type of policy can negatively affect one race –
It appears that an attempt at explaining the EEOC’s standpoint was made by the author in this statement:
“The EEOC’s position is based on statistics showing that African-Americans and Hispanics are convicted at a rate disproportionately greater than their representation in the population which, in the EEOC’s view, means that employment decisions based on criminal conviction records have an adverse impact on African-Americans and Hispanics.”
Employment discrimination is unacceptable. It does not matter whether it is an issue of race, religion, ethnic background, or sexual orientation. However, filing a discrimination suit against a business such as PepsiCo should have a strong base. I’m not sure having certain convictions and crimes as “disqualifiers” on an application – coupled with the disparate conviction/arrest rates for minorites – rises to the level of employment discrimination.
@Jeremy
I’m not exactly sure what the intent behind even the existence of a “race” box is on employment applications – to be honest, its been so long since I’ve filled one out, I can’t recall it is even there. I agree with you that it seems useless – I would reiterate what you said, but there is no need because you said it all.
Background checks are good ways to know to know who or not to employ into any position. No employer will want to employ a person with dubious character and criminal records, especially in a banking system. It is not a matter of race or ethnicity, but for the purpose of knowing more about the prospective candidates, so that that, they will not be risk to the organization. Background checks are very good in verifying the credentials that some people claim to have. But, i will not agree that any race box should be created for prospective employees to fill, and i do understand that they are for statistics, and not to discriminate against any race. For instance, it will be disastrous to employ a child molester in a child care system. Background checks are good, if properly used in a right way.
I think that based on the position that you are hiring for their should be a background check. Working as a banker, teller, auditor, accounting anything dealing with a persons finances. What we fell to realize is that most people that haven’t been convicted of crime are the ones commiting the crimes. Most people that have a criminal record and are trying to work, are asking for a second chance to deem theirselves worthy again not to commit the same crime again or go to jail for new charges. Most white collar crimes are done by non-criminals and people who you know nothing about. I criminal lies everything about their past on the table and explains everything he can gain by working at your company and what your company can gain by hiring that person with their skills. I do believe each person is different and should be looked at a case by case basis.
Ultimately, I see positives and negatives to both sides of this argument. It appears that we’re really looking at the concepts of rehabilitation and discrimination in the sphere of labeling theory. It’s understandable that a business does not want to take on additional liability in our lawsuit happy society. I sympathize with the human resource representative doing the interview screening absorbing the brunt of the blame if an individual with a criminal record is hired and does indeed commit another potentially workplace related crime. With this being said however, I do believe that once an individual is charged with a crime, an opportunity for their acceptance back into society becomes extremely difficult. Without a fairly significant pattern of acceptance by employers these applicants may be forced into recidivism due to the systematic lack of willingness for employers to trust them. Education and gainful employment have regularly been touted at keys to success in staving off individuals from returning to a life of crime. Instances like this employment blockade only serve to provide warm fuzzy feelings and lessened insurance liability for businesses.
I think that criminal background checks are a good thing businesses should do. You do not want to hire someone who has a past of crime in the position they are applying for. We discussed in class that who would want to hire a sex offender near a day care center or a business near children? There is too much liability and it could fall back on the business who hired them. If the business fails to do a background check and an incident happens, they are going to also be held liable for that as well. Racial biasing is something that will never go away. It is clear that background checks are going to disproportionately impact non-whites. I think something that could help like Jeremy said is to take out the race section on application packets allowing more opportunity for employment to be based on experience rather than race.
I think criminal background checks are a useful tool for employers and should continue to be used. Minority groups are arrested, have fewer resources for defense counsel, and are convicted more often than white people. This also means they will have more issues with background checks then too. I think if an employer looks at a background check and finds the person has been convicted of something that could put their company or customers at risk, it is their judgment call as to whether to hire them. There shouldn’t be laws put in place to force people to hire people with criminal records. I agree with previous suggestions about eliminating racial information to make employment determinations fairer.
It will be unfair to discriminate against felons, but I am in full support of criminal background checks by all employer of labor before hiring a prospective employee. I strongly believe in the theory of giving a second chance to all offenders because no single individual is perfect and we all make mistakes.
Doing criminal background checks could somewhat be perceived as discriminating against certain individuals but that may not necessarily be true. I see it as performing due diligence in the interest of all parties. For instance, if financial institutions refuse to hire an individual who has been involved in several Ponzi schemes in the past, I think they have justifiable facts not to hire such person. Having such person around a lot of cash and personal property can reiterate the behavior of the past, so I see it as playing it safe for both the employer and the prospective employee. This individual can certainly look for, and secure employment in other organizations where his/her workload will not entail handling cash.
I will also not encourage hiring a pedophile in a day care or nursing home facility, because that will be putting a lot of innocent people’s lives at risk. Pedophiles/ sex offenders are certainly not the right fit for such environments, but are definitely welcome in financial institutions because their past record has nothing to do with finance. Employers should be more diverse in their hiring process to include all races leaving out whatever prior bias they may have had in the past. Employers should refrain from denying employment based on records that do not bear a direct relationship to the job in question, and be fair across board. I support the EEOC’s stand and suggest that the race box be stricken off all employment application forms to enable employers to see beyond the color of the skin and hire based on knowledge and understanding of the job.
With that been said, all employers of labor should hire people of all races especially those that are underrepresented in the workforce; Native Americans, African Americans, Women and Hispanics to have a more diverse working population which in my opinion is the way to go. Eventually, our society will truly begin to live up to its ideals and promises of justice and equality for all.
I think this a tuff one. We need to give our criminals a second chance but we also want to keep our companies safe. According to The Color of Justice chapter 7 in 2009 African Americans made up 12.9 % of the U.S. population but 39.4% of the prison population. That’s pretty high number of criminals for the percentage of population. We need to look at given people a second chance in life, a least one. I think the government gets involved too much in the hiring practices of companies. I live in a union state; my fellow electrician can’t get hired because they are white or not a female. Is this kind of wrong too? Everyone should have equal access to jobs, it should matter of race or gender, just the fact that you can get the job done. Sounds like Pepsi went about this the wrong way. Massachusetts has the right idea about five years or more on misdemeanors. When it comes to felonies, it would all depend on the type of felony the person has, but maybe 10 or 15 years you can go back. I think this should be left up to the companies and their policies. Prison records are a different animal than race or gender; maybe we should look more at the justice system to fix their end, on the processing of criminals maybe we will not have so many criminals looking for jobs. A lot people have a choice to become criminals or not, this is my personal thing. Everyone has a choice to take a left or right. Do people have a choice to be a criminal or not?
I agree that the EEOC’s cause to help laborers gain fair employment is a great moral cause, but blatantly targeting the hotel industry is in and of itself a type of discrimination. The EEOC should continue to monitor all types of businesses to make sure they are complying with current laws. I would imagine that hoteliers have many reasons to deny applicants in order to protect their guests and their guests’ property. In this article, the hotel’s argument of denying an applicant with a phone interview was obviously not based on racial discrimination practices.
Federal legislative measures to create a more even playing field and eliminate the “adverse impact discrimination” among minorities would eliminate the current discrepancies among State laws. Reinforced consistency should substantially increase minorities’ employment opportunities and while criminal background checks will always remain a measurement of employability, the unified synchronism of a forgiveness time period would even the field.
This article really got me thinking. I definitely put myself into the shoes of the hotelier. It is acceptable to do a back ground check but not to not consider him because of his past. I could imagine the applicant filing a EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) but not because of someone’s race. This relates to the book The Color of Justice: Race, Ethnicity, and Crime in America chapter seven Race and Sentencing : In Search of Fairness and Justice which addresses the issue of racial disparity in the process of sentencing. The serious question is if race is a part of sentencing and hiring for jobs. It seems that based on the article all employers should review their current policies and make sure that they are in compliance with the FCRA.
It also poses the major question if someone can refuse a job to another individual based on their past specifically if they have a felony. According to the article “The EEOC has historically taken the position that an employer’s policy or practice of excluding individuals from employment because they have criminal conviction records is unlawful under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 unless the policy or practice is justified by a business necessity”. This should be taken into consideration.
There are definitely many reason to perform background checks on employees before you hire them. You do not want a person with a current history of theft working loss prevention or accounting. I think there are many sensitive jobs that require this kind of check before an employee is hired.
On the other hand, I don’t believe this is the case for all jobs. There are many jobs that can be done without worrying about an employee stealing, or abusing their powers. Just because somebody has stolen before, doesn’t mean they will steal again, especially from a job that is paying them.
As chapter 7 says in our book, incarceration rates for blacks was 6.5 higher than whites, and Hispanics had 2.6 higher chance than whites. This isn’t because minorities commit more crime, but that our current criminal justice system is focused more on minorities than the majority, while having less options for the minorities. Because of this, minorities have a higher chance of having a criminal record than the majority. This will cause less minorities to be hired in the workforce if every job has an entire background check.
In my pinion criminal background checks are a plus to a company hwoever what I don’t agree with is the fact that some companies put it out there that your backgroud is not the reason that they were not hired but that they weren’t qualified. I personally have worked for 2 compaies here in Minnesota where the employee applies on line the store is suppose to get the application however if the applicant is honest enough to put that they have a misdermeanor the application is then flagged and it never makeds it to the store leavel therefore the employee is never set up for an interview. Howeve if that same employee feels out an application and and does not indicate that they have a misdermenor that application will make it to the store level and that employee can and will be hired. It seems a little backwards to me because if that employee is standing up and being honest about their past I feel that they should not have to lie in order to get in to get an interview. I personally feel that this is a type of discrimination that goes on not just with this company but it goes on in many places.
“Even though there are rules that govern employers, I totally disagree with the initiative that the Pepsi Company did. Under Pepsis’ former policy, applicants were denied employment if they had pending arrests, even if they had no convictions. Applicants with certain minor convictions were also denied employment. 300 applicants being denied employment is a huge number. I think that felon’s should not be discriminated against due to their past. I am sure none of them would want to re-offend again when given the opportunity to change to better their life. They should give a chance for employment under supervision for a certain time if an employer is in dough of the employee.”
Mike Perez
Their are pro- and cons to this issue. If some one committed a crime when they were eighteen and they have since changed for the better I can see this being a big problem. As a society we should try to give fair job opportunities to everyone. I do have a friend with a felony an it holds him back from many opportunities. He has to work as a labor, (not that is a bad job but I know he doesn’t want to do it the rest of his life for a poor choice he made when he was young. I feel after so long of having something on your record companies should at least give you a fair interview or instead of just throwing your resume out as soon as the background check comes back. Although after saying this, I do think it is very necessary to do background checks, You can not having a pedophile working with kids, this of course would enrage people. So I feel it is to give criminals a fair chance to work, but it depends on what they are doing.
The answer to this question is yes hiring a felon can be refused.
The article states “”Adverse impact discrimination” is defined as a “substantially different rate of selection in hiring, promotion, or other employment decision which works to the disadvantage of members of a race, sex, or ethnic group.”
If an employer’s criminal-conviction policy has a disparate impact on minorities, then the policy likely violates Title VII … unless the employer can demonstrate that the policy is job-related and consistent with business necessity. According to the EEOC, an employer making an employment decision based on a criminal conviction must consider the following three factors to meet this burden: 1) the nature and gravity of the offense; 2) the time that has passed since the conviction or completion of the sentence; and 3) the nature of the job held or sought”. ( Ryan , 2012)
This theory has been tested by a few people I know. An African America man and a man applied for the same job at an iron company. Both have a felony, the African America – 15 years ago with a welding certificate and the Caucasian 10 years no certificate. Both interviewed for the job and the African America was told that they do not hire felons, the Caucasian was hired. This does violate the Title VII and when the company was challenged the African America was told that he did not have the experience they were looking for.
My belief is that if a person has served his/her time and have paid their debt to society, they should be given a chance.
While I fully agree with the EEOC’s position that employers cannot discriminate against a person’s prior criminal convictions, specifically if the job has no bearing on prior criminal activity, I wonder if decisions by government oversight entities continually creeps into areas where it shouldn’t exist in the name of fairness.
The freedom of association guarantees that American citizens are able to engage in their rights without fear of government retribution or interference; however, since recent SCOTUS rulings have identified corporations as having the same or similar rights as individuals. Does it also include corporations or businesses in freedom to associate (or hire) with whom they wish?
Of course the Civil Rights Act of 1964 precludes government, and civil, entities from discriminating against someone for employment, so, for all intents and purposes, it doesn’t matter; the point of my issue is identifying limits of government intervention with regulation under threat of tort or penalty. It seems like any number of government agencies, like the EPA, IRS and recently NSA have undue influence over the general populace, and engage in regulation with impunity. I think it is important to look beyond the surface issues of these stories and identify potential issues that would cause greater civil disturbance in the future.
I feel that criminal background checks are beneficial ways for employers to fill positions. I feel criminal background checks are important for all businesses to do for every job. I feel that employers should not deny an individual a position if they have a criminal background, but it is important for employers to know who they have working for them. Similar to what many people mentioned in their posts above, I think employers should eliminate racial information. By doing this, it may make employment more fair.