A criminal record has always been an albatross for job seekers looking for a second chance.
And now, with an Internet that never forgets a person’s mistakes and background checks commonplace, a conviction can haunt a person for a lifetime.
But those past-life blemishes may soon be less of a burden for someone looking for a job with the city of Tucson, which recently became the first municipality in Arizona to remove questions about criminal history from its online applications.
“We’ve had grandparents who’ve worked for 40 years and then lost their job during the recession. And a new background check prevented them from getting a new job because they had a conviction decades ago,” said Michelle Natividad Rodriguez, an attorney with the National Employment Law Project, a workers rights advocacy group.
Rodriguez’s group, and others, have been lobbying governments across the country for more than a decade to adopt polices reducing barriers to jobs for people with criminal histories so they don’t resort to committing additional crimes.
Interim City Manager Martha Durkin made the decision drop criminal histories from the city’s job application form about a month ago, after meeting with groups such as the William E. Morris Institute for Justice.
Ellen Katz, director of the Phoenix-based institute, said she met with the city in December 2013 and last August to lobby for the changes.
Durkin decided the question was too broad, and it was near the start of the application, which could have dissuaded otherwise qualified applicants from even filling out the rest of the application.
Durkin said the city is also developing a comprehensive plan to ensure the city has fair hiring policies in place. The plan will likely include:
- A decision about when in the hiring process it is appropriate to ask about a criminal history.
- Which positions will require background checks.
- A decision on whether the background check be performed only after a contingent job offer.
- What appeal options should be in place for candidates who are denied employment.
The city currently requires background checks for public safety, jobs with access to sensitive data, and positions that involve handling cash.
It doesn’t require background checks for many entry-level positions that don’t involve private information, money or working with children.
Councilman Richard Fimbres, who requested a discussion about the issue at the council’s next meeting, said the policy changes are a way to give people another crack at becoming productive members of society while possibly saving the city some money.
“With recidivism rates increasing, and the city’s jail bed cost rising, the city must look at all efforts to deal with these situations,” Fimbres wrote in an email.
Last fiscal year the city paid $7.3 million in jail expenses.
Callbacks fall by half
Across the United States, 2.3 million people are behind bars and an additional 7.3 million are under some form of supervision. In Arizona, 42,000 people are incarcerated with roughly 5,900 people under supervision.
The National Employment Law Project estimates 70 million people nationwide have a conviction or an arrest, both of which Rodriguez said have led to people losing out on jobs.
Studies have shown a criminal history can decrease callbacks for jobs by 50 percent on average, she said.
In Tucson, placing someone with a criminal history in a job can take weeks or months longer than someone with a clean history, said Debbi Embry, president & CEO Tucson Urban League, which assists low-income families and individuals.
“And that’s because of the box that’s there,” Embry said. “It’s an upfront barrier” to a job.
Critics fear removing criminal-history questions from applications and forgoing some background checks could result in sex offenders working with kids, and other hardened criminals obtaining jobs where they can exploit the vulnerable.
But Rodriguez said the policy change isn’t going to allow the worst criminals in society access to kids or sensitive information.
She said it’s to enact policies where employers judge a candidate on his or her merits and not past missteps.
“It’s trying to show people as they are — complicated individuals who make mistakes,” Rodriguez said.
When to ask
So far, 13 states and about 70 cities have adopted some type of reform, some sweeping, others modest adjustments, ranging from prohibiting the question on from appearing on application forms to outright bans or limits on both government and private employers asking or doing background checks for many positions.
Katz said the preferred option is for cities to wait until they offer conditional employment before they ask about criminal history or perform background checks.
She also recommended cities provide an way for applicants to protest or explain a background check’s result since many can contain errors.
Councilman Steve Kozachik said the city should tread lightly when it comes to implementing any changes.
“We’re all sensitive to wanting people to be given a totally fair shot when they’re out applying for work,” Kozachik said.
“But we can’t overstep on this. There are times when any employer has the right to conduct background checks to make sure the people they’re hiring aren’t security risks.”
