I was convicted for drugs and firearms in Norway. The only time it has ever come up during my many years as a programmer, was when a consulting company I worked for had the police IT service as a candidate for my next project.
Since it was for the police, a background check would be required. I politely told my department head that I would not pass that, and a short summary of my case. At that time I had worked for about 2 years and got a kind "we would never have guessed" and "you will get another project then".
As a side note: In our country, an employer needs a legitimate reason to do a background check, and they won't see crimes that are not relevant, or for some crimes - too long ago.
Many Americans talk about "freedom" but their definition is largely narrow and specific to political issues they feel strongly about. The same people who talk about "small government" simultaneously use the federal government to bludgeon states into submissions on issues such as legalized marijuana. It's usually something that's used to justify a specific political position and not an overall sentiment of allowing actual freedom.
On the contrary, many Americans support policies that are against many ideas of freedom such as the disenfranchisement of felons.
For example, someone might use an example of being able to deny a LGBTQ person a service as "having freedoms" but ignore the fact that by denying them that service, that person is also simultaneously less free.
There is no such thing as actual freedom. You exercising your "freedom" almost always means imposing upon someone else's. In your example wouldn't someone having to provide a service to a LGBTQ person even though it is against their religious beliefs be a violation of their freedom of religion just as much as refusing to provide them service would be a violation of the LGBTQ person's freedom?
"Freedom" is used a lot when politics comes up not because it is a way to justify political positions but because politics is to a great degree the arguing of whose freedoms trumps another's under what circumstances.
that's party of the problem, that view of freedom, that's more about individual choice. It often flys in the face of achieving greater freedoms through rules and social cooperation. People are familiar with the concept but often don't think about it, like driving on the road, if people were allowed individual choice about how they want to drive on roads it would be a nightmare to drive on the roads, but luckily, people aren't "free" to choose which side of the road to drive on ,etc, there are a bunch of rules, and because the vast majority follow these "restrictions" a greater freedom is achieved, you can get from A to B in relatively short time periods in relative safety. Cooperative freedoms tend to give some of the greatest actual freedoms, however, they need to be underpinned and balanced with a set of core individual rights. Working out that balance is... tricky.
In the same way that federal money can't be spent on abortions because of "religious freedom" but we still go to war with taxes collected from Quakers, we had to fight for decades over the "definition of marriage" because a certain religion's liberties are more equal than others.
The freedom to disagree with others. The freedom to marry who you want. The freedom to move about freely in nature without having to worry about property lines.
In some places that are less free, these things are frowned upon.
"In some places that are less free, these things are frowned upon." They are frowned upon by some because they affect what those people believe their freedoms should entail. None of these are examples of exercising of freedoms that don't affect the freedom of others.
Take for example the freedom to move about freely in nature without having to worry about property lines. This most definitely affects the property rights of others and their freedom to do as they wish with their property. I'm not saying that your freedom of movement shouldn't out rank their property rights and the freedom to do as they will with their own property but it certainly impacts their freedoms.
I think most scandinavians would disagree with you.
In my opinion, someone having a problem with people taking a walk in their forest need help.
(And yes, I grew up on a property that has a forest, and yes, when encountering people going for a walk or gathering mushrooms, one says «hello» and smiles)
> In your example wouldn't ... be a violation of their freedom of religion
Not at all, that's not what freedom of religion is.
I can practice a Mayan or Inca religion by myself - that's freedom of religion - but I cannot allow it to affect other people's life e.g. by organizing human sacrifices.
How is an individual refusing to provide a service which is readily available from others significantly impacting other people's life?
Also not being able to practice ritual sacrifice if it is part of your faith is a violation of your religious freedom. We as society have made the decision that the right to life is a greater right than your right to freely practice your religion but it is still a violation of your right. It is just another example of how in a functioning society decisions have to be constantly be made regarding whose rights are greater than someone else's under what circumstances.
I think freedom and access to power are entangled.
People with access to power or money either don't need to interview for jobs, or don't have criminal records that complicate that process.
So, they are more free by default. Not only do these checks not affect them directly, they create a nerf on a whole set of other people, which creates a contrast of freedom.
I do not think many would go out in public and say they like seeing the poor unfairly burdened. However, I believe in many cases groups in the United States have chosen "power over principals."
This is where the choice to protect power supersedes choosing to act principals or professed beliefs.
I do not think this is a new thing, though I think it has never been so public and given today's politics the contrast is particularly stark.
Being free to background check someone you're going to work with, work for, or hire is in fact an entirely correct aspect of being free broadly. The US position on that is correct, not contradictory.
Restriction on action which does not involve using violence against others is restricting freedom in any proper liberal model of the word. That goes for everything from prostitution to drug use, and it absolutely includes being able to research information about other people you're going to work with.
It's hilarious that a place like Norway, which eg thinks publishing open salaries is to be touted, is then magically closed on checking other information about a person. So which is it, open information or not culturally? It's contradictory, arbitrary horseshit is what it is.
The position is philosophically identical to claiming that speech must be heavily restricted to be truly free (ie free of "hate" etc.). It's nothing more than intellectual infantilism, part of the mental immaturing and weakening of the West. It's Orwell-think, inverting everything; more restriction on personal action is freedom, more restriction on speech is free speech.
No, infantilism is being unable to contextualise freedom and see it in its proper communal and social context. Handing private entities the ability to engage in surveillance against their fellow citizens isn't freedom, it's eroding the very basis of freedom. It's creating a private panopticon in which everyone is constantly conditioned to behave and comply. That is actually what modern American society is by the way, literally infantilized. Students are being policed by their universities, children by theire hyper-religious parents, minorities by their neighbours ring doorbells, and workers by their companies, no state required.
The proper way to understand the liberal tradition and apply it today is to understand that the liberal tradition is concerned with threats to individual freedom, period. 200 years ago, in early capitalist times, citizens were equal and the state was powerful. Today private power and surveillance is just as dangerous, if not more dangerous, than anything the American government can come up with.
The liberal tradition applied today, by the spirit rather than the letter of the law and its proper intent, must be concerned with stopping citizens and private firms from controlling each others lives, rather than be obsessed with some 18th century homesteading logic or 'voluntary contracts'.
So TLDR; your opinion is the way it should be done and anyone who thinks otherwise are wrong. How free of you.
> It's Orwell-think
Hilarious in a comment stating the US position is the correct one. I'd like to know of an example of another nation that is more or even on the same level of Orwellian as the US? I can't even think of one historically, far from it today. Of course the US way of thinking would require you to yell CHINAMAN or RED RUSSIAN now as loud as you can, but in reality neither have near as Orwellian a state as the U.S. of NSA.
In Texas, if you pull a background check on someone you're required to provide a copy to them which I always felt was a good minimal standard - at least then you know that someone pulled the check and what they found.
That's interesting because I've filed many things in Texas related to background checks in Texas and have never received a response. I'll edit this comment with more research about this, as this is personally a very interesting topic.
EDIT 1:
A quick look shows a guidebook for employers which references this, but the link to the Texas state code talks about in-home employees.
https://www.twc.texas.gov/news/efte/references_background_ch...
I'm still unsure about the law related to other kinds of employees.
Readers from other countries, what is it like there?
I remember when I lived in Australia, my friends told me that many crimes do not show up on background checks after 5 years. Also in Australia, the sex offender registry is confidential, and can only be checked for very specific things (jobs involving children, certain types of housing, etc.)
In the US, there are ways of getting records expunged for some crimes, but due to freedom of speech laws/1st amendment, typically background check companies are free to hold on to older records if they were at one time public.
I know in the EU, many countries have right to be forgotten laws, but the EFF has historically stood against them due to the fact they've often been used by wealthy individuals to hide their crimes.
> I know in the EU, many countries have right to be forgotten laws
These are not even really relevant, since in most places it's considered unethical or even illegal for journalists (or anyone really) to publish names of suspects or convicted common* criminals. You will generally read "Man/Woman convicted for X" and sometimes just their first name.
This is a consequence of systems that mostly focus on rehabilitation and reintegration. Having your name show up in newspaper articles would seriously hinder that.
If your main focus was punishment instead, then publishing the names of criminals just goes well with that.
And finally you can't just ask to see the criminal history of X, and it would be illegal to discriminate based on such knowledge if it is not relevant to the job. In Germany only yourself can obtain your own criminal record (Führungszeugnis) - your employer can't obtain it directly. It's generally thought to be illegal for an employer to ask you for this (it was never tested in court though, because nobody was stupid enough to try). The only exception are if you will be working with minors or if it's specifically relevant to your job (compliance officers, financial stuff...).
*If you are a high-profile individual you are fair game. For instance the Wirecard CEO and COO.
Here in .fi employers are not permitted to do any background checks - all they can legally use is the information provided by the applicant. They can ask permission to request security clearance from the Finnish Security and Intelligence Service (Supo), which would then do the background checks, but this is allowed for only some jobs.
Working with children may require that you provide extract from the criminal record, but only certain crimes (violence, child abuse, sex offences, drug offences, human trafficking etc.) are considered.
Here in the Netherlands some jobs require you to submit a Certificate of Conduct. It's a document you can request from the Ministry of Justice and Security that declares that you have not been convicted for any crime relevant to the job you request the declaration for.
I have never really thought about it that deeply but it seems like a decent way of doing things. I really like that your employer can't just look it up.
In New Zealand, your criminal record consists of solely those crimes you have been convicted of in court, and is automatically clean slated if you have gone >7 years without an offence (unless you have been convicted of a serious crime in which case it's on your record for life). In fact it is an offence for most employers to ask for your full (non-clean-slated record.
We also have a system known as police vetting, which is a far more intrusive background check, and includes not just actual convictions but also mere encounters with the police, warnings, etc. Police vetting can only be requested for roles that involve working with vulnerable adults or children.
In all cases the candidate must (a) consent, and (b) be supplied with a copy of the results. Overall I think this is a good system though there are some areas for improvement.
It depends on the job, for some jobs employers are required to ask you for a clean police report; if you don't have criminal records you can get it, if you have something then you either don't apply or they will have to disqualify you for missing that clean record proof from the police.
Some examples that I know personally: sports club gun trainer (precision shooting is an Olympic game); policeman; any job as security guard, driver on armored cars that carry money from banks etc.
I think for cashiers there is a similar requirement, not 100% sure. It was ~ 20 years ago, but laws change from time to time.
Not so funny is when I had to go to the police section, take such a "clean bill of criminal record" from one office and give it to another policemen at the next office 5 meters away. It was the third time that month because I needed some certificate that had cascaded requirements to have other certificates that also depended on this bills and each required a separate bill in the list of documents.
Croatia - it's common to ask a person applying for a position a proof issued my Ministry of Justice that they don't have an active criminal case against them but some will ask for an equivalen of background check from the Ministry of Internal Affairs ("police")
Denmark - I have a friend who was asked to provide something like a proof of not being prosecuted for a an engineering position, while another colleague who applied and for the same position wasn't asked for one. The difference between the two was the country they were from with, I'm guessing, appearance of the former one playing a role. The guy looks like a bouncer with his 1.90 height, 100 kg of muscle and a crooked nose from being an ex amateur boxer (under the appearance he is a teddy bear).
In the UK, it's changed recently because of a Supreme Court ruling, but AFAIK there are various levels of check depending on the specific job. In most cases a conviction for which the person was sentenced to less than 4 years in prison will eventually become 'spent' and won't show up on background checks apart from for specific jobs (such as working with children). Even for those jobs, some minor convictions are 'filtered' and removed from the record.
> typically background check companies are free to hold on to older records if they were at one time public.
That is true, but it is however often illegal for employers to base a hiring or firing decision on expunged records. So background check companies do generally try to comply with record expungement as it protects their customers from liability. However due to the complexity and variety of laws on expungement and lack of direct consequences for them they frequently fail at it.
In Bulgaria (EU) they often ask you to provide proof that you are currently not being prosecuted, but apart from that, the only time I’ve been asked to get a criminal record was when applying for a citizenship. And having one is not something that would stop the process, but can be grounds for denial.
Programmers can get a free pass for a lot of things here though.
Go to the police station and ask them to give you a “note”
Fun fact is that you need this note even if your dealing with another government agency.
When applying for Bulgarian citizenship, I was required to obtain such note. I would have guessed that they have more reliable ways of telling if someone actually is in an active police case, but no, they want that “note”. No web service to actually do this. I mean they could have just called the police department or something... I had to spend a good part of a day waiting there just to get it... </rant>
Just a guess on my end: probably fill out some form at a local police station or court, submit it, and then they you receive the results later that list what you are being prosecuted for or a lack thereof.
I worked in the finantial industry 20 years ago in Andorra, a small independent country between France and Spain. You needed to present what in Spanish is called a "certificado de penales" (criminal certificate, I think is the expression in English).
Ironically, the country itself was at that time well-known for its opaque finantial practices.
my (aussie) hobbies include sabotage (mostly trespass and refuse to obey, but also a bit of criminal damage) - never been an issue finding the kind of (software) work I prefer. Corporate employers say they do a check: maybe they don't. I assume they google, so I guess they don't care.
obviously I don't pursue jobs that require a clearance level. I once got in an exchange with a recruiter:
"do you have [clearance]?"
"I wouldn't want to work anywhere that requires it"
"Oh, you wouldn't be able to work here without it"
"No, I wouldn't want to work with you if you require it"
"No, you wouldn't be able to work here without it"
including a YC-backed firm that does this explicitly. I find it sad/humorous that they have copy about "connecting companies with a more diverse set of candidates" while essentially selling a service for streamlined filtering out this pool of people. I get the need in certain circumstances, just get tired of companies trying to have it both ways.
No kidding. My sister went off to the states almost 20 years ago. Got a job as a teacher, she was trained for it here in Sweden.
At the time I worked at a small web hosting company, we had her personal homepage for free since she was my sis.
Suddenly she calls me from the states telling me I need to go into her website and edit out some links.
Apparently lawyers working for the school where she was applying to work had found her homepage (which she made under an alias and afaik had no references to her person) and didn't like some of the links on it.
I'm still blown away by this. The links were about certain sexual fetishes, but again, her website was under a pseudonym. I have no idea how they connected it to her. Could have been something dead simple like her using an e-mail address on the same domain, or using her pseudonym in her e-mail address on hotmail. She wasn't that careful about remaining anonymous, it was just a thing back then that people would have alter-egos online.
I've found a mix with background checks in the U.S; a lot of rental landlords want background checks for the obvious reasons (e.g. housing a convicted rapist with a young woman), employers can go either way, and in my experience it has tended to be reasonable (but I've always worked as a professional, and for people I know through colleagues or acquaintances).
A background check is, in my experience, unusal for renters in Canada, but that might just be my bias, having mostly rented from slumlords and acquaintances.
The demands for background checks tends to be inversely proportional to the ability of the employee/applicant to do criminal or civil harm. You'll need a clean criminal record to work a random retail job but could have numerous convictions and be a software developer. A crummy rental will require it but fancy executive rental will not.
I know some of this has historical/data underpinnings on experience, but fear most of it is based on biased expectations.
In my experience you will more likely see it if you are in a shop that is paying below market. I.e. Devs there make 10k less than other local shops.
We wound up with some interesting folks. Got to see what someone going through methadone withdrawals looks like. On the other hand, a few people got some really meaningful second chances at a career there.
in US - Most employers don't have super deep pockets to do the background checks, and they pay to do a check in each of your previous addresses listed and decide how far back to go to pull the records. [...If I had a reason to...] To give a higher chance of passing a background at a small employer I may list only my current address. It depends how complex the the HR team is.
It's mostly the same in Denmark. However, there is one situation where background checks are mandatory and that is when you work with children below the age of 15. You have to pass this check not only for a proper job but also if you are doing volunteer work with children (e.g. sports association, scouts etc.)
The check is only for crimes against children so you can be convicted for violent crimes and pass this check.
Any entries in your criminal record will no longer appear in background checks after some time (depending on the severity of your offense). However, any offense against a child will always appear on this special background check no matter how long ago it was committed.
You have to approve that this background check is performed but if you can't produce a clean "child certificate" then you are prohibited from working with children by law.
As an expatriate American, I just hope people recognize that "America the beautiful" does exist, there's a lot to love about the country, its people, land and culture.
It's sad how that's overshadowed by their corporations, politicians, and somewhat intentionally broken system - but I choose to believe that good sense will prevail eventually, when enough people care and do something about it - as they've done time and again through history.
My brother did jail time for federal larceny, he makes six figures in the US. In fact over half my family have criminal records, and they're mostly employed, including active drug dealers.
It matters to some degree for sure but it's really overblown.
What's your point? Do you feel that after serving a sentence for such a crime, the perpetrator should not have a chance at a "normal" life? Should they live the rest of their days continually punished by society for what they did?
If so, should we instead increase the length of the sentence for such a crime? To how long?
We had someone who worked at my company that was convicted for second degree manslaughter for bludgeoning someone to death with a hammer. He was always chill around me but I think companies should have the right to decide whether or not they want to hire people with a record like that.
How do you get manslaughter for that? You can't unintentionally bludgeon someone to death, can you?
I will however say that there is opportunity for multiple interpretations with the little information provided; for example I think bludgeoning someone to death is perfectly acceptable if that person is trying to harm you or your family and a hammer is the nearest available weapon. Your coworker could have been in a similar situation in which self defense was warranted, and that may be why he did not get a murder charge instead.
This sort of nuance is why this issue matters a lot; you could do the right thing and still end up with a charge that severely impacts your ability to get a job, even though you're not actually some kind of violent murderer.
Manslaughter can absolutely be intentional; hence "voluntary manslaughter". It generally needs to be unpremeditated and without active malicious intent, but can be self-defence, "in the heat of passion", etc that cause what would otherwise be a murder charge to be reduced to manslaughter.
There is a big difference between "This person should be imprisoned and completely seperated from society" and "I should have the right to not work with violent people". I have no problem with a convicted murderer being released from prison, but I'm not going to invite them over for dinner.
> "I should have the right to not work with violent people"
You do have that right, because you can switch jobs at will (unlike that person), in case you don't want to work with someone purely due to their past and not something they are doing at your workplace.
I don't think we should be blocking people (who have already paid their dues for the crimes they have committed in the past) from getting a job solely for their past, just because you might be uncomfortable with that.
It isn't like you are trapped, you always have an option to leave. The person who paid their dues to the prison system doesn't have any options if they become unhireable solely due to people's prejudices about their past. And at that point, what other option do they have other than turn their head towards crime again? Rent and bills aren't gonna pay themselves.
Not the best solution, but I don't think that denying someone a job based on your discomfort about their distant past is reasonable at all. Of course, as long as they weren't in-and-out of jail multiple times for the same crimes, because that's an indication that they are likely to re-commit.
You definitely made me think with this comment. I came here ready to say “this is amazing” but read your comment and it dawned on me how incredibly depressing it is when you think how rare this sort of thing is.
Great comment and thanks for sharing that perspective.
Thank you for sharing that link, I never looked at these stories through the lense of "what's actually wrong with this situation." I learned something today.
Glad this person had a computer program in their prison. I think most prisons have basically no real computer access except for a horrible "email" service called corrlinks. Very embarrassing for the US.
- "The United States holds more people in jails and prisons than any other country by far, both in absolute numbers and as a percentage of population."
The numbers are stunning. Around a quarter of all Americans have a criminal record.
- "Almost no one gets a trial"
- "The blue icons are the portion of incarcerated people who got trials, around 2%"
My mind boggles at this. Conviction is without trial in 98% of cases? People avoid trial when they don't think they'll get a fair one or they can't afford a decent lawyer? No wonder it's a hotbed of racism.
No, wait, I was assuming conviction:
- "Unconvicted Americans are the 4th largest incarcerated population in the world"
Now my mind boggles even more. There are more unconvicted Americans incarcerated than convicted people incarcerated in almost all other countries.
- "What if you've spent your whole life believing that you live in the freest country on earth, when the reality is precisely the opposite?"
Careful with the trick statistics. If you're ranking the size of groups, the result heavily depends on how you define the groups. That "4th largest" makes no sense because the 3 above it aren't broken down the same way and should really be split into 5 groups for consistency. Then there's the fact that the USA is the 3rd largest country by population so it should be weighted by population. It's a complete fail of a statistic obviously designed to shock without informing.
> Then there's the fact that the USA is the 3rd largest country by population so it should be weighted by population
Most of the statistics I cited are already weighted by population; they are per-capita and percentages: "as a percentage of the population"; "a quarter of all Americans"; "almost no one gets a trial"; "2%".
Those population-weighted values are astonishing.
I agree the 4th largest thing is not weighted, but the astonishing part of that is that USA unconvicted incarcerations rank significantly at all, when compared with convicted in other countries. USA population size is not sufficient to explain this.
It's the opposite of what I'd hope and expect, for a country where people talk of "land of the free" and "rule of law".
The American cultural penchant for cruelty and predilection for fear is something I find really off-putting about living here (as an expat).
And make no mistake, the ubiquity of "are you a convicted felon?" on every application form is cruelty. Bear in mind that can (depending on the state) include, for example, possession of even small amounts of cannabis.
Mark Wahlberg is a convicted felon for what seems to be a pretty vicious race-based assault 30 years ago. Even as someone who is famous and extremely rich this actually causes him a lot of problems, so much so that for awhile he petitioned the Massachusetts governor for a pardon.
Personally I was (and am) against a pardon for him. There was enough of a backlash that the request was dropped. The problem with him getting a pardon is that's (yet another) exemption for the rich and famous. Kind of like how only people with 100K Twitter followers can be customer support on anything these days.
What about all those people who are convicted felons for minor drug offenses including drugs that can now be legal for recreational use? They don't have the wealth and fame to bypass this scarlet letter.
Even worse, this can be triggered by more cruel measures like three-strikes laws that disempower judges from making informed decisions.
The problem here is the permanent scarlet letter and there shouldn't be exemptions for wealth, fame or power.
The level of incarceration in the United States should be a huge source of shame. It's an institutional failure and yet more cruelty, especially given the prevalence of prison rape.
It's good this woman learned a new skill and (even better) is allowed to use it. It's just sad that this is such an exception it's newsworthy.
In college I worked as a phone dispatcher for a company that had a slick homegrown system for managing accounts, billing and dispatching. It was faster, fuller-featured and more intuitive than the commercial systems I'd seen at the time.
When the dev swung by the office one day I chatted with him and was surprised to learnt that he'd gotten his start coding in prison as well. He hadn't used computers at all before being incarcerated, but got hooked in his first class when he typed something at the command line and got an error in response. He muttered something like "I'll show you, stupid machine" and committed then and there to getting the device to do what he wanted it to. Ten years later he had a successful business building and maintaining systems like the one I was using for small businesses all over the area.
In the US every job I had required a criminal background check. Also when I volunteered to coach my kids team and also for other volunteering I did in their school.
I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea. For example, you don't want let a sex offender coach a kids team. And I don't care if that person already paid their dues. But you cannot ruin the life of someone who has a minor offense from years ago. People should be able to rehabilitate and improve their life. I don't know what employers do when a background check is not clean. If they actually consider the severity of it or immediately reject the candidate.
It's impossible to know for sure what employers actually check for when you're hired, but anecdotally I've only been given a background check consent form at three of about a dozen jobs over the past three decades, and two of those also required DoD security clearances. I suspect larger employers do it as a matter of course, and smaller ones don't.
How many of your applications had a box requesting if you were ever convicted in those 30 years? Until fairly recently that was standard practice on any application. With the ban the box gaining traction, most companies now just farm it out, you don't have the check the box, they will do the background check. And here is the kicker, you don't have to give your consent in most cases as they are having a third party do the check on publicly available information. companies like goodhire, and many like it make the whole process cheap and easy.
Unfortunately, the worst offender of this is the federal government. Essentially any federal position, regardless of actual job position, requires a background check.
Most government jobs in the UK require this too. However,
they don't require a spotless record but there would be some types of offences (serious fraud, affiliation with organised crime, etc) that would make it impossible. It's assessed based on the job, the offence, and how long ago it was.
Does a background check in the US imply that they'd never consider anyone with any blemish on their record whatsoever? Surely it just means they have to make an informed decision.
Which is a good thing. A background check looks for past, present, and future issues that could indicate a pattern of unethical or illegal behavior, or conflicts of interest. Every employee, regardless of actual job position, is given some level of inherent trust over the country's money, data, or physical assets. A background check is a minimal defense against misplacing that trust.
(Insert snide remark about elected/appointed politicians here.)
There are a lot of people saying they're in favor of this type of thing. And for non-violent offenses I'd probably also be on board.
But this person committed a "serious, violent crime" that sent them to prison for 13 years. Are you comfortable sitting next to someone who is capable of a "serious, violent crime"? Are there certain crimes that cross the line for you? Would you expect your employer to inform you of their record?
Edit: Just want to remind people, 13 years could very well mean that they murdered someone. Context around the charge is key, and no one seems to be acknowledging that.
I was a co-creator of The Last Mile's coding program, and taught many classes in San Quentin prison. The students were generally there for a decade plus, for violent crimes.
I would sit next to any of them for any length of time. They pose zero threat to anyone.
This is for two reasons:
1. Generally, violent crimes are done by very young and poor people. By the time they get out of prison, they aren't very young any more. If they have a good job, they aren't poor either.
2. If a prison lets someone in an educational program, you know the system considers them safe. The system buckets inmates; behavioral offenses are harshly penalized; everyone in a classroom is an angel, and they won't stop being an angel on the outside.
Let's break this down. Someone commits murder, and gets sent to prison for 13 years. They are out now. How do we deal with them?
1. If everyone says that they will no longer want to work with such a person, especially rich people, who can enforce that want, that person will end up working with poor people. The rich people are making a classist argument.
2. Worse, if that person, cannot even get bad jobs, they will be forced to commit more crimes in order to live. Now, the first crime might have been because they were a bad person, but the second crime is on the people who refuse to work with them.
3. What are other possibilities?
You get out of this conundrum by making prison about rehabilitation. Ensuring that people who come out are changed people who are not inclined to commit more crimes. Then you treat them like normal people. And hopefully, that world, while not perfect, will be better than this world.
After reading everyone's responses and responding myself, I've realized that I'm really caught up on the murder aspect.
I think my revised opinion is that if you intentionally murder someone without a damn good reason, you should spend life in prison. This can include second degree murder, which is often not life in prison in the US (And also happens to line up with the OP scenario).
Happy that someone changed their mind. You asked a very good question. I don't think there are any easy answers to it. Crime hurts people and creates lots of strong emotions, so our instincts on what is best for society regarding crime are not very reliable.
A lot of conversation needs to happen on this, and we need to constantly reevaluate our positions.
I didn't want to dive down away from murder, because then I'll have to pick my "line". I'm not prepared to do that for various reasons. For example, I don't know the punishments for the crime you mentioned.
Murder is the "easiest" crime to use to make my arguments. And even then I have to specify stuff like "intentional without a damn good reason".
> We can't make the punishment the same, or he would just murder her, yet I don't think such a person should every be let out.
Do you believe people can change? Or perhaps more generally, what do you think the purpose of a prison should be when considering rehabilitation vs punishment?
I very honestly have less problem with murder then something like past harassment. Like, unless it was not random burst of violence, that must won't happen to me or someone I know. So that person generally working is lowering chance of recidivism for little cost to me.
I suppose another possibility is that the market just deals with it. Through wages, employee retention, or 'danger money' for the non-convict colleagues.
Market "dealing" with it means high recidivism. It's the tragedy of the commons. It might be in everyone's individual interest to not hire an ex-felon, but it leads to a worse outcome for everyone.
Personal story, fwiw. Wheelchair Tom was a neighbor growing up. Nice guy. Little quirky, but nice. Tom gave out quarters for Halloween, and paid small amounts to neighborhood kids to help out around his property.
Why was Tom in a wheelchair? Tom killed his wife years earlier in a crime of passion after catching her with another man in their bed. He grabbed a gun, shot both people. She died. Tom walked out and the lover came behind him and shot him in the back.
Tom went to prison for a very violent crime. I raked leafs for him as a kid, and so did my kids. I wouldn't have had second thoughts of asking him to keep an eye on the kids for a while if needed. Tom was a member of our community who had a very violent past that all the adults knew about and were accepting of.
Alternatively, there are folks who have sterling records that I would not let my kids do chores for.
I agree. Given some circumstance or set of them, the overwhelming vast majority of people are capable of extreme violence.
What is scary is those who enjoy violence and causing harm. My grandma worked in the next cube over from a guy for years. "Nicest guy ever." He spent his weekends cutting people into parts and mailing the the parts around.
>"But this person committed a "serious, violent crime" that sent them to prison for 13 years. Are you comfortable sitting next to someone who is capable of a "serious, violent crime"? Are there certain crimes that cross the line for you? Would you expect your employer to inform you of their record?"
I would not feel comfortable sitting next to someone who was substantially more capable of committing a serious, violent crime (which might indeed have been murder if she did 13 years) than an average member of the population and I would expect an employer to take my welfare and safety into account.
The question is whether someone who did do that and went to prison for it is so much more likely to commit such a crime than average. I don't know the answer to that but I don't think it's outrageous to think the answer is "no".
Some friends and I just happened to watch Trading Places (1983, Eddie Murphy, Dan Aykroyd) last night, and it deals directly with this question, and got us talking about it.
I work with a guy who did some time, but I'm not sure what for. Probably drug-related, if I had to guess, but I've never asked. He's a model employee, as long as you include a snarky wit in your model. And I feel perfectly comfortable around him.
There are people around who DO creep me out, but that's not even slightly correlated, in my little sample, with the people who've been to prison.
We're all capable of it. Humans are hairless apes with neither claws nor tusks who spend more time in helpless, bawling infancy than any other animal. Yet somehow we survived among literal monsters in prehistory. If we are not prey...?
Have you never been violent, not even once? With anyone? Were you old enough to be tried as an adult under the right circumstances? Even the slightest physical conflict is only a dice roll away from turning into a horrific accident that does lasting damage.
And what is your alternative? Keep offenders in the system forever? Do we believe in the "Correction" of "Correctional Facilities" or not? Forgiveness? Rehabilitation? Redemption?
At some point you have to stop passing the buck to someone else to let people back into society, otherwise you're just being a predestinationalist by your deeds.
> Would you expect your employer to inform you of their record?
No, I would find that offensive. Similarly I wouldn't want to know about their military record, substance habits, childhood, credit score, or the last mean thing their spouse said to them. That's all personal.
Are you comfortable being judged on the worst thing you've ever done in your life?
Sure, a violent crime is worse than some bone-headed mistake made at a college party, or whatever your worst moment is. But how much have you grown up since then? Would you do it again? Or are you older and wiser? Well, they are probably older and wiser, too.
I'd be willing to be that the worst thing most people have done isn't murder or manslaughter. You don't have to be "older and wiser" to know that you aren't supposed to murder people.
> *You don't have to be "older and wiser" to know that you aren't supposed to murder people.
I mean, I'm not sure how relevant "knowing" anything is, but age is an incredibly strong predictor of criminality. Gender is another one. The majority of crime, and the overwhelming majority violent crime, is committed by young men. One factor that likely contributes to this reliable statistical phenomenon is that the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for decision-making, self-control, emotional self-regulation, and other aspects of executive function, doesn't fully develop until around 25 years of age. For one example of how executive function relates to criminal behavior, look into the connection between ADHD (a disorder linked to deficiencies in the prefrontal cortex) and crime.
I agree that most people haven't killed anyone, but I also don't think that there's any reason for any of us to assume that 'we' would have behaved any differently when placed in the circumstances of those who have.
Put yourself in a companies position, if you hire someone who had a violent past, and they commit a violent crime while at work, or to a coworker or client off the clock, the company will be held liable, no two ways about it, it will come back on the company.
Additionally, there are countless contracts that require you specifically not have anyone with criminal convictions, and require full background checks to be awarded the contracts, even more so if it was a violent felony.
Those are two very serious liabilities to a company, I understand that people deserve a second chance, but do you put your company at risk to give it to them?
This is a really important point. Most attempts to reduce discrimination against felons (e.g. Ban the box) do nothing to address the reason why the discrimination happens in the first place. It also places the burden on the applicant and state to retroactively correct and create chances (which are then already in a strained condition).
If states were to specify some rules around when a 'Negligent Hiring' liability suit could be pursued against a business, business owners would be more willing to hire and provide chances. If the state is liable should something happen, the burden on the state then becomes to proactively rehabilitate felons who meet the set of conditions such that their future litigation costs are reduced.
To me, that is a much better alignment of incentives though not perfect.
If no employer is willing to “put themselves at risk”, what choice do ex-convicts have but to commit more crimes? May as well give them a life sentence in prison for anything that makes them an employment risk.
This is a failure of the state, the purpose for incarceration is retribution, incapacitation, deterrence and rehabilitation.
Rehabilitation, is the most important aspect for a person who has been in prison to be able to return to society. Storing people in a hellish place does not fix them, it only punishes them, with out counseling and education, how is a person who is released in anyway more prepared than when they went in?
I agree the current system makes it damn near impossible for someone with a conviction to get a second chance. That issue should be address at the corrections level, and the services provided after conviction.
But most companies do not have the resources, education, or ability to help rehabilitate someone, so should we blindly hire on hope that this person won't cause harm to the people a company is responsible for, should the company forgo the opportunities that require your staff not have convictions, that is just an unrealistic expectation.
Think about it like this, say there was a piece of equipment that had malfunctioned and caused serious injury to someone, and your company then wanted to bring that piece of equipment into your office, knowing that there is a 44% chance that it will malfunction in someway again, and there is a 25% chance that the malfunction would cause serious harm to someone, would you be comfortable with that choice, if that malfunction happened do you think the company would and should be liable for this?
There are too many situations, where trying to make this right for someone with a record would have too many of my employees face situations I don't think they should have to in a work place. with 1 in 5 women being the victim of sexual assault or rape, how could I ask any of them to work side by side with someone who was convicted of it, I can't insure their safety, and I don't feel it just to put them in that situation. Same with someone who has been the victim of any violent crime.
I think it boils down to person choice I suppose, and for me, I won't put the people I am responsible for at risk, not the company that I helped built. If that makes me a bad person, I think I can live with that.
People change, especially after being punished for the mistake they made for 13 years. Chances are she would be less likely to engage in violence than the people you currently sit next to, because she has a personal understanding of the harsh punishment it would involve.
Edit: The downvotes that this comment is currently receiving actually illustrate the problems outlined in this thread. If you disagree with the idea that people can change, you will never hire someone with a criminal record, and you will perpetuate the problem. The unemployment rate among felons in the US less than 2 years after release is 31.6% [1]. The unemployment rate at the peak of the Great Depression was 24.9% [2]. It is always the Great Depression for the felon population, because of the incorrect belief that people can’t change. Among any population with unemployment this high, there will be a drastically higher crime rate.
First, you did not point out the specific page where it says that “nearly all” violent offenders will commit another violent crime. This is a 42 page report. Second, I could not find any statistic in that report that comes even remotely close to describing that “most” violent offenders will commit another violent crime. Some states have recidivism rates approaching 50% (for ALL offenders, violent and nonviolent) but those numbers include technical parole violations and new non-violent crime.
Please indicate the page where the data supports your statement.
I originally posted the pew one as I feel the chance of biased against offenders is lower from their research, but this article does a better job of summarizing, as well as offering their full report.
After looking over the data again, it seems that nearly half will commit another crime but only 28.4% will be a violent one.
with these adjusted numbers, it still is inaccurate to say "...Chances are she would be less likely to engage in violence than the people you currently sit next to,..."
It would be interesting to see what the recidivism data on longer sentences is. There is a big difference between someone that served a 90 day sentence for something, then goes and commits a serious crime, and someone that serves 13 years for something. There is a much more significant lesson in the 13 years. Also, crime rates decrease among populations as they age. The mere fact that people who serve longer sentences are older when they get out would have a further push down on crime rates among that population.
You don't get 90 days for a felony, something that short is usually served in local lockup (city/County) and aren't typically included in these sort of stats.
But there is data on people doing under 5 years, and if you compared to that you would likely be right, but don't have the data to prove it.
Many, many people get 90, 60, 30 days or even probation for felonies as part of a plea agreement. Felony simply means that the maximum sentence is over 1 year. There is even a term for it..”felony probation”.
That is a really gross oversimplification of the term, a felony is a serious crime that can result in long term punishment or capital punishment and no less than one year (minimum not maximum) sentence (which can be less due to plea agreements, and time served before conviction) the distinction between felony and misdemeanor is the servity of the crimes classification not just the length of sentence.
There is also a further sub division of felony based on a class code which determines sentencing.
Regardless, it is very rare for someone doing that little time to do so in a state of federal prison, and most studies on this data are based on the department of prisons data, which is why it's not typically included.
Many felons get probation after serving time, this is the only term I've heard felony probation applied to, what are you referencing to mean?
Actually, that is not a gross oversimplification. According to [1], whether a crime has maximum sentence of over 1 year is precisely how the US government determines what crimes are and are not felonies:
In the United States, where the felony/misdemeanor distinction is still widely applied, the federal government defines a felony as a crime punishable by death or imprisonment in excess of one year. If punishable by exactly one year or less, it is classified as a misdemeanor. The classification is based upon a crime's potential sentence, so a crime remains classified as a felony even if a defendant receives a sentence of less than a year of incarceration.
Also, no, I wasn’t referring to post-release supervision (which is usually referred to as parole or supervised release). Many hundreds of thousands of people every year receive a sentence of probation for felonies, primarily because countless “tough on crime” measures have increased maximum sentences for minor crimes, which automatically turned them into felonies where they used to be misdemeanors.
Honestly, I'm more worried about what 13 years in prison did to the person than the original crime. We don't know what the original crime was so it is hard to say in this case. Perhaps they have some deep, anti-social personality flaw and I wouldn't want to sit next to them. I would be concerned about sitting next to an innocent person who spent 13 years in prison, though. For me, that is a root issue. How many criminals are flawed people vs people who made a mistake or reacted badly to an isolated situation or just didn't have the skills or maturity to handle a difficult situation. I'm reminded of a quote I heard once. "Crime is committed by the young but prison is full of old men." People aren't the same their whole lives.
> I'm more worried about what 13 years in prison did to the person than the original crime.
100% this. Going to prison is a traumatic experience, and would be even in a country that had a real commitment to safe rehabilitation. In the US, it's all too often multiple traumatic experiences one after the other. Nonetheless, I think former felons absolutely deserve every chance to reintegrate. I just worry about their psychological safety when things get tense and others get combative. This is just one more reason why more people in tech need to grow the hell up and treat people around them with basic respect.
> Perhaps they have some deep, anti-social personality flaw
Like a lot of people in IT ? Not necessarily anti-social but you need to be asocial to some degree to want to spend 8+ hours in front of a screen talking to a computer. It's usually easy to pick out programmers from general population.
You replace my word, "anti-social" with your word, "asocial" which doesn't mean the same thing. Anti-social behavior is a clinical diagnosis. I mean to describe people who react with a lot of violence or anger at situations that might happen at an office.
Just trying to clarify here: you’re saying if someone was exonerated of a violent crime due to newer, overwhelming forensic evidence but had already spent 13years.
You’d feel more comfortable working with the actual criminal than the innocent person who spent 13 years in prison?
I'm not saying I would be more concerned. I'm saying that 13 years in prison might cause problems by itself. This is a criticism of prison, not the person.
I spent most of my career working in restaurants. We had a server who literally lit someone on fire. I had drug addicts who didn't show up for work, causing a panicked chain reaction among all the other people from their halfway house. Half the cooks were violating some sort of immigration or labor law.
It's fine. Most criminals are fine most the time.
What's your alternative? If you go to jail it's just for life because creampuffs can't handle sitting near someone who did something bad? Why is society comfortable with white colar criminals working when they cause more damage (both to the companies and to society as a whole)?
I think the real issue is that we don’t rehabilitate, so under our current system of justice, I would argue that it’s normal for someone to feel something in proximity of such a convict. The reason being, they were probably treated like an animal for over a decade. Give them hope and some courses to get their shit together and suddenly I’m less worried about the whole situation.
It has to start somewhere. Like...giving them a good paying job in a thriving industry. You're contradicting yourself and you only wrote 3 sentences. You've being shown the proof of how we can rehabilitate and then going "but IDK, doesn't seem good enough..."
I’m not being clear. I am sympathizing with OP. Because we know recidivism is higher when you don’t rehabilitate, sitting next to a violate offender carries some risk.
However, when you do rehabilitate, even violent offenders can lead mostly normal lives as is the case here.
I agree, it has to start somewhere, but because our current system acts as a self fulfilling prophecy, it’s going to be very hard to enact change, though I’m all for it.
But this person committed a "serious, violent crime" that sent them to prison for 13 years. Are you comfortable sitting next to someone who is capable of a "serious, violent crime"? Are there certain crimes that cross the line for you? Would you expect your employer to inform you of their record?
TBH, my answer to that is "I don't know." It has never come up, so I haven't given it a lot of thought.
But it is a legitimate question, IMO, and I don't see why you're being downvoted for simply raising the question. I gave you an upvote to help offset that, FWIW.
If you agree to the conceit that a system of justice is about rehabilitation, then someone needs to sit next to, work next to, live next to a person who committed a "serious, violent crime" that sent them to prison for 13 years.
An argument could be made that the justice system should be about rehabilitation but in its current state can't be expected to provide that. I'm not sure I'd make it, but I could see that perspective.
I'm capable of committing a "serious, violent crime", so are you, so are any of your colleagues. Yet I never have, and I assume neither you nor your colleagues have either (based on probability).
>someone who is capable of a "serious, violent crime"
That would be 100% of people who isn't either a baby or has somehow no way to move arms and legs enough to wield a knife, gun, poison, etc. It is not a question of capability but the situations you are put in and live through. Otherwise you are saying criminality is in the genes.
I am quite capable of "serious, violent crime". Have I ever done so? No.
I've had a relatively easy life, all things considered. I've never been truly desperate. I've never wondered where my next meal will come from. I never made any major mistakes, like messing around with drugs or alcohol.
I'm not planning on committing any violent crimes, ever. But I could. You should beware.
If you think the people around you haven't done terrible things over the last 13 years they haven't been caught for I've got some bad news for you about humanity
13 years for a "serious, violent crime" could very well be referring to second degree murder in many states. No, I don't think my coworkers or friends have committed second degree murder.
Context is of course key, but a blanket statement of "hiring someone who spent 13 years in prison for a serious, violent crime is a good thing" seems wild to me, which is the vibe on this thread.
So it becomes either a law enforcement issue- does our system properly rehabilitate offenders? or a psychological issue- is someone who commits a violent crime inevitably going to repeat it?- or maybe a moral philosophy question- are people inherently evil and dangerous?
Because you’re asking a safety/comfort question, but it’s dependent on the answers to the above.
I think those questions are distracting to my very simple point: I don't want to work with a person who has murdered someone without a damn good reason (self-defense).
I truly can't believe that HN thinks this is some offensive opinion.
They're not distracting, because those underlying questions shape your reaction.
Murder is considered one of the worst offenses in any society. But this person was already punished by society, and seen fit by the law to return to it. So what could explain your continue (and very understandable) discomfort? Is it because you believe that the penal system did not properly make this person safe to return to society? Is it because that once someone has committed such a terrible crime that they are inevitably going to be able to do so again, because they have the psychological profile to do it? Such a person is more likely to slip into violence? Finally, does it mean that such a person is forever marked as fundamentally dangerous and unworthy of reintegration?
After the visceral recoil that is an instinct that preserves safety, you have to examine why you are so opposed to working with someone who has committed such a crime. Because we claim to live in a free society that gives people the liberty to pull themselves up from the bootstraps no matter their circumstances, yet discriminates against those who have done the time. Because we claim this society is built upon Christian and post-Christian Enlightenment principles, yet we reject the power of redemption and modern methods of recovery. It's fine to have such an opinion, but you have to justify it, because it's an example of how our society operates.
> Is it because you believe that the penal system did not properly make this person safe to return to society?
I absolutely don't believe the penal system makes people safe after they serve their time.
> Is it because that once someone has committed such a terrible crime that they are inevitably going to be able to do so again, because they have the psychological profile to do it?
If a person killed someone without a damn good reason, why would I think they wouldn't do it again?
> Finally, does it mean that such a person is forever marked as fundamentally dangerous and unworthy of reintegration?
Correct. And maybe I'm caught up on the murder aspect. Murder isn't a small little crime. It takes a certain type of person to be able to intentionally murder someone. And maybe most of this thread can be summarized by: I think if you intentionally murder someone without a damn good reason you should spend life in prison. Right now, second degree murder can include that and often is not life in prison.
Thank you for giving your honest answers. It's good to examine one's beliefs.
> I absolutely don't believe the penal system makes people safe after they serve their time.
Fair, and understandable.
> If a person killed someone without a damn good reason, why would I think they wouldn't do it again?
Why would you think they would do it again? Given that someone spent over a decade in prison, shouldn't it have deterred them from killing again?
You'd have to actually look into recidivism rates to see how this works out in reality, unless you believe that for psychological and moral philosophical reasons that such a person who's committed murder is both willing and likely to do so again.
> I think if you intentionally murder someone without a damn good reason you should spend life in prison. Right now, second degree murder can include that and often is not life in prison.
Okay, so your personal standard is that murder does not have to be premeditated to deserve life in prison. That's fair. But I think that goes beyond discomfort with working with such a person who has been through the prison system; that's believing that such a person shouldn't be out of the prison system at all.
So what should happen to that person, exactly? Should they be in prison forever? Should they be released but not allowed to work? Should they only be allowed to work by themselves?
I understand your reluctance, but the alternatives to "let the released felon work" are not great.
Actions have consequences and after breaking major societal taboos like murder or rape it is very difficult or impossible to repair the damage a person has done to society. I have trouble judging people negatively if they don't want to associate with a person who has murdered or raped someone.
I have the same visceral reaction - if I was seated next to a murderer at work I'd probably be wary. But visceral reactions tend not to make good social policy, and that's really my concern. We have some number of people who commit violent crimes. We either have to imprison them forever or let them out sometime. If we let them out we either need to support them or allow them to work. If we allow them to work do we relegate them to some low class of work, or allow them into white collar/privileged professions?
We should be concerned about creating the best society for everyone. That means sometimes we need to suppress our immediate/unconscious reactions.
It seems like you are viewing prison sentences as a 'price' for commiting murder, rape or some other violent crime. As long as you pay the price society must welcome you back with open arms. People will choose who to associate with based on their past behaviors and if you commit violent crime it is likely that most people will no longer want to associate with you.
So by that logic, you’d be as comfortable being entirely surrounded by former violent criminals at your work as you would be seated exclusively by citizens with spotless records?
Did they complete a sentence that was decided to be appropriate for the crime they committed? Then I don't mind at all. They can't change their past, but they can control their future.
If they are still dangerous after serving their time, then they should be held in prison longer.
The problem with this line of thinking is that some how people think that serving time in prison does anything to make someone less likely to commit crime. Our prison system doesn't positively reform people, in fact it almost certainly will make things worse. If you make someone spend 13 years in a prison, whose social rules are defined by violent criminals the persons cultural norms change.
The person doesn't leave prison ready to productively reenter society, they leave prison indoctrinated into prison culture.
If you made a programming error at work, and instead of someone spending time to teach you how you ended up making that mistake, and working to give you the knowledge and tools to not make it again. But instead made you stand in a corner for a fixed duration of time, it would be illogical to assume you would be a better programmer after standing in the corner, its the same with the US prison system.
I don't disagree with you, but I cannot fault the individual for the failings of the system. I also support efforts to reform and improve the prison system to focus on reform and improvement, rather than punishment.
Society decides that their crimes earns them X years of punishment. After they've done their X years, there should be no need to punish them more. I sympathize with the victims of the convict's crimes which depending on the crime, no value of X would suffice. But we are all human, and sometimes showing a shred of compassion is what motivates the real reform.
I agree. But letting someone who is dangerous live free in the community isn’t ideal either. The line is thin and blurry and has a ton of examples of being managed poorly.
Reading these stories always stirs emotions. It's great that she landed a job. At the same time, it's hard to not think about how many other folks won't have the same happy chance of circumstances.
When I was 19 I went to federal prison for computer-related crimes. After I was released I tried getting "normal" jobs - Dominos, McDonalds, etc, but had less than stellar luck on that front. I started my own thing doing affiliate marketing and made enough to pay bill. Thankfully this was before I had a family.
Now I've been in the consulting and contracting space for years, worked with/at Fortune 10 companies, HIPAA and PCI regulated shops too. Recently, after a failed start up, I needed to get a "real" job. After the first two offers were pulled back, I changed my interview tactics.
Now, on the very first phone call with a human, I bring up my nearly 20 year old conviction. It's never come up on a background check due to how the vast majority of commercial background checks work. My name, however, is quite unique and news articles are still some top ranking sites about me.
One of my pie-in-the-sky goals is to try my hand at another start up, and in the process build out a program to train other felons with how to program. With all the folks I've been around throughout my career, some of the smartest of them were people I met in prison. There's so much wasted talent there.
I don't have a record, but, through the extracurricular volunteer work I've done for the last 40 years, I've had a lot of interaction with people who have spent some quality time, getting free room and board; from Minimum Security Federal pens, to supermax and 23-hour solitary.
One thing that I can tell you, is that there's no way to apply "one size fits all" templates to them all. Some will shine like you wouldn't believe, if given the chance, and some would, at best, be crappy employees. I doubt there would be a problem with workplace violence, with most, but it's entirely possible that you could end up with a "dud."
In short, each case needs to be handled on an individual basis, with careful, extensive human interaction. Lots of "tell me a story" interviews. Coding tests are likely to be useless.
Since that kind of employee search seems to be a thing of the past, in our industry, it can be tough for these folks to get in the door. This woman went to bat for her friend. There's not a whole lot of folks willing to do that.
BTW: The US is horrible for that kind of thing. Even a small misdemeanor can be a scarlet letter for life. I knew a guy that was busted in [an Ivy-League] college for pot (a misdemeanor), and pursued a career in banking. Even a quarter-century later, that bust followed him, and stunted his chances (he was real good).
One of the most intelligent people I ever met (and I have met a lot of really smart people) was a violent felon that went away at 17, and was profoundly twisted by the experience. He was never able to readjust properly. That marvelous intellect was never able to benefit us.
It was a school thing. I never heard the story. He was uncomfortable talking about it, so I never pressed.
Once it's on the record, though, HR will always find it.
I've known folks from the finance industry for thirty years. They are...interesting characters. The Wolf of Wall Street kinda made them look like choirboys.
I've heard of similar situations and I'm glad people with the power to help lift others up are taking the initiative.
George Taylor (previously President of Untappd) has been working with active gang members to start a brewery called TruColors. Turns out a lot of gang violence can be attributed to the economic situation of a community and providing employment opportunities to people who have been previously incarcerated can improve the economic situation of these communities. https://trucolors.co/
Indeed. In Los Angeles, there's Homeboy Industries, started by Jesuit priest Greg Boyle. https://homeboyindustries.org If I were to win the lottery I would spend a month with Greg to understand how things work and can be replicated then build something similar on the west side of Chicago.
Anyone has the right to feel uneasy by the thought of a an ex-con working with them and all that. But you need to ask yourself what the alternatives are?
I remember seeing some general statistics, most crime are committed by men of a certain age range, and rarely after 30 do people commit more crimes. Some of it can be explained by hormones and life pressures.
Now there's exceptions, but you need to trust the prison system (I know that sounds hard) to figure out who is still a likely deranged individual needing to be kept locked up some more, and who is rehabilitated.
A rehabilitated person that has served its time, if not given a chance to equal opportunity afterwards, is more likely to again be put under life pressures that doesn't set them up to be law abiding. Even if they're law abiding, we still lose on good work they could do, by not giving them opportunities.
This is the things I try and remind myself of when I feel the unease. But rationally speaking, I don't see any better alternatives. The problem doesn't go away by just ignoring it so...
I had a roommate just after college that was a civil engineer and had a decent job. Upon getting to know him and his other friends I found out he'd done time for robbery and trafficking.
He had come from a really poor back lground. His first year in college he saw all these kids with BMWs with rich parents. He decided he wanted one too so he made it happen.
The way that ex-felons are treated in society is despicable, no wonder there's a 55% recidivism rate if you get blocked at every attempt to becoming a productive member of society.
The Last Mile seems like a great program to share our tech skills and knowledge with people who really need a leg up. I will be signing up as a volunteer today.
What was the purpose of sharing that quote then, if not to disparage the sentiment? To disparage whoever said it? Do you know when that quote was made, as Gandhi’s views (which were a product of his time and upbringing) evolved over the span of his life?
My point was that figures like Gandhi are idolized in the West through tired, decontextualized quotes like the one above, and the result is that they are (popularly) effectively above reproach. The result is an ahistorical understanding of a complicated person who held a number of views (at various points in his life, although there's little evidence to support that his thinking on this particular topic evolved much over the course of his life) and engaged in behaviours that few would disagree were completely reprehensible.
Speaking of ahistoricism, I don't understand your point that his views were "a product of his time". Firstly, not everyone in his time held them, and more importantly, applying that logic one could dismiss pretty much any atrocity as "a product of its time".
Is it not a good quote then? Is there nothing to learn from Gandhi if every time he is brought up we have to bring up his opinions he held in his early twenties. Of course not everyone held them but most British educated lawyers in South Africa did. His racist opinion he held at one point in his life has nothing to do with his later quote nor does it have anything to do with the original thread at all speaking. You’re the one bringing a decontextualized quote that isn’t adding anything but to shit on Gandhi. Yes he isn’t perfect, we know that. But surely we don’t have to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Goes to show that nobody is beyond prejudice. Even Gandhi needed to evolve his views to understand his fellow humans, so it would be dangerous to assume things like "racism in America is past" or "diversity training is useless". We all need to work on this stuff.
I would be very interested in understanding how much of that recidivism rate is attributable to "ex-felon discrimination" or whatever we might call it as opposed to other variables.
It gets very philosophical fast. Prison is for punishment, rehabilitation, protection of society and is there to serve as a deterrent.
Over emphasis on the need to punish seems to cause a lot of long term harm.
One arm of the 'defund the police' camp wants to take rehabilitation and mental health issues away from the criminal justice system.
Although practically, the sharks in the private prison industry have already tasted blood. They are smart enough to pivot, leaving us with the same perverse incentives, or worse. Way more people can forgive a drug conviction than an involuntary commitment to a mental health institution, and abuse is harder report.
Afaik, obstacles are not just prison. It is how ex prisoners have much limited housing options, employment options. And how those living with them (like family) have them limited housing options too.
Too obtuse, sorry.
US prisons are heavy on the punishment aspect of imprisonment relative to the system where I am, NZ.
If you emphasis punishment rather than rehabilitation, you are setting the scene for discrimination post release. It’s a sort of chicken and egg situation.
I appreciate the irony in claiming this in a thread on someone’s hard earned achievement post release.
Felon disenfranchisement is also disgustingly anti-democratic and further segregates them from society at large.
If you have enough felons for them to affect the outcome, your problem isn't that they have the right to vote, it's that you're arresting too many people.
In Texas, voting rights are restored automatically upon completion of the sentence. It seems very fair to me. I don't consider it a hardship. I actually feel like it's a benefit to not have to worry about voting in this election.
As someone with a civics background once explained to me, what you don't want are laws that inspire contempt. Contempt for one law tends to blur into contempt for The Law, and then you've got anarchy.
Clearly a controversial point, but I actually sort of agree. I hate technical challenge interviews because I think they measure the wrong thing, but then we have a problem of only wanting to hire senior people with big portfolios, because someone else has essentially done the vetting - this makes it harder and harder for those without experience, for whatever reason, to get a job.
Clearly we need some way to evaluate entry level employees who wouldn't have had time to build a portfolio, it just remains an open question as to what an effective method would be.
While that works for entry level jobs where direct algorithmic knowledge is the most important, it's hard to test if someone can lead a team of 6 to finish a quarter of a million dollar project on time and on schedule through a 2 hour whiteboard conversation.
Algorithmic tests aren't great for any level. You want to ask someone to solve practical technical tasks that are relevant to the job they are applying for. For an entry level job this may be a programming task (build this one screen). For a more senior position you'd want to ask about things like architecture and practical trade-offs. You could use a whiteboard for this: I don't think it's whiteboards people object to. It's the irrelevant algorithmic questions.
Very true. I didn't use the right term there for what an entry level dev does. But I still think that, even if a senior tech can do a decent job elucidating a architecture, that's not proof they can lead, which is similarly important, and the only way to prove that you have the ability is to look at past accomplishments.
> the only way to prove that you have the ability is to look at past accomplishments
I'd argue that past accomplishments don't prove anything either. Or rather, it's impossible to tell whether they were actually responsible for those accomplishments. It's not just architecture you want to ask about. It's the practicalities of choosing libraries, making engineering trade-offs, running a team (if that's part of the job they're applying for). The trick is to ask them questions that they'd only know the answer to if they've actually been there and done that ("What want wrong" and "what problems did you face" are good ones). And to follow up with asking them why they'd make that choice.
In the US even if you get _accused_ of a felony and aren't guilty, it will still haunt you for life because it's in your permanent record forever and if employers had to choose between two equal candidates they'll most likely choose the one with the "clean" record.
I guarantee that if you give every prisoner or delinquent to do what he likes or a normal job, he will be like the rest of us, a completely normal person. Bad government and lack of smart strategy and vision makes criminals, nothing more.
> I guarantee that if you give every prisoner or delinquent to do what he likes or a normal job, he will be like the rest of us, a completely normal person. Bad government and lack of smart strategy and vision makes criminals, nothing more.
That's a very strong statement.
Certainly there are a lot of people that fall into gangs, etc because they have no other alternatives. But rapists don't rape because their day job is boring. Serial killers aren't in it for the money, either. Don't be naive.
Of course, I think every disease should be treated at the root. Maybe the father of the serial killer had a boring or inhumane job or they didn’t have enough money to send him to fancy college and projected all his frustrations on the children and the family and that child has the potential to become very dangerous to society. I agree not everyone would recover but a good percentage.
In some cases yes, in many cases no. As someone who grew up with a small handful of delinquents (in and out of prison etc), they are not the types to be able to hold a regular job like a normal person. Often there is a personality disorder (borderline disorder, antisocial disorder, often a few disorders together) which doesn't magically go away with maturity and opportunity. If they can find a way to treat the underlying disorder (many don't) then maybe...
Everyone deserves a chance to be better. I hope more people convicted of crimes are able to get the opportunity to build a better life for themselves. And I hope more employers are inclined to give those opportunities.
If you're in Seattle, consider supporting Unloop, https://www.un-loop.org/, with donations of time or money. [EDIT to add detail:] They help people re-entering society establish tech skills and find work.
I've been volunteering with Unloop for a few months, as both a guest speaker and 1:1 coach. I feel myself becoming less cynical about tech with every interaction.
I believe that PCI compliance in the US requires that background checks be run on employees with access to the protected environment. I also believe that that is the only requirement: Run a background check. They don't say you have to do anything with it, or even read the thing when it comes back.
A old cow-orker of mine had a bullshit felony for "computer hacking" from quite a while ago. Trust was never an issue with this person.
Having read this today, went home and watched https://skidrowmarathon.com/ tonight. Each of these are a way of showing the power of giving people dignity.
Any public or government job will require a background check, most private jobs don't. That doesn't mean you can't get a government job. I will say that the doors are there, you just have to have the courage to knock.
I don't think it's fair or wise to tell people this, do you any data to support this claim?
I don't know any career track companies that don't do background checks, there are too many services now that make them insanely easy to do, that it's basically uploading a resume and/or filling out the form and you can get results back the same day.
yes i do cause i've worked in both the government and private sectors. all government jobs required a background check and some even security clearance. quite a few private did also, but most of them don't cause they don't want to spend the money on them or down right don't care about your past cause they have a past themselves. i will say that just because you have a criminal record doesn't mean that you are automatically disqualified. you just have to be upfront and tell before they do the background check. the whole thing is that everyone hates wasting their time. if you tell them up front that you have a history most will thank you and tell you not to worry about it. that is why i'm saying that you have to courage to knock on the door. lots of people see that the job requires a background check and immediately move on disqualifying themselves.
Firstly, I'm not saying not to try, certainly you should, hard to get a job without applying.
But I do not think its a fair expectation to say "most of them don't cause they don't want to spend the money on them or down right don't care about your past."
I've never seen anything that what would lead me to believe that "most" is accurate, and at best "some" would be closer to accurate.
Basic background checks aren't expensive, and take almost no time to complete, goodhire is an example where even small companies can get a background check done for $30-$50 per applicant.
Again, I'm not saying don't apply, but I don't think its a good idea to tell people "most don't care" because they are going to likely face an uphill battle, and that many people are going to hold a criminal history against them.
I do agree that being upfront about it, is the best choice, and
if I was to make a recommendation, it would be to seek expungement where possible, and stack your training, certifications, and references as much as possible to attempt to overcome the issue.
This is the more noteworthy as it is currently not exactly easy to find a job as software engineer, even if you have one or two decades of experience in the field and no criminal record.
This is an interesting story, but if I had the choice to hire a felon (yes, once you commit a felony, even after serving time you are still a felon) or a scrappy coding bootcamp grad I'd take the bootcamp grad every time.
Especially if I'm a founder with significant skin in the game, why would I risk my money, time and hard work on someone with a recorded record of making poor choices when there are hoards of others who haven't broken the law?
> why would I risk my money, time and hard work on someone with a recorded record of making poor choices when there are hoards of others who haven't broken the law?
This assumes that your scrappy bootcamp grad hasn't broken the law. In fact the more likely scenario is that they have broken the law multiple times, they just were never caught and charged for it. Unless we are suddenly going to believe that young adults and teenagers don't have an affinity for recreational marijuana or underage drinking or doing any of the various stupid things young people do.
Your mentality applies to yourself as well: why would any investor or employee risk their money, time, and hard work on someone with no proven track record, when they could throw it at the hoards of other CEOs who have demonstrated the ability to profit? You wouldn't want someone to look over you just because you never got the chance to demonstrate your potential; it would be equally unfair to look over someone else who served their time and is now looking for opportunities to demonstrate themselves.
> (yes, once you commit a felony, even after serving time you are still a felon)
Then what is the point of imprisoning felons? Why don't we just kill them all? If there is no way to recover from being a felon, why let them live or let them out?
Sounds harsh, of course. The answer should be that once you have gone to prison and gotten out, your crime is behind you, and unless you are actively committing crimes again you should be judged equally with someone with no record.
Even if you've "reformed your past ways of crime" after serving jail time and "learned your lessons":
non-felon > felon
Especially in terms of potential risks to my staff or property. Basically, would you hire a babysitter with a criminal record or one without a criminal record and good references?
Maybe my employees break the law when they're not at work, but that's none of my business. If one of my employees is indicted or cited for rioting / DUI, welp I'll fire them on the spot.
Also, re "all crimes are behind you once you leave prison" - how would you explain repeat offenders? At this point I'm trusting my business against statistics of a felon committing a crime again lmao.
> would you hire a babysitter with a criminal record or one without a criminal record and good references?
I wouldn't hire a babysitter at all because I wouldn't trust strangers around my children. It doesn't matter what their record is.
But for my business? Property can be insured, code can be copyrighted, lawsuits can be filed. I have recourse if one of my employees does something stupid. And on the other side, my employee can quit or sue me if I do something wrong.
> how would you explain repeat offenders?
People choosing to hire everyone else over felons, leaving them no choice but to go back to the same bad people or the same bad crimes. Why would a felon go back to risking their life on a daily basis against other murderers and muggers when they could have a comfy $12-20/hr job in an actual workplace with civilized coworkers?
It's interesting seeing people get upset at this. I'm a felon - and this makes sense to me. It's your business, you should choose who works for you.
While it's illegal in the US for most places to outright not hire you solely because you're a felon, you'll have a hard time actually proving that.
If you go by the numbers, felons are more likely to break the law again than folks that aren't felons. You can argue up and down the _why_ around this, but that's the numbers.
I'm not saying I agree with it, but it's your right to hold your opinion and run your business in a way you see fit.
"everyone who gets out needs a job" - I totally agree. So why a job in tech, or specifically, a software engineering job, and not a job in a different field?
I get why this is being downvoted but it's still a very good point: an ex-con needed a previously-established connection with someone who just so happens to be CTO of a reasonably successful startup who knows another engineering lead at a fintech company who took mercy on the ex-con's predicament to get a job.
It's brazen, I admit, but the ex-con part can be substituted for other more fortunate people, like those with little experience, non-traditional backgrounds, those who never got advanced degrees (undergraduates mostly). The oh-so-different software industry isn't that different from any other industry these days in that it's more about who you know rather than what you know to find employment, but the added bonus for software types is that often enough it's both! Maybe I'll look back at this comment and feel it's overly pessimistic, but I hope that's because things changed for the better.
I mean yeah in this particular case, but the broader point still stands that prison needs to be less of a career death sentence and employers should open up to the idea of hiring former prisoners. And that there needs to be substantial reform for the prison system and that you should join a support group similar to hers to help these people out.
Yes, this bolsters the author's point that it is essential to create more opportunities because what she had to do to help her friend was only possible because of her extraordinary connections. The author herself points out that most parolees will not be released to the Bay Area with a tech exec friend willing to spend many hours to stick their neck out for them.
Comes to show, you still need connections to make it. Connections are everything, skill and intellect is largely secondary when removed from how well you network and gain friends in the industry or otherwise.
I'm very heartened by the quantity--and quality of responses addressing the original post. When I launched my new company, 70 Million Jobs, on Hacker News, it emerged as one of the platform's most commented-upon posts.
In the intervening three years since, my team and I have served on the front lines of the efforts to help the 70 million Americans--1 in 3 adults--with a record land a job.
First, the facts: there's a ~75% chance that after release from jail or prison, an individual will be rearrested. Nearly all of these people will be unemployed at time of arrest.
Contrariwise, those that do manage to land a job almost never recidivate, and in fact, go on to lead satisfying, productive lives.
Perhaps counter-intuitively, these folks do incredibly well on the job: a SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) report found that 80% of hiring managers believe that when hiring someone with a record, "the quality of hire is as good as if not better than when hiring someone with no record."
While many companies hang on to age-old myths relating to on-the-job behavior of this population (they'll be trouble makers, they'll commit crimes on the job, they'll be violent, they'll disrupt our workforce), the data suggest the very opposite. In fact, because they generally have so few opportunities, they tend to work harder with a better attitude than co-workers, because they know another job is not necessarily available.
I continue to find it shocking that companies that pride themselves on making data-driven decisions have in place hiring matrices that hearken back to another time when attitudes--and crimes--were very different. Most HR professionals have no idea why existing parameters are what they are.
It behooves us as a society to rethink our approach to criminal justice in general and reentry, specifically:
1. Almost everyone incarcerated will be released eventually. If they can't find a reasonable job, they can't buy food, care for their families and put a roof over their heads. What would you do under such circumstances.
2. The economic cost of reincarceration is estimated at more that $100 billion annually.
3. The social cost of recidivism is inestimable: lives are ruined, families are torn apart, communities are decimated, new victims are created, cops are shot, etc.
4. An intelligent plan to get folks working would directly correlate to reduced recidivism. The net cost would drop dramatically enough so as to fund the homeless crisis.
People with sophisticated skills--live programmers--have it much easier than the rank-in-file incarcerated population, who often have little education and less job experience.
Rarely are important social issues so cut and dry: Get people jobs and things get much better. Rarer still are issues that Republicans and Democrats can agree upon.
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments to HN? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly, and we're hoping for a different sort of conversation here.
Since it was for the police, a background check would be required. I politely told my department head that I would not pass that, and a short summary of my case. At that time I had worked for about 2 years and got a kind "we would never have guessed" and "you will get another project then".
As a side note: In our country, an employer needs a legitimate reason to do a background check, and they won't see crimes that are not relevant, or for some crimes - too long ago.