141–150 of 402 posts
Nov’22 is very recent, and won’t be your experience forever. It’s been a little over 20 years for me. Now, I get background checked every year. It doesn’t show. Initially I worked in food service and on phpfreelancer. I spun that into consistent consulting work until a client offered a full time position (less than 15 people, no background checks). As the years rolled by, I kept moving around. Eventually I tried at a…
Thank you all for your perspective, and suggestions. I was on a bad psychedelic trip, accompanied with some other issues at the time and ending up making threatening statements to a very high level official, but no battery occurred whatsoever. Thank goodness, or I would probably not be writing this message
The challenge here is your choice of specialism. Security is fundamentally a trust-based business and the industry is pretty wary of anyone with a perceived black mark against them. The reasons for this are mainly liability ("if this guy does something wrong and he already has a record, how will we look?") and reputation ("what will our government customers think about us if we hire this person?"). Could/would you co…
Go west if you can. If you're on the east coast it's hell. The "liability" concerns are (IME) a pervasive east-coast racist myth from the 60s, but it's a real threat. The same justification was used to expand routine drug screening from forklift operators and truck drivers to keyboard jockeys. Equifax did drug testing of white-collar employees and did not hire criminals; so much for their liability and reputation following the worst data breach in history. It's all bullshit; both justifications are veiled cause to not hire blacks.
Mind your co-workers inclined to cyberstalk everyone around them and using your skeletons to raise PR hell to advance their own career. We've unfortunately thrown employees under the bus due to public outcry. Social "justice" in action! (What was the prison sentence for, if not justice...?)
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Felony charges are a lot different from felony convictions. Was he convicted?
He was charged and convicted on multiple felonies. Thanks for asking, that's an important distinction. There's a good chance he's on HN and may pop into this thread.
its a messed up story. he was devastated. and so angry he drove to the cop station after I was sentenced and flew over the counter and attacked the very first PD officer he saw. She, and a few other officers, beat the living dogshit out of him. made him look like a racoon. broke her wrist in the process-- and so that's felony assault on a police officer WITH GBI. They stuck him one floor above mine. I felt bad, now worse. Dude was a nerd, had no criminal history. he did that for me? I didn't deserve it.
in any event, we divorced while I was in prison. he got permission to see me there towards the end. took a lot of paperwork, but he did it. so we could have closure in person. got the warden to sign off. had to say a million times over that no, he was not brainwashed. no, I didn't shoot him because I love him. it was nothing like that.
only reason I got off parole was I had no restitution. and the only reason there was no restitution was because my husband remained adament that I wasn't all there. an advanced medical directive was in effect, he was actually my legal caretaker at that point. it was a lot of paperwork, notarized even. annnd it counted for nothing. there were no medical bills to pay-- his insurance covered it, there was nothing but the court costs. He had a clean entry and exit, thank god. else it would have been murder huh. went through his chest, he spent a week in the hospital. made a full recovery.
officials reached out to him one last time and asked, and he said something like "you fucks took my husband. eat shit and die." He said similar when it came to getting a statement from him. Unfortunately someone was shot, and I did shoot him, so ... there was no question on if I had committed the crime or not, even without a statement. the powder was on my hands.
I completed a 9 year sentence, all 85% of it.
today it would never happen. the judge had no ability not to send me to prison, or even run the charges concurrent. he straight up said he did not want to do it, but his hands were tied. there were three, assault with a firearm, great bodily injury, and domestic violence. because a gun had been involved. minimum mandatory sentencing. no concurrent, must be consecutive. They gave me the low, a 3/3/3, so 9 years. They wanted to send me to a drug program, but it wasn't in the cards. Not guilty by reason of insanity is a horrible idea in california, it is basically a life sentence that you will spend at least a decade, or two, proving you're sane. and maybe never able to do it. think Terminator, Sarah Conner, in the psych ward. I was advised not to go down that route. and california had already gotten rid of the diminished capacity law-- you know the dude who used the twinkie defense? yeah he really messed it up for everyone doing that.
I did my time, I didn't let my time do me. I wrote and published a sci fi trilogy, which is really hard to do in prison, but all you have is time.
I like who I am now, and what I've turned into. I worked well at various companies, but ... I wish that was still the case.
I'm proud to be 14 years clean now. I'll never go back on that stuff.
Just curious how felony assault is not a physical violence offense. I understand there could be differences in state laws, but most felony assault charges require use of force wither resulting in an injury or involving a weapon.
It may depend on jurisdiction, but often assault is a threat, assault and battery is violence.
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Can you change your name? (dumb Q perhaps)
not presently. but soon. I'm between addresses right now, basically. The last state I lived in wouldn't let me do it I'll still have a social security number that won't change, and I'll have an alias and anyone who really wants to find my info will find it even with a name change. What a name change does is get me off a simple google search. which isn't legal, fair credit reporting act defines very clearly what you a…
If you were arrested for robbery when you were younger perhaps because you had a drug addiction then that person should have a right to serve their time and change their ways later in life without the state holding and distributing that to any potential employer, practically ensuring that individual is unemployable for a mistake they made in their youth.
The reason I think this is not a good assumption to assume that someone will be a bad employee simply because they did something criminal in their past. There are terrible employees out there who don't break the law. If we're so concerned about employers hiring bad employees then state should instead build a centralised database of bad employees and their reason for termination at previous places of work. I'd argue this would be more effective if we're concerned an employer might hire a bad employee.
Secondly, making it difficult for those who have committed crimes to get back into the workforce increases their risk of reoffending. Having a good job and a nice life to lose is a great reason to not commit crimes while having nothing to live for is a great excuse to do whatever feels right in the moment.
Best of luck op. If I was an employer I'd consider you if you had the skills and seemed like you could do the job. I have no idea why your past would be relevant to your ability to work outside of select roles.
I don't have much helpful to add, but I had a colleague who had a bad night, acquired some felony charges for a firearm-related assault and they got fired/blacklisted for a few years. Subsequently, they did IT contract work behind the scenes with small contractors, kept in touch with his professional network, was super helpful to the rest of us, and after serious concerns and much debate, got back into his prior care…
Felony charges are a lot different from felony convictions. Was he convicted?
I know this is a controversial view, but I think employers should not be allowed to run background checks unless important for the role (government work, access to children, etc) and where it is important for the role it should only return the criminal convictions that might be relevant to the role. If you were arrested for robbery when you were younger perhaps because you had a drug addiction then that person should…