It’s time to humanize criminal records to help former convicts find jobs

Research shows employers tend to have an exaggerated view of the risks associated with hiring people with criminal records.

by?Renze Nauta

Governments in Canada are increasingly turning to employment policy to help people convicted of crimes rebuild their lives on a legal foundation.

Ontario has made people with criminal records a priority group in its skills development fund, while Alberta has made them a target group of its employment programs.

Other governments should follow their lead. But governments also need to go further.

Research shows employers tend to have a skewed view of the risks associated with hiring people who have criminal records, believing that doing so puts them and their businesses at a much greater risk than is actually the case.

So, while more skills training for this population is welcome, it won’t do much if employers’ perspectives don’t improve — and these perceptions are difficult to change.

It’s time to consider a new approach, which Cardus, a non-partisan think tank, calls “humanizing criminal records.” It builds on insights from empirical research and economic theory and could act either as a complement or an alternative to existing approaches.

A key element would be to include in criminal records positive aspects of a person’s experience with the justice system, such as treatment and spiritual care in prison or participation in a skills training or work-release program. A record of behaviour while in prison or on parole could also tell a more positive story.

All of this could reveal a more complete picture of the person behind the criminal record and improve chances of finding employment following release from prison.

Employment reduces recidivism

Economic theorists have long predicted that having a job reduces the likelihood that someone will participate in criminal behaviour. That may seem self-evident and extensive research has confirmed that employment has benefits well beyond a paycheque.

People with jobs are more likely than the unemployed to have stable family relationships, as well as better physical and mental health. For most of us, our job is one of the fundamental ways we use our talents and serve others.

The reasons why employment keeps people away from crime remains a matter for debate.

Some researchers believe it is simply a matter of economic incentive. If you have a job, you have more to lose by going to prison. If you don’t have a job, committing petty crimes can seem to be a relatively low-effort way of getting money.

For others, the explanation has more to do with social bonds formed in the workplace. Having a job — especially a stable one — creates stronger relationships that develop social capital for an individual.

Still others point to a negative feedback loop between crime and unemployment that leads to an individual being labelled as a member of a criminal underclass.

There is broad consensus, though, backed up by data, that employment helps reduce crime.

Finding employment with a criminal record

It is therefore a travesty that having a record makes it so difficult to find the very employment that might halt the cycle of crime.

The seminal research study in this area showed employers were only half as likely to invite a job applicant for an interview if they knew that person had a criminal record. Studies since have only confirmed this tendency.

Employers have the right and responsibility to hire the person they believe is best for the job. In certain instances, criminal history may very well be relevant to a person’s ability to do that job.

But employers also have a duty — both moral and fiduciary — to make sound judgments based on the best information available to them. Unfortunately, there is strong evidence that employers tend to greatly exaggerate risks associated with hiring people with records.

For example, a survey by the John Howard Society of Ontario showed as many as 15 per cent of employers would refuse to hire someone with a criminal record out of hand, regardless of what that record might contain.

Reform to seal?criminal?records needs to proceed

Another study showed only eight per cent of the one-time offenders it looked at committed new crimes in a way that directly affected their employer. This hardly justifies treating the existence of a criminal record as a veto over employment.

In economic terms, this can be seen as a market failure caused by imperfect information: Many employers are holding incorrect assumptions about the employability of people with a criminal record.

A flawed approach?

In a bid to get more employers to hire people with records, some jurisdictions in the United States, including the federal government, have banned some employers from asking job-seekers whether they have a criminal history until after they have passed initial screening procedures, such as a job interview, or even after a conditional offer of employment.

These policies are known as “ban-the-box” — after the checkbox on job application forms that asks applicants whether they have a criminal past.

Ban-the-box does not completely prevent an employer from investigating someone’s criminal record. But it does move the query to a point in the application where the employer has more context about the person who has applied for a job.

That gives applicants a chance to introduce themselves before the employer’s view is tainted by learning of the existence of a criminal history.

However, there is some evidence that these policies can have perverse outcomes.

One study found that the employment rates of Black and Hispanic men declined after such strategies were implemented.

Another study found that the gap in the rate at which similarly qualified white applicants and Black applicants were called for interviews increased more than six times. Before, white applicants received seven per cent more callbacks, but ban-the-box increased that to 43 per cent.

The researchers in both studies hypothesized that employers were using race as a proxy for crime rates.

While it may be too early to abandon ban-the-box policies, these studies do cast some doubt on them. At the very least, results show they are insufficient on their own to increase the employment rate of people with criminal records.

If the policies are not combined with efforts to change the perspectives of employers, then they will find ways to avoid hiring from this population. The alternative could be worse than the initial problem.

Empowering employers to hire people with criminal records

In light of this, it is worth returning to the economic problem of imperfect information and market failures.

Typically, the solution is to improve the flow of information between the demand and supply sides of the market, not restrict it.

Criminal records convey information, so the same laws of economics apply. However, as currently structured, they worsen employers’ negative perceptions by giving a one-sided view. They present some of the worst moments of a person’s life: arrests, convictions and sentences.

People are more complex than that and their relationships with the criminal justice system are more complex, too. That includes many potentially positive aspects, such as treatment, spiritual care, work programs and behaviour in prison or while on parole.

Including this information on a criminal record would present a more balanced picture of job applicants. It would help humanize them.

But it would not be a simple task. Where the information was not already collected, correctional institutions and related organizations would have to find ways of gathering it as objectively as possible.

That has not always proven to be easy for governments. There are also privacy concerns, although they could mostly be resolved by making the disclosure of more positive information optional for each individual. Cardus has considered this in some detail and offered practical solutions.

The task would be worthwhile. Criminal records are perhaps the most stigmatic marks that can be borne by someone in the labour market.

Reforming criminal records by including positive information, where appropriate, would send a signal to employers that the government recognizes there is more to a former offender than just a list of convictions.

For those who made mistakes and are trying to move beyond them, it would humanize their criminal record — and give them a better chance at securing a job that could help turn their lives around.