Will I be forced to hire an employee with a criminal past?

[mizzou]

I'm sure there is a way you can reasonably articulate most all crimes as possible job threatening issues

 

[piasabird]

Just hire who you want. Use the good old reason like his personality did not match up with our clientel list and atmosphere. In today's age it is hard to find anyone who will not fail a drug test without a felony or a drug charge. Then they also go run a credit check. They can disqualify almost anyone with some bogus reason.

 

[glenn1]

Remember too, that just because I would not hire someone that does not exclude them from getting employment. There are many posters in this thread that would hire even violent offenders with little thought for the consequences. My business is not the sole provider of employment in the nation. I would like to retain the power to determine who I do and don't hire but my ability to make that choice is being eroded.

Get used to it. Being able to second-guess people's decisions both before and after the fact is one of the most cherished perks of progressive government and sleazy lawyers. Not only that, as an business and employer you're perhaps their absolutely favorite target. Even if somehow you had the world's best lawyers that could expertly help you navigate employment laws and regulations before you hired, if they didn't like the results they'd simply slap you with a "disparate impact" lawsuit after the fact. Not only that, the laws are sometimes deliberately contradictory so they can criticize whatever decision you do make - oh, you hired the convicted felon white guy over the black man, must be racial bias. Or vice versa, you hired the black guy over the white convicted felon, you must be discriminating against those with criminal pasts.

In short, just hire whoever you want, but document a sound business justification for your choice. Then just hope the "employment bias" ambulance chaser lawyers decide to target someone else with their bullshit.

 

[berzerker60]

No one is ever going to give you shit about the 10 employees at your gym. This set of rules/guidelines is for statistical situations. If you have 10,000 employees and the government can show that 68% of the time you overlook criminal pasts for whites vs. 32% of the time for blacks with the same pasts, they're going to hit you for being a racist dick. And they should. You shouldn't be a racist dick.

If you have 10 employees and even if you ARE a racist dick, no one's going to be able to prove why you made any particular decision.

Really though, America puts truly absurd amounts of people in jail. I wouldn't think twice about hiring someone with a 10 year old conviction for marijuana possession (and then I'd fire him if he showed up for work stoned and that was going to affect his performance). Some places label you a sex offender for pissing in an alley (indecent exposure). Some places are more violent than others, and you can get caught up on a brawl without wanting to (assault and battery, disturbing the peace). Of course you should ask candidates to explain their criminal record, but just having one shouldn't stop you from hiring.

There's also actual science on this that says after 10-20 years, a past criminal record has almost 0 correlation to future criminality. Someone who stole last year is much more likely to steal this year than is some random person off the street; but someone who was convicted of theft as an 18-year-old and is looking for a job at 30 or 40 with no subsequent arrests is no more likely to steal again than anyone else.

 

[PokerGuy]

This set of rules/guidelines is for statistical situations.

Interesting, can you point to the places in the rules / guidelines where it states this? Can you point to where there is any exemption for any business?

I wouldn't think twice about hiring someone with a 10 year old conviction for marijuana possession (and then I'd fire him if he showed up for work stoned and that was going to affect his performance).

You must not have any real world experience or you didn't think this through. Lets say you hire the guy with a conviction for smoking pot. That guy then runs over someone with a company car, or injures someone while doing his job under the influence. Bam, insto lawsuit, you'll be paying.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I think this summarizes what employers need to do:

The Eighth Circuit identified three factors (the “Green factors”) that were relevant to assessing whether an exclusion is job related for the position in question and consistent with business necessity:

1. The nature and gravity of the offense or conduct
2. The time that has passed since the offense or conduct and/or completion of the sentence
3. The nature of the job held or sought.

So just don't put a blanket policy of no criminals, no matter how small the crime was or how long ago it was type policy in place and you should be fine.

Or do something which has less potential fallout and don't do the checks. Then just hire people less likely to have had a criminal record. Know who those are?

While I agree that a person's past ought not to be held against them forever (of course there are limits), if someone is hired then firing them could be a legal nightmare. Protected class effectively.

I work with a horror of a human who is absolutely awful with nothing to recommend her. She's abusive of the staff, lies to get others in trouble, going as far as to call other stores to gossip about completely untrue things because she can. She abuses customers too. She is is never going to be fired. Ever. Why? Black, female, and a legalized immigrant. She's a legal live wire and makes everyone miserable. Consideration for situations is one thing, virtual immunity to bad actions? Nope.

 

[berzerker60]

Interesting, can you point to the places in the rules / guidelines where it states this? Can you point to where there is any exemption for any business?

You must not have any real world experience or you didn't think this through. Lets say you hire the guy with a conviction for smoking pot. That guy then runs over someone with a company car, or injures someone while doing his job under the influence. Bam, insto lawsuit, you'll be paying.

http://www.economist.com/news/unite...-minefield-employers-between-rock-and-lawsuit

complaints against two firms: BMW, a carmaker, and Dollar General...Between 2004 and 2007 Dollar General carried out background checks on 344,300 people to whom it had made conditional job offers; 25% of these applicants were black. Of the 26,700 who had their job offers revoked for having criminal records, 31% were black. BMW checked 645 people in 2008, of whom 55% were black. It rejected 88, of whom 80% were black.

...

The type of crime a job applicant has committed is often less relevant than how long ago he committed it, says Shawn Bushway, a criminologist at the University at Albany-SUNY. A young one-time offender is much more likely to commit another crime than someone who has never been convicted of anything. But Mr Bushway found that the gap narrows to almost nothing after enough time—around 13 years for someone who was under 26 at the time of his offence, with the amount of time decreasing as the offender’s age rises. In other words, 40-year-olds who were terrible in their 20s pose little risk today.

The EEOC alleges that BMW and Dollar both used background checks in a manner “not job-related and consistent with business necessity” (generally a valid defence against an accusation of disparate-impact discrimination).

Two whole firms out of all the businesses in America, each with hundreds of thousands of employees.

Any employee could act negligently, that's a risk of doing business, and it's why we have limited liability corporations. I'm obviously not saying to hire anyone with any record for every job. But refusing to hire someone decades after a crime is pretty silly.

 

[PokerGuy]

http://www.economist.com/news/unite...-minefield-employers-between-rock-and-lawsuit

Two whole firms out of all the businesses in America, each with hundreds of thousands of employees.

Oh, so you're saying that since the regs have not been enforced often it's OK to disregard them? Nice logic.

Any employee could act negligently, that's a risk of doing business, and it's why we have limited liability corporations. I'm obviously not saying to hire anyone with any record for every job. But refusing to hire someone decades after a crime is pretty silly.

You don't seem to understand. Yes, any employee could act negligently.... but when one does and the plaintiff finds out you hired him knowing about his previous record, YOU will be the one on the hook for being negligent in hiring him in the first place.

 

[woolfe9998]

Interesting, can you point to the places in the rules / guidelines where it states this? Can you point to where there is any exemption for any business?

The EEOC guidelines are nothing more than suggestions for how to avoid a discrimination lawsuit.

What he's talking about is what must be proven in such a lawsuit, and he's essentially correct. Without statistical data to prove a pattern of discrimination, it's nigh impossible to prove intent to discriminate. Maybe if the person made a racial slur and some witness overheard it. Beyond that kind of unusual situation, you need data to prove intent. And it's difficult to get a large enough sample when you're dealing with a small business.

You must not have any real world experience or you didn't think this through. Lets say you hire the guy with a conviction for smoking pot. That guy then runs over someone with a company car, or injures someone while doing his job under the influence. Bam, insto lawsuit, you'll be paying.

That of course is a different matter. You're always going to be liable if an employee injuries someone while in the course and scope of his employment. 100% of the time. Regardless of whether you yourself were negligent in hiring the employee or not.

 

[Sonikku]

Me might better just humanely and compassionately euthanize anyone with a criminal record with a high school education or less. When there are 7 applicants to every job, people without college degrees are only so lucky to land a job without a record. With a record, that just ain't happenen. Ain't nobody hiring someone with a criminal past. They'll turn back to crime again due to the lack of options and land back in jail. Wash rinse repeat for the rest of their lives.

Why not just cut out the middle man and be done with it?

 

[lagokc]

Me might better just humanely and compassionately euthanize anyone with a criminal record with a high school education or less. When there are 7 applicants to every job, people without college degrees are only so lucky to land a job without a record. With a record, that just ain't happenen. Ain't nobody hiring someone with a criminal past. They'll turn back to crime again due to the lack of options and land back in jail. Wash rinse repeat for the rest of their lives.

Why not just cut out the middle man and be done with it?

Perhaps a first step is to cut down on the number of minor things that will give you a criminal record. Public urination should not brand someone as a sex offender for life, that is completely out of scale with the crime. Also getting caught with a few ounces of plant material shouldn't result in a criminal record. The number of college students that have criminal records from trivial incidents is depressing.

 

[Darkman]

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=35388795&postcount=88 ( aka http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=35388795#post35388795 )

 

[Zaap]

I'd hire people first of all, based on their abilities as they are able to demonstrate them, then their demeanor, how they present themselves, and how I personally judge their character. Lastly, based on something like a criminal record.

Yes, I'd probably get burned a few times, but I'd be at least willing to give people a shot based on the other more important attributes first.