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Study finds most unemployed young men have criminal records

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Re: Study finds most unemployed young men have criminal records

#71

Post by jsnodlin »

deeg wrote: post #38
jl6 wrote: post #10

In previous centuries, there were plenty of jobs with low trust requirements - chiefly, unskilled manual labor. A criminal record wasn’t such a barrier to that type of employment. Someone could spend time in prison, and then still find work on the outside. Not great work perhaps, but a living - a way forward for them, to re-integrate back into society. A way to slowly rebuild trust. The shift away from unskilled manu…

I wonder if the growing number of WFH jobs would help alleviate this. I'm a software engineer who mostly works from home. We sell (mostly) support for OSS. This seems like a situation where an ex-con might have an opportunity.

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Re: Study finds most unemployed young men have criminal records

#72

Post by betwixthewires »

Maybe I'm nuts, but I don't think a person's record should be available. Maybe in extreme circumstances, like they're still a danger to those around them, but beyond that, once the sentence has been completed it should be 100% back to normal.

Re: Study finds most unemployed young men have criminal records

#73

Post by brnaftr361 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #54
brnaftr361 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude I got dinged for a weed possession charge from my 17th year when I was 21 for a job at Kum'N'Go. I don't give a fuck what kinda logical hoops they jumped through, but it's obscene considering about a month after that I was working in a critical industry with literally millions of dollars of equipment in my hands and a high-risk environment. It doesn't make sense in so many cases, probably most and it only increa…

I'm not exactly sure if you are disagreeing with me, because what you are saying is exactly my point. A weed possession charge as a minor is the type of thing that I think regulation should disallow as a disqualifying factor for all types of jobs. The idea would be that I would ask a background check service "I am hiring for a CLERK at CONVENIENCE_STORE", and I would just get back a response "No disqualifying convict…

I'm not disagreeing. But I don't know that I agree, it's a pretty finicky line. Crime is super contextual, so you're barring people who have been rung through the system, and probably have a new environment, a new context; I mean assuming they committed a significant crime.

But honestly, in the beginning of "Noise" they start detailing some cases Marvin Frankel reviewed:

Frankel did not provide any kind of statistical analysis to support his argument. But he did offer a series of powerful anecdotes, showing unjustified disparities in the treatment of similar people. Two men, neither of whom had a criminal record, were convicted for cashing counterfeit checks in the amounts of $58.40 and $35.20, respectively. The first man was sentenced to fifteen years, the second to 30 days. For embezzlement actions that were similar to one another, one man was sentenced to 117 days in prison, while another was sentenced to 20 years. Pointing to numerous cases of this kind, Frankel deplored what he called the “almost wholly unchecked and sweeping powers” of federal judges, resulting in “arbitrary cruelties perpetrated daily,” which he deemed unacceptable in a “government of laws, not of men.”

Like those check fraud cases are crazy and having that on your record forever? That's some yellow passport shit. Over damages that could be settled trivially. If we did some criminal law reform, yeah I totally agree with you, but I think it's more complicated than just barring results. I'll grant you it'd be better than it is now, I guess, but order of operations I think would be pretty important, but that's an aside for another day.

Re: Study finds most unemployed young men have criminal records

#74

Post by bombcar »

WalterBright wrote: post #49
bombcar wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the point - a former embezzler being hired as a plumber is different than hiring them as a bookkeeper. However, until the employees are more scarce than jobs, there's no reason to hire an ex-con and every reason to skip over them (bureaucratically speaking). To counter that you'd need to offer incentives TO hire them - tax write-offs or something, or liability protections. Or you have to expunge records at som…

There's another reason why companies don't want to hire felons - liability. I've seen many companies successfully sued over the years because one of their employees committed a crime against a customer. The lawsuit was because the company hired an ex-con. To get companies to hire ex-cons, liability laws need to be amended to protect companies from that sort of liability.

Yeah - hence the liability issue. There’s have to be some sort of bonus but is should be workable - something like if the company follows procedure and hires an excon who later commits a crime they’re not liable.

Or just let the state hire them all as they can immunize themselves from prosecution.

Re: Study finds most unemployed young men have criminal records

#75

Post by jsnodlin »

tyingq wrote: post #7

At least in the US one thing that has made this worse is universal cheap access to criminal background checks. That didn't used to exist, so a criminal background blocked access to jobs with big companies that could do background checks. But, you could get a job at smaller companies. That's gone now...a criminal background gets a "no" from almost everyone. Other countries have a system where some government agency pr…

No post body was provided.

Re: Study finds most unemployed young men have criminal records

#77

Post by WalterBright »

nicoburns wrote: post #61
WalterBright wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One way around this is for them to become contractors, consultants, and other businesses.

Yes, but that's not always easy. And they shouldn't have to do this.

Nobody said it was easy. But lots of non-cons become consultants, etc.

Re: Study finds most unemployed young men have criminal records

#78

Post by PedroBatista »

betwixthewires wrote: post #72

Maybe I'm nuts, but I don't think a person's record should be available. Maybe in extreme circumstances, like they're still a danger to those around them, but beyond that, once the sentence has been completed it should be 100% back to normal.

As in anything, some middle-ground is where things generally sit.

The no record available once the sentence is completed is fine until someone gets killed or their daughter raped by someone with extensive criminal record of things not related to murder or rape.

The unfortunate reality is, a certain type of people will continue to commit crimes all their life and many of them aren't even premeditated, it's a "it just happened" thing.

Having said that, a "no second chances for anyone" approach would have the same results as the secret records approach you described. IMO most of the crime problems are attached to the culture and their vicious cycles, but that's an ultra-radioactive topic and every discussion easily goes south, so, just another day I guess..

Re: Study finds most unemployed young men have criminal records

#79

Post by ThinkBeat »

Helping people with criminal records get jobs is good. Letting then vote is also a good first step.

The focus should be on helping them -before- they end up with a criminal conviction of some sort on their permanent record.

Sadly we are engineering society to be less and less compatible for young men and this will only get worse over time.

And then these angry young men get older they beget their own angry young men.

Everyone is not compatible with sitting still and shutting up for 4 - 8 hours a day for 12 years + uni. (And far more men than women are incompatible).

That this has become the common requirement in society is a growing issue.

We need a way to productively allow these men to partake in society at their own terms, or at least a lot closer to it than we are now. That means creating jobs and frameworks that are compatible.

Crime is natural choice.

It a great outlet for adrenaline and aggression and asserting ones freedom from the chains of society. It is dangerous, sometimes lethal. and looking good for the ladies. (or other men)

You even make easy money, (a lot of t, if you happen to be among the 1% of criminals). It is a highly compatible venture.

Instead of inventing new psychological diagnosis and inventing an ever bigger stream of pharmaceuticals meant to neuter them and force compliance we should do the opposite.

Recognise it as a resource for society.

Re: Study finds most unemployed young men have criminal records

#80

Post by mjevans »

chrisseaton wrote: post #45
Zak wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some countries have a concept of a right to be forgotten. After a certain amount of time passes, information about criminal convictions is no longer public; disseminating such information is generally illegal; making employment decisions based on it is also illegal. It's not airtight, but it wouldn't need to be to alleviate the problem. It would restrict what mainstream background check providers could offer. https:/…

Sounds a bit dystopian requiring everyone to pretend that a trial never took place when people know it did?

It is dystopian to be sentenced to social death without any chance of reform. All the more so if we can ever figure out the medical stuff and live a lot longer and/or repair injury and defect that might hinder rational thought.

There's got to be a method for redemption and being recognized as redeemed. The issue today is that hiring processes are not really fair, they can't be objectively run with subjective measures and random entropy pools. If hiring were fair and redeemed people treated the same as never convicted people then there wouldn't be a need for the EU's current bandaid.

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