Report shows steep drop in youth employment
The "ban the box" movement seeks to remove questions about job seekers' criminal records from employment applications. An employer may ask an applicant about his or her criminal background further into the hiring process. The state of Ohio, Cuyahoga County and the City of Cleveland have banned the box for government jobs
(Associated Press file photo)
CLEVELAND, Ohio - On most employment applications, the box is so small that the average job seeker can easily overlook it.
The adjacent statement usually says something like this: "Check here if you have been convicted of a criminal offense."
For many ex-offenders, the tiny box has enormous impact. Checking it is like pushing a reject button.
The "ban the box" movement seeks to remove the little square from job applications. If the movement has its way, employers will still be allowed to ask about an applicant's criminal background, but not as the first step in the hiring process.
The measure has been gaining support in Congress and among business leaders, but some conservative advocates say it could expose companies to the risk of making improper hires.
"'Ban the box' is one tool in the toolbox of a fair hiring practice," said Jill Rizika, executive director of Towards Employment in Cleveland, which helps place ex-offenders in jobs. "The opportunity to review somebody based on their merits comes first. How can you argue with that?"
"The employer still has the opportunity to review whether or not the criminal history meets the standard for inclusion (in the workplace) and whether that conviction could jeopardize either their fellow employees or customers," she said.
During the past few years, private employers and several local governments have "banned the box. " Earlier this year Ohio began deferring questions about criminal convictions until later in the hiring process. The City of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County have similar policies for applicants seeking government jobs.
More recently, a coalition of civil rights, labor and other organizations sent a letter to President Barack Obama asking him to issue an executive order requiring federal agencies and federal contractors to "ban the box." Among the groups signing the letter were: the ACLU, the AFL-CIO, the NAACP and the National Employment Law Project.
In the July 20th letter, they wrote that it was time for the president "to lead the nation as a model employer." The letter mentioned public and private "ban the box" efforts.
"Today, 18 states and more than 100 cities and counties have adopted 'ban the box' and fair-chance hiring reforms, including seven states that cover both private and public sector employers, as well as a number of major cities that do so, such as New York City," it stated.
Some of those supporting an executive order are scheduled to demonstrate Thursday in front of the White House.
John Malcolm, director of the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., said that many employers see that an applicant has checked the box and then "automatically they are crossed off the list" of job candidates. Still, he has mixed views about "ban the box," even though he thinks it a good thing that many employers have sought to address eliminating ex-offenders off the bat.
"There are a number of private sector employers - including Koch Industries - that on their own have decided to 'ban the box,'" said Malcolm, who is also the Ed Gilbertson and Sherry Lindberg Gilbertson Senior Legal Fellow. "There is nothing wrong with it. It is quite laudable.
"I have a little bit of a problem with 'ban the box' in that the devil is in the details on how broadly the box is banned," he said.
Malcolm said some employers should have the right to know up front - and not later in the hiring process - if a job applicant has certain types of convictions. For example, an employer should have the right not to hire someone convicted of embezzlement for a financial job or someone convicted of child molestation for a job working with children.
"That is quite unfair to the employers," he said. "After all, the employer would face liability for things like negligent hiring. The employer would face liability for any harm that would result to any of their customers.
"Even if they didn't end up getting sued by their customers, they would take a reputational hit that they could have avoided if they had engaged in normal hiring practices that they would have otherwise done, if it hadn't been for 'ban the box,'" Malcolm said.
Rizika said such scenarios assume employers would be forced to hire inappropriate applicants.
"It is really an alarmist interpretation, and shows a lack of understanding to what 'ban the box' would do," she said.
The City of Cleveland has had a "ban the box" policy for nearly five years, said Natoya Walker Minor, Mayor Frank Jackson's chief of public affairs whose duties include workforce development. She said issues about a job candidate's criminal past usually don't come up until the second interview.
The candidate is given the opportunity to explain his or her record.
"If someone says they have a criminal background, we ask what was it?" Minor said. "What was the severity? What was the nature of it? How old were you at the time? What transpired afterward? Where you incarcerated? What did you do when you were incarcerated?
"I think there is a difference between someone who was sent to Grafton (Correctional Institution) and that's it -- you were literally there for three years -- and the person who goes to Grafton for three years, and he receives a certificate in bricklaying," she said. "The person receives a certificate in laying asphalt and he finished his GED. That shows that someone wanted to take ownership for his life while he was incarcerated. This is where the rehabilitation is demonstrated."
Minor said the city doesn't keep records on how many ex-offenders have been hired since instituting the "ban the box" policy.
"We don't have a database," she said. "The reason why we don't do that has to do with fairness and equity. We treat everybody fairly. We don't hire someone, and then say we have her in a database with 29 other people who have a criminal past."
When ex-offenders can't find jobs, it not only has implications for them, but the economy as a whole, according to a 2010 study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C.
"Because a prison record or felony conviction greatly lowers ex-offenders' prospects in the labor market, we estimate that this large population lowered the total male employment rate that year (2008) by 1.5 to 1.7 percentage points. In Gross Domestic Product terms, these reductions in employment cost the U.S. economy between $57 and $65 billion in lost output," the study stated.
In their letter, the supporters of an executive order said the letter was a follow-up to one sent to the president in March, which had the support of about 200 organizations nationally. The latest letter noted how Obama had publicly supported "ban the box," including in a speech given at the recent NAACP national convention in Philadelphia.
"It is past time for your administration to make these powerful pledges a reality by leveraging the federal government's considerable resources to reform the hiring process of workers employed by federal contractors and federal agencies, which account for over 20 percent of the entire U.S. workforce," the letter states.
A spokeswoman for the organizations that sent the letter said the White House had not responded.
In response to a question from The Plain Dealer, the White House press office said only that the president had spoken publicly in support of "ban the box."
They cited his July 14 speech before the NAACP national convention:
"Let's follow the growing number of our states and cities and private companies who have decided to "ban the box" on job applications -- so that former prisoners who have done their time and are now trying to get straight with society have a decent shot in a job interview."
Malcolm is against an executive order. He said if Obama issues one, it has the potential to derail current efforts in Congress aimed at addressing ex-offender employment and other related judicial issues. Malcolm said many conservatives believe the president overstepped his bounds with other executive orders, including those aimed at protecting undocumented residents from deportation. Obama has said that he only issued such actions after a gridlocked Congress failed to act.
But Malcolm said there is movement on issues relating to ex-offenders.
"Congress is deeply involved in looking at criminal justice reform; and there is a real bi-partisan consensus growing around the need for criminal justice reform," he said.
"These are not easy votes for any legislator to take, and it involves a lot of trust and working through these issues," Malcolm said. "These negotiations are at a very, very delicate time."
Scott Simpson, director of media and campaigns for The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights said 70 members of Congress have already come out in support of an executive order. The Leadership Conference signed the letter to Obama and is helping to organize Thursday's demonstration in support of an executive order. He said there is a need for urgency, since Obama is entering the latter part of his presidency.
"The truth is that many Americans, no matter how petty their mistake was, must now face a life sentence of barriers to employment, education, and housing.," Simpson wrote in an email. "The President has already endorsed "ban the box," and 18 states--including Ohio--have already put the policy in place and corporations like Walmart, Starbucks, and Target are all on board.
"If the White House doesn't follow through by the end of summer, it may be too late to make sure that federal jobs are open to all qualified applicants," he wrote.