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You Be The Judge

Jan 12, 2010 / Workforce / Trackback

Many com­pa­nies have a pol­icy to never hire any­one who has done time but pro­posed Human Rela­tions Com­mis­sion pol­icy could impact hir­ing prac­tices and lead to more litigation.

The Penn­syl­va­nia Human Rela­tions Com­mis­sion is tak­ing the posi­tion that an employer’s pol­icy or prac­tice of exclud­ing indi­vid­u­als from employ­ment on the basis of a prior crim­i­nal con­vic­tion has a dis­parate impact on cer­tain minori­ties in light of sta­tis­tics that demon­strate that they are con­victed at a rate dis­pro­por­tion­ately greater than their rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the population.

Unsuc­cess­ful job appli­cants would be able to sue poten­tial employ­ers
This pol­icy guid­ance cre­ates a pre­sump­tion of dis­parate impact dis­crim­i­na­tion whereby com­plainants need not pro­vide sta­tis­ti­cal evi­dence to estab­lish the dis­parate impact ele­ment of a prima facie case. This pol­icy guid­ance could make it eas­ier for unsuc­cess­ful job appli­cants to sue poten­tial employ­ers for which it is not an out­right busi­ness neces­sity to exclude appli­cants with crim­i­nal histories.

How does one reha­bil­i­tate and become a pro­duc­tive cit­i­zen if they are not given the oppor­tu­nity to start over and to earn a life sus­tain­ing wage? On the other hand, should employ­ers be forced to hire some­one they wouldn’t feel com­fort­able hav­ing in their employ?

You be the judge…

Photo credit to Still Burn­ing


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  • http://karlaporter.com/ Karla Porter

    @Margo I don’t know what kind of pre­cious metal my heart is made of but I don’t believe pris­ons should be day­care and my grandma used to say idle hands are the devil’s work. The other stuff I already said =)

    @Brenda L Bread­man Dave fol­lowed me a while ago, can’t remem­ber when exactly but like always, I clicked on his pro­file to check him out before fol­low­ing back and liked his mes­sage. Regard­less of what­ever his past is, his present and future are role-model like for every­one. Entre­pre­neur­ial spirit, learn­ing from your mis­takes and help­ing oth­ers are very admirable. For those not able to be released I still sug­gest a pro­duc­tive career if pos­si­ble in jail to relieve the pub­lic of the tax burden.

    • Amos

      Yes this is a philo­soph­i­cal ques­tion, how­ever the law is the law. Is there a grey area?- I think that area is where HR inter­sects and inter­prets this infor­ma­tion — its up to the indi­vid­ual or build­ing con­sen­sus (the gate­keeper or even owner/presidnet) to make an informed decision.

      As I was watch­ing my Toronto Rap­tors get beat by Lebron last night — I thought of pro­fes­sion­als ath­letes that get sec­ond chances. For exam­ple: Michael Vick — a very tal­ented QB who was into dog fight­ing — would you hire him? The Eagles did — sec­ond chance at redemp­tion and he paid his debt to soci­ety — although PETA sup­port­ers hate him 4ever and his image is tainted. Or most recently Gilbert Are­nas — a very tal­ented NBA point guard ( who was singed to a 111MILLION dol­lar con­tract at the begin­ning of the sea­son with Wash­ing­ton) he decided it would be fun to pull a gun out on a team­mate in the locker room over a 25K bet/debt (http://bit.ly/4pTVQ2)

      So can we as a soci­ety for­get about the can­di­dates past and hope for a bet­ter future because of that per­sons innate tal­ent? ( and maybe their abil­ity to add to the bot­tom line)

      BTW: GIlbert plead guilty to a gun felony charge and got sus­pended for the sea­son — but I dont think he will have a prob­lem get­ting his job back — or any job in the NBA.

  • Brenda L

    Karla,

    You do have a big heart, and my biggest com­pli­ments to breadman-Dave. It is refresh­ing to hear some­one has rehab’d him­self and is help­ing oth­ers by giv­ing them a chance to do the same. Who are we NOT to for­give some­one their tress­passes?! I am not 100% in agree­ment though, there are some crim­i­nals out there that no mat­ter what soci­ety does for them…they will not/can not ever be rehab’d. I’ve had the un-pleasure of meet­ing a cou­ple of them, watched them get chance after chance and will never-ever do any­thing to help themselves-blame the world for their prob­lems, etc. In short, it’s a mixed bag and I think I agree with the poster who said it should be taken on a case by case basis.

  • http://twitter.com/pawspagal Margo Rose

    Peo­ple who’ve been suc­cess­fully reha­bil­i­tated should have the right to work. Is it fair to put a ex-con in the posi­tion to sue every time s/he wants to appre­ci­ate the oppor­tu­nity to suc­ceed. No. How can we expect a per­son who become pro­duc­tive and life a decent life if we don’t give them half the chance? Great Post Karla. You have a heart of gold.

    • Amos

      How do you mea­sure suc­cess­ful rehab?

      • http://karlaporter.com/ Karla Porter

        This is quite a philo­soph­i­cal ques­tion. Law I sup­pose would say when the debt has been paid to soci­ety. How­ever, there is noth­ing sci­en­tific about sen­tenc­ing except for a life sen­tence with­out parole to iso­late one from the pub­lic for rea­sons of safety. A Judge is cer­tainly not qual­i­fied to know how long it takes a per­son to reha­bil­i­tate and I don’t think any­one else is either. I don’t believe time applies to the process. It’s not like bak­ing a cake where you know how long it will take to get the fin­ished prod­uct. Like many com­pa­nies, I used to work for one that had hard fast rules with­out excep­tions. We were oblig­ated to con­duct behav­ioral inter­view­ing with stan­dard­ized ques­tions and no devi­a­tion. They drank the fla­vor kool aid that says the past is a favor­able pre­dic­tor of the future. That leaves lit­tle oppor­tu­nity to dis­cover rehabilitation.

        One of our model employ­ees made a griev­ous error in judg­ment while under the influ­ence of alco­hol and is serv­ing a lengthy sen­tence for unin­ten­tion­ally end­ing a life and leav­ing the scene. She is harder on her­self than the law could ever be. I believe she would never com­mit the same error again and if I owned my own com­pany I would hire her in a heart­beat know­ing her ded­i­ca­tion and skills are top notch. How­ever, I fear that should she be paroled (she is await­ing new of her recent parole hear­ing) she will have dif­fi­culty find­ing employ­ment out­side of a fam­ily busi­ness (and I don’t think there are any in her fam­ily). This is a case of an indi­vid­ual that does not need reha­bil­i­ta­tion (not addicted), she needs to pay the debt she is work­ing on fulfilling.

        In sum­mary, I don’t know that there is a stan­dard. Each incar­cer­a­tion is the result of a unique set of cir­cum­stances that is not defined the way one defines a col­lege degree that enables one to ful­fill a cer­tain role. I would like to see the prison sys­tem con­vert to insti­tutes of higher edu­ca­tion with manda­tory tech­ni­cal diplo­mas and degrees based on apti­tude assess­ments, inter­ests and abil­ity, fol­lowed by intern­ships and inside careers as the sen­tence with tran­si­tional pro­grams imple­mented in the pre-release phase of incarceration.

        I think that would set a reha­bil­i­ta­tion stan­dard for all but vio­lent or sociopath con­victs who need to live con­fined lives for rea­sons of pub­lic and per­sonal safety.

  • Amos

    Ive hired ex-cons and MBA’s in the past. The biggest dif­fer­ence: street smarts vs book smarts. Its whats right for your busi­ness — and I agree with Dave that the bur­den is on the employer, So hire who you believe is the best fit. when we do a crim­i­nal checks I make sure its not in a seri­ous cat­e­gory like bank rob­bery, vio­lence, drunk dri­ving etc. Per­son­ally there is a line in the sand as an employer you should be aware of, even if your hir­ing some­one who has paid his/her debt to society.

  • Amos

    Ive hired ex-cons and MBA’s in the past. The biggest dif­fer­ence: street smarts vs book smarts. Its whats right for your busi­ness — and I agree with Dave that the bur­den is on the employer, So hire who you believe is the best fit. when we do a crim­i­nal checks I make sure its not in a seri­ous cat­e­gory like bank rob­bery, vio­lence, drunk dri­ving etc. Per­son­ally there is a line in the sand as an employer you should be aware of, even if your hir­ing some­one who has paid his/her debt to society.

    • http://karlaporter.com/ Karla Porter

      @Amos I com­pletely sup­port hir­ing the best fit, with­out syn­ergy there will be no suc­cess. It looks like what is par­tially going on is that due to the over­whelm­ing amount of appli­cants per job open­ing, back­ground checks are being used as a screen­ing tool regard­less of if there is a com­pelling rea­son or not to screen some­one out with a con­vic­tion. You are quite obvi­ously a risk taker and com­pas­sion­ate — many peo­ple are not.

      • Amos

        Com­pas­sion also has a range and tak­ing a risk can be mea­sured ( with expe­ri­ence). I also con­sider sev­eral vari­ables, it not black and white for me. For exam­ple if you did some­thing 15 years ago when you were a teenager I think there is a bet­ter chance. Lets face it — some of the biggest crim­i­nals work in the banks and on wall street — but get rehired all the time, they might not have a “crim­i­nal record” but its because no one is polic­ing them. I think of how many entre­pre­neurs and suc­cess­ful start ups are run by peo­ple that have “crim­i­nal records”.

  • http://www.daveskillerbread.com/ Dave Dahl–Dave’s Killer Bread

    I am not in favor of putting such a bur­den on an employer. As an ex-con and an employer, I have had good to great results hir­ing ex-cons. Occa­sional fail­ures, just like any other “group”.
    To not hire a per­son because of his or her record should be an employer’s per­rog­a­tive. My hope is that I can set a good exam­ple by suc­cess­fully putting felons to work. But our com­pany always chooses the best can­di­date for the job whether they are male or female, black, white, brown…or whether they have a mis­take on their record.
    But i don’t like to be told who I have to hire. Period.

    • http://karlaporter.com/ Karla Porter

      @Dave I truly appre­ci­ate your tak­ing the time to visit and respond. There are sev­eral poten­tial lessons in your comment.

  • imjustagoyle

    While as an employer I wouldn’t want a con­victed felon work­ing for me, I would have to say it might be sit­u­a­tional. For instance, I might employ some­one who was con­victed of mul­ti­ple DUI’s result­ing in prison time. How­ever, I doubt I’d want to hire any­one that was con­victed of a vio­lent crime or even theft.

    It’s a pickle of a sit­u­a­tion, though. For the sake of my ex-husband (and the child sup­port he’s sup­posed to pay) I wish it were eas­ier for con­victed felons to gain work. That’s a long story but the short part is — no one will hire him. NO.ONE.

    • http://karlaporter.com/ Karla Porter

      @imjustagoyle — Maybe there’s hope and you’ll get those back pay­ments. I have often won­dered why more reha­bil­i­tated felons don’t start their own busi­nesses like Dave from http://www.daveskillerbread.com @KillerBreadMan. Maybe you could send the ex Dave’s link and tell him to get busy.


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