
Ask HN: How has having a criminal history affected your career? - throwawayobv
Throwaway account. However I wanted to get a feeling for how any of you have dealt with your criminal history (if you have one) and how it had affected your career.<p>When I was 18 I was arrested for being a stupid kid and was initially charged with armed robbery. When I was arrested, I was facing 15 year sentence w&#x2F; a mandatory 5. The charges were ultimately reduced to grand theft where I was subsequently assigned probation for 4 years and a couple hundred community service hours.<p>I got extremely lucky, finished my community service hours within 7 months, landed a job (was a requirement, although it took nearly ~70 job applications to get one) and was able to get off probation by the end of the first year by representing myself in court for an appeal of my probation.<p>The experience really shattered my life (especially  immediately right after getting arrested) but threw me full force into programming since I had so much free time (couldn&#x27;t leave the county, had regular checkups by my PO, and was literally just fearful of law enforcement in general).<p>It&#x27;s been 10 years since, and I&#x27;m happy to say that I&#x27;ve been extremely lucky that I haven&#x27;t (to my knowledge) been denied a job because of my past. Although it has come up nearly every time I&#x27;ve landed a job. I&#x27;ve been able to get around it by just talking to them about the situation.<p>This post is inspired by the recent 70millionjobs launch [https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=14911467].<p>To me, support DURING the after math of being arrested, would have been a lot more beneficial to my overall wellbeing. When on probation or parole the system literally feels like you&#x27;re setup to fail, and requires a state of organization and perseverance I&#x27;ve never required in my life before it.
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celticninja
Reading stories like these really make me glad that I wasn't caught for stupid
shit I did as a kid. It does make me worry about any future children I have
though, with more and more stuff becoming a crime and the authorities penchant
for punishment farther than rehabilitation it means they may not be as lucky
as I was.

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alistproducer2
I've heard anecdotally that Google denied a dude for a misdemeanor. Can anyone
else confirm or deny that?

