Background check showed up after 1 year!!!

[Puffnstuff]

The more that I think about this scenario the more I begin to question it. No responsible employer would hire a person for whom a background check could not be completed. If they did then they assumed vicarious responsibility and if someone would've been hurt by the OP during the scope of his employment they would've been responsible for 100% of the damages. The person that did such a thing violated their fiduciary responsibility to the employer. Personally I would amend the staffing policy to include this as one of the hiring actions that nobody who wanted to keep their job should do.

 

[Paladin3]

Sorry to the OP for hijacking the thread, but I want to chime in.

It is in society's best interests to return a felon to law abiding, self-supporting status as soon as possible. Unfortunately, we have a hard-on for being tough on crime and make the road back to productive citizen as hard on folks with criminal records as we can. Either we keep them in prison and pay for that, or we turn them loose with next to zero options and watch them repeat offend over and over.

We need education and job training in our prisons. How about requiring prisoners to obtain GEDs and/or job training certificates before being paroled. It would be easier for employers to hire ex-felons if we had a clear path of education, training and certification that funneled them back into the job market. Ex-felons who stay employed and don't offend again could eventually have their record cleared after a suitable time.

The benefit to society would far exceed the cost, but too many "tough on crime" idiots would complain because they enjoy having an underclass to look down on. Society simply isn't willing to forget a person's checkered past, no mater how much they have changed.

 

[Elixer]

Agreed. I hate that this question is one that can be asked on job applications because you're essentially forced to lie if you ever want to be employed. It should be illegal except for specific roles (teacher, police officer).

Sorry to hear that you were terminated, caclarklee.

No, you are not forced to lie. People choose to lie, and, as can be seen here, it is better to tell them up front, rather than getting fired down the road.
For some jobs, they don't really care of you have a record or not.

In this specific case, the OP put the company under HUGE liability concerns. If something went wrong down the road, and this came out then, it could have been financial disaster for everyone working at said company.

He already said he lied on the application and said he had no felonies.

Yeah, kinda hard to come back from that.

It is in society's best interests to return a felon to law abiding, self-supporting status as soon as possible. Unfortunately, we have a hard-on for being tough on crime and make the road back to productive citizen as hard on folks with criminal records as we can. Either we keep them in prison and pay for that, or we turn them loose with next to zero options and watch them repeat offend over and over.

It highly depends on the felony. There are some crimes that IMO people that commit them should never be allowed back to society.

We need education and job training in our prisons. How about requiring prisoners to obtain GEDs and/or job training certificates before being paroled. It would be easier for employers to hire ex-felons if we had a clear path of education, training and certification that funneled them back into the job market. Ex-felons who stay employed and don't offend again could eventually have their record cleared after a suitable time.

Requiring prisoners to do anything has never worked out well. They need to want it themselves if you expect it to work.
As for clearing the record, again, it depends on the felony.
I am sure you don't want a pedophile getting a clean record, then goes to some job working with children.

 

[TheGardener]

Remember/recognize this dummy?

She actually is not a dummy, as she earned her accomplishments. But I guess she may never have achieved promotions in her career, if she didn't lie. You don't get to be a dean at one of the finest universities in world without an advanced degree, never mind any degree. I heard her speak years back, and I was very impressed.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/2007-04-26-mit-admissions-dean-out_N.htm

 

[Puffnstuff]

OP should try looking here http://www.helpforfelons.org/ and see if they can do anything for him.

 

[Torn Mind]

Most people, including non-felons, are divers with regards to their image. To expect felons to be less adept at moving hearts through false humility is naïveté at its finest. Maybe out out of the entire population of felons, you might optimistically have half of them truly give up their former lives. The others just skillfully mask them.

Humans have pliable minds, but genuinely changing entire outlooks and your own way of conduct is far less likely than making a mere mask and sociopathically manipulating the ones with hearts but no sense of how savvy people can be. Silver-tounged yet black-hearted. Most felons are merely a subset of humans with that attribute who got caught and left enough proof to get caught. There are exceptions, but everyone calls themselves the exception regardless of the actual reality.

 

[tcsenter]

If it's any consolation, I too, am a felon at least thrice over in this modern era of 'felonizing' things that used to be considered misdemeanors or just innocent mischief. I just never got caught. I'm betting more people here who also are felons who didn't get caught, particularly the ones who are most critical or unsympathetic.

It's like going on Facebook and seeing someone you know from 'back in the day' being overly critical of drunk driving and you're like "Ummm, this from the guy who drove drunk like 100 times?" Sometimes, we rail most unsympathetically against our former selves.

 

[PokerGuy]

Sorry to the OP for hijacking the thread, but I want to chime in.

It is in society's best interests to return a felon to law abiding, self-supporting status as soon as possible. Unfortunately, we have a hard-on for being tough on crime and make the road back to productive citizen as hard on folks with criminal records as we can. Either we keep them in prison and pay for that, or we turn them loose with next to zero options and watch them repeat offend over and over.

We need education and job training in our prisons. How about requiring prisoners to obtain GEDs and/or job training certificates before being paroled. It would be easier for employers to hire ex-felons if we had a clear path of education, training and certification that funneled them back into the job market. Ex-felons who stay employed and don't offend again could eventually have their record cleared after a suitable time.

The benefit to society would far exceed the cost, but too many "tough on crime" idiots would complain because they enjoy having an underclass to look down on. Society simply isn't willing to forget a person's checkered past, no mater how much they have changed.

This has very little to do with "tough on crime idiots", and everything to do with reality and logic. When you hire someone, you are doing so based on very limited information. You use the limited information you have to try to find the candidate most likely to be a good contributor to the success of the company. What is one of the best indicators of future behavior? Past behavior. If someone has shown a significant lack of judgement in the past that led to them to convicted of a felony, they are statistically more likely to do something wrong again in the future. It also adds a significant element of risk for the employer that they could be held liable if that employee does something bad in the future.

If you hire someone, you're betting based on their work history, experience, skills, education etc that they are going to be a good fit. Add a felony in their background to the mix, and in addition to betting on those things, you're also betting that the person has been rehabilitated. Logically, you would not take that risk unless there was a good reason to do so (ie, the candidate possesses a critical skillset you can't otherwise obtain etc).

This is a difficult issue to solve. On the one hand, it's in society's best interest to have offenders have a path to become contributing members of society again. On the other hand, employers are acting completely logically and rationally if they choose not to hire a convicted criminal. You can't pretend and wish for logical calculation to go away.

 

[DrPizza]

If it's any consolation, I too, am a felon at least thrice over in this modern era of 'felonizing' things that used to be considered misdemeanors or just innocent mischief. I just never got caught. I'm betting more people here who also are felons who didn't get caught, particularly the ones who are most critical or unsympathetic.

Did you know that if you write two letters to someone, address one letter to them and put a stamp on the envelope, and address the other letter to yourself, put their address as the return address, and not put postage on that envelope, and mail them simultaneously from the same mailbox as an experiment; doing that is a felony?


Something screwed up in multi-quote; anyway I wanted to reply to whoever it was above who pointed out how idiotic our prison system is. We have a huge portion of our society who think that prison should be punishment and nothing more - these people do not realize that by punishing in the method that we use in this country, we greatly increase the rate of recidivism, since our former prisoners often have no other avenues to pursue for gainful employment and are pretty much forced back into crime. Other countries put a lot more emphasis on rehabilitation and don't have the high incarceration rate, have minimal recidivism, and it is a net benefit for their society.

 

[Puffnstuff]

these people do not realize that by punishing in the method that we use in this country, we greatly increase the rate of recidivism, since our former prisoners often have no other avenues to pursue for gainful employment and are pretty much forced back into crime

Bingo! I'm sure that your use of the term recidivism will force some people to their Webster's dictionary but it's true that a relapse is almost always in the cards. Better to educate them and shape them to be productive to minimize the chances of a return visit not to mention reducing the chances that they'll harm someone when they get out. Often times they'll get into trouble the day they're released so they can return to 3 hots and a cot.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

I am a felon. Stupid decisions I made when I was 18 years old. Still haunts me today. I have found gainful employment. You just need to realize some lines of work do not tolerate felonies at all. Healthcare is one of those fields. You've got to be extra vigilant in your job search and be willing to deal with rejection because there will be plenty of it. There is a good future out there for you but you've got to work that much harder to get it.