The Obama administration announced plans Friday to ban federal agencies from asking job seekers about their criminal records when they first apply for work. This change would eliminate the checkbox that appears on applications requiring people to fess up to criminal convictions.
Most of us don’t give that box a second thought. But for about 70 million people with an arrest or conviction record, it can mean the difference between meaningful work and the unemployment line.
The idea is not to eliminate background checks from the application process entirely. Instead, “ban the box” delays those checks so applicants aren’t immediately disqualified from consideration for a job. In most cases, applications for positions of trust, such as those in intelligence, national security and law enforcement, or those where employees may encounter vulnerable populations, such as children, are exempted.
“Ban the box” has already been enacted by several federal agencies. Friday’s action appears to create a universal policy throughout the administration. Meanwhile 18 states and 100 localities have already take this step.
This change acknowledges that ex-offenders face difficulties after they’ve done their time. One study found that having a criminal record reduces by half the chances that a job seeking will get a call back. Many ex-cons are poorly educated, or have drug or mental health problems. Without the prospect of a real job, many return to crime.
As long as banning the box does not eliminate proper background checks and only prevents pre-emptive rejection of ex-cons, conservatives should welcome it as a way to eliminate government obstacles to employment.
That said, the Obama administration should stop putting pressure on federal contractors to take this step. People who have broken the law deserve a second chance. But individual businesses have the right, and should be allowed to keep it, to decide hiring procedures for themselves. Suppressing the truth is not a good foundation of policy, and the feds should back off. Dozens of major corporations have already taken steps to make jobs available to suitable people who have criminal convictions.
More than half a million prisoners are released each year from America’s state and federal prisons. Nearly two-thirds are arrested again within three years, and many of these have been unable to find work.
If the criminal justice system worked properly, many low-level, nonviolent offenders wouldn’t be imprisoned at all, but instead would undergo other forms of punishment and treatment. The goal should be a system that stands a chance of rehabilitating offtenders and reintegrates them into society.
Conservatives who care about smaller government, safer communities and reformed lives have an interest in ensuring that ex-offenders have a chance to succeed once they have paid their debt to society. “Banning the box,” used with caution and without seeking to obscure the facts, can play a small but important role in making sure that happens.
