Ban the Box Laws-Needed or Not?

Let's say that you were going to hire a babysitter/choose a day care center for your children, nieces and nephews, or other younger relatives. Would you want to know if the person to whom you were entrusting your next generation had spent time in prison for assaulting kids? If you wanted to hire (male) security at a domestic violence/rape crisis center would you think it relevant to know that the 6-4 teddy bear of a man who earnestly says he abhors violence against women just did ten years in federal prison for kidnapping, raping and pimping young girls? If your pre-teen son needs a math tutor would you send him to the home of a math professor who's not only a NAMBLA member but twenty years prior was convicted of child sex abuse? If you run a cash business and need to hire someone to make regular deposits of thousands of dollars to various banks, would you be nonchalant about hiring a woman who was just paroled after serving time for embezzlement and has ties to gangs specializing in armed robbery?

I think that most of you would probably think twice about hiring those people for those positions, if you knew their previous history. It may not be anything personal. You may be making a mistake. But you'd still want to know what they did right? You may not care if the fellow you hired to paint your house has some misdemeanor marijuana convictions. But there are other positions (akin to the above) where greater trust or intimacy is required or the crimes are relevant to the job duties.

The honorable city leaders of Richmond, California have decided that if you're a private city contractor who employs more than nine people you can't ask ANYTHING about an applicant's criminal record, otherwise you'll lose your contract.


So checking into an applicant's criminal past is now illegal. There are exceptions for jobs considered to be "sensitive" or jobs where background checks are required by state or federal law.

RICHMOND, Calif.—City officials in this San Francisco suburb passed an ordinance this past week prohibiting city contractors from ever inquiring about many job applicants' criminal histories. The move in this city of 100,000 people, which is troubled by crime and high unemployment, is part of a growing national trend that supporters say is designed to improve the community's employment prospects amid wider incarceration.

Under the ordinance, approved by the City Council in a 6-1 vote and set to take effect in September, private companies that have city contracts and that employ more than nine people won't be able to ask anything about an applicant's criminal record; otherwise they would lose their city contracts. The ordinance is one of the nation's strictest "ban-the-box" laws, which are so called because many job applications contain a box to check if one has a criminal record. 

"Once we pay our debt, I think the playing field should be fair," said Andres Abarra of Richmond, who was released from San Quentin State Prison in 2006 after serving 16 months for selling heroin. Mr. Abarra, 60 years old, said he lost his first job out of prison, at a warehouse, about a month after a temporary agency hired him. The agency ran a background check and "let me go on the spot," he said. He now works for an advocacy group called Safe Return that campaigned for the ordinance. 

Others say the laws potentially endanger both employers and the public. "We have a responsibility to protect our customers, protect other employees and then the company itself" from potential crime, said Kelly Knott, senior director for government relations of the National Retail Federation, an industry group in Washington, D.C., which hasn't taken a position on ban-the-box laws but has cautioned against federal guidance that could limit how employers use background checks. 

Richmond, with a population of about 100,000, joins 51 other municipalities that have passed similar ordinances, many in the past five years.

I'm not sure that this is a good thing. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand the US and its constituent states put too many people in prison. California is currently being forced by the federal government to release people from prison because of overcrowding. It would be useful both on a macro level both from a humane and a pragmatic perspective to ensure that these people get meaningful employment. That helps reintegrate them into the community and hopefully cut down on recidivism. 

But if at work I sit down at the "wrong" lunch table and a co-worker has a flashback to his San Quentin days and responds accordingly, after I get out of the hospital I might want to discuss with my firm and a civil jury why this savage was hired in the first place. I remember attending a party hosted by a lady quite close to me. Unbeknownst to us both someone else had taken it upon themselves to invite a friend who was just recently released from prison. His crime? Armed robbery and theft. Is that the sort of person you want roaming around your home?

There are some jobs where a criminal record is mostly immaterial to the work being done. There are others where a criminal record is quite relevant. I think that that decision needs to be left up to the employer, with only modest input from the state. I don't think that an arrest record or even a misdemeanor record should be able to be considered. But felonies? A possible employer needs to know about that. It's not like we have a labor shortage in this economy.
Obviously the elephant in the room is race. As we've discussed before the criminal justice system is racially biased at every level. Black people are disproportionately represented in the system. We must take steps to address this and deal with the consequences. This is why I'm against stop-and-frisk, the War on Drugs, racist police, snide bullying prosecutors and judges, armed bureaucrats, no-knock warrants, three strikes laws and a federal criminal code that has expanded almost exponentially since the sixties. I think that once you've served your time you should be able to vote again period. We also know that a white person with a criminal record has an equal or better chance to be hired than a black person without one! And we know that the EEOC is suing two companies for discriminating against black people by utilizing criminal background checks.

All that said, however there is a difference between someone who went to prison for driving without a valid license and someone who went to prison for stabbing someone in the neck. If I'm an employer I need to know the records so I can make the appropriate decisions. In the WSJ article a woman who spent six months in prison for arson states that she campaigned for the new law. Sorry but again, if I am looking to hire someone, I would really like to know if they're going to burn my company down. This is an excellent example of where the individual and group goals may conflict. On a group level I want and need responsible ex-cons to be productive members of society. On an individual level? Ehhh....




What do you think?

Should employers be able to use criminal background checks for applicants?

Should employers be liable if an ex-con they hired engages in criminal activity at work? 

If you believe in background checks for purchasing guns why not a background check for a job?

Michigan Cuts Welfare: 11,000 Families Lose Benefits!

Michigan Republicans to welfare recipients: 

Elections have consequences. That is something that people who won the last election like to smugly say to people who lost the last election. This is nowhere more true than in Michigan since the recent election of Republican Governor Rick Snyder, former chairman/coo/president of Gateway, who with the assistance of a Republican majority in the legislature, has instituted some sweeping changes.
The latest change is that there will be an end to cash assistance welfare for families who have received more than four years of help. This starts October 1-just as school is starting up and winter is coming.

Lansing— The state Legislature on Wednesday passed a 48-month lifetime limit on welfare benefits expected to cast more than 11,000 families off the welfare rolls on Oct. 1 — including more than 29,700 children, according to state officials.The cumulative time limit will save $77.4 million in the budget year that starts Oct. 1, but Democrats and child advocates said they fear it will cause a humanitarian crisis as social agencies are flooded with families who can't pay for rent, utilities or other essentials.

Gov. Rick Snyder, who proposed the cap as part of his 2012 budget, is expected to sign the bill into law.

Judy Putnam, spokeswoman for the Michigan League for Human Services, said: "The impact is going to come … when families lose a key source of income and may not be able to pay the rent just as the school year is getting started and kids are settling into classrooms."She added that many nonprofits and charities also have been slammed by the recession.

Wayne County will be most affected, with 6,560 families losing the cash assistance. Genesee County will see 1,533 families come off the rolls, with 600 in Muskegon, 385 in Oakland and 371 in Saginaw.

Statewide, 11,188 adults and 29,707 children will lose their benefits in just over five weeks. By September 2012, there will be 13,789 families to drop off the rolls, said Sheryl Thompson, acting deputy director of field operations for the Department of Human Services.

Thompson was not able to give a breakdown of adults and children by county, but she said the average family includes one adult and two children. DHS Director Maura Corrigan announced earlier this month that the agency would no longer grant extensions to clients who have exceeded the five-year federal limit on cash assistance. Thompson said most of the families who will lose their benefits Oct. 1 have been on the rolls five years or longer.

Republicans said Michigan no longer can afford to allow families to stay on the assistance plan for four years or more. Rep. Kenneth Horn, R-Frankenmuth, noted that food stamps, Medicaid and child care payments will continue for those kicked off cash assistance. "This should be a strong statement for Michigan residents that (cash assistance) should not be a lifestyle," Horn told members of the House before Wednesday's vote. The measure passed largely along party lines in both chambers. Link to Detroit News Article

Now I was prepared to be exceedingly wroth but upon reading the article and doing some more research I learned that the current federal lifetime limit on welfare cash assistance is just five years. States are allowed to exempt up to 20% of their case load for hardship reasons, which Michigan announced it would no longer do. So perhaps moving from five years to four years is no big deal? Perhaps.

However Snyder and his merry band of right-wingers also just recently overhauled the Michigan budget and tax structure. I don't intend to dive down into the nuts and bolts right now but the big picture is that pensions are now taxable, the limit for state unemployment payments was reduced, the Earned Income Tax Credit was cut, business taxes were cut and aid to schools was cut. The only problem is that in the real world where states have to balance their budget, cutting taxes leads to less revenue coming in and that has to be made up somehow. How fortunate then for the Republicans that the amount of money they expect to save from the welfare cuts happens to be the exact amount of the probable budget shortfall from the tax cuts.

What an INCREDIBLE coincidence!!!!!! 

Poverty, Schmoverty! Look at the big picture people!!!

Although it's not national news the way something would be if it were happening in California or New York, the ugly truth is that Michigan has a very serious problem with child poverty. It's risen 64% over the past decade. 

That's right 64%!!! That's a lot of children living in homes with impoverished parents-a lot of people working low pay dead end jobs or unable to find jobs.

More than 36 percent of all Michigan children younger than age 18 were living in a household in 2009 where no parent had full-time, year-round employment, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s annual Kids Count Data Book released today. That compares with 31 percent of children nationally. The report also found that 12 percent or 281,000 children in Michigan had at least one unemployed parent in 2010 compared with 11 percent nationally. And 5 percent of Michigan kids were affected by foreclosures since 2007, compared with 4 percent nationally.
“This report shows with startling clarity how deeply the recession has affected families across Michigan,’’ said Jane Zehnder-Merrell, director of the Kids Count in Michigan project at the Michigan League for Human Services. “Unemployment and foreclosures are adult issues but ones that dramatically affect kids, too. These economic stressors place children at much higher risk of worsening health and education outcomes.”
Some 23 percent of Michigan children lived in poverty last year -- with poverty calculated as two adults and two children living on $21,756 or less, up 64 percent since 2000.

With the news that the Federal COBRA subsidy is ending I guess now would be a particularly bad time to be unemployed in Michigan. The other thing to consider is not only will these welfare cuts hurt some undeserving people but that increasing the labor supply at a time when there is already 9% unemployment is not going to have a particularly good impact on wages. Of course that's if you're an employee. If you're an employer this is good news because your leverage over your current (low-skill) workers just got a little tighter. Don't like your job? Shut up and grin or I'll replace you with a welfare recipient. There is an effort to recall Snyder (it was started well before this latest news) but it doesn't look like it will go anywhere.


Of course to be fair there IS another side to this issue. I don't have much sympathy for it BUT at one point we didn't have federal cash assistance for impoverished people.  A four year lifetime limit is pretty long. If you can't afford kids don't have them. You have no right to other people's money. Some people need a kick in the butt to get them moving. Quit hiding behind your kids and get your tuckus to work. We heard the same doom and gloom predictions when Clinton made changes during the nineties so quit your squawking and get a job.


I have to admit I know some people to whom I would have no problem preaching that last paragraph. But are they the majority of welfare recipients? I don't think so. Not at all.


QUESTIONS:
What's your take?
Is a 4 year lifetime welfare limit too stringent?
Should this wait until there is lower unemployment?
Should this be phased in over a few years?
Is this the morally right thing to do?