Study finds most unemployed young men have criminal records
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Re: Study finds most unemployed young men have criminal records
#2One of the few 501(c)3's I will give money to is an organization that helps offenders go straight when they get out of jail and I see my name on a very short list of private donors.
In the 1990s I was a victim of what I would call "Domestic Terrorism", the ringleader of the group didn't go to prison for his actions against me and other people at my college but I did hear that he went to prison for drug charges not long after.
I still haven't forgiven the college administrator who chose not to take action against this person (would that person have said "there is nothing they can do" if his daughter was the victim?) but if I heard the ringleader of that gang had gotten out of prison and managed to find work and stay out of trouble I would want to shake his hand because that is something that is against the odds and so hard to do.
Re: Study finds most unemployed young men have criminal records
#3They need to study deeper, why these young men engage in criminal activities in the first place, only to find themselves arrested and later ineligible for any job.
Do they think that benefits from criminal activities outweigh the risks of being caught and not being able to pass any background check for entire life?
First step if to stop young men from engaging in criminal behavior, to stop feeding jails with fresh blood so to speak.
Next step is rehabilitation program for previously convicted felons, does the current program work or not, how it can be improved?
You can’t just ask businesses to stop doing background checks and employ convicted felons and hope they will not embezzle funds from their new employer. The risk is too high.
Re: Study finds most unemployed young men have criminal records
#4They need to study deeper, why these young men engage in criminal activities in the first place, only to find themselves arrested and later ineligible for any job. Do they think that benefits from criminal activities outweigh the risks of being caught and not being able to pass any background check for entire life? First step if to stop young men from engaging in criminal behavior, to stop feeding jails with fresh bl…
It is not so cut and dry. In my experience, most criminal activity in the is done by people who don't really feel like they belong in our society. This could be because of their race/ethnicity or because of addiction or because of some trauma which left them feeling like an outcast.
If we look at the issue through this lens it becomes obvious that when one feels like they don't belong to a society then there is little perceived value in playing by the rules since nobody else seems to be doing so.
This trap is especially easy to fall into when you are young.
Re: Study finds most unemployed young men have criminal records
#5One of the few 501(c)3's I will give money to is an organization that helps offenders go straight when they get out of jail and I see my name on a very short list of private donors. In the 1990s I was a victim of what I would call "Domestic Terrorism", the ringleader of the group didn't go to prison for his actions against me and other people at my college but I did hear that he went to prison for drug charges not lo…
Forgiveness can be extremely difficult; well done for recognizing that your individual experiences aren't a reason to restrict the opportunities of others - that's more than many people are able to manage.
Re: Study finds most unemployed young men have criminal records
#6They need to study deeper, why these young men engage in criminal activities in the first place, only to find themselves arrested and later ineligible for any job. Do they think that benefits from criminal activities outweigh the risks of being caught and not being able to pass any background check for entire life? First step if to stop young men from engaging in criminal behavior, to stop feeding jails with fresh bl…
> You can’t just ask businesses to stop doing background checks and employ convicted felons and hope they will not embezzle funds from their new employer. The risk is too high.
No, you can't.
The problem is that the criminal history prevents employment for life, not just for the few years while someone is getting back on their feet after jail.
For example, when I was in college, my fraternity paid our cook cash. He (the cook) always seemed to have side-hustles or was picking up odd cooking jobs.
After I got to know him for a few years, he told me that he was convicted approximately 20 years prior for cocaine distribution. He implied that he had a lot when he was caught. Then he told me he couldn't get a normal job because of his record.
My point is that, after a certain period of time with no recidivism, (maybe 5 years,) the criminal record should not be a barrier to general employment.
Re: Study finds most unemployed young men have criminal records
#7At 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 provides a "does this person have any past offenses relevant to this job?" service. Where they look at the type of job, any criminal history, and make sure the specific criminal history isn't an issue for the type of job being sought.
Re: Study finds most unemployed young men have criminal records
#8They need to study deeper, why these young men engage in criminal activities in the first place, only to find themselves arrested and later ineligible for any job. Do they think that benefits from criminal activities outweigh the risks of being caught and not being able to pass any background check for entire life? First step if to stop young men from engaging in criminal behavior, to stop feeding jails with fresh bl…
> You can’t just ask businesses to stop doing background checks and employ convicted felons and hope they will not embezzle funds from their new employer. The risk is too high. No, you can't. The problem is that the criminal history prevents employment for life, not just for the few years while someone is getting back on their feet after jail. For example, when I was in college, my fraternity paid our cook cash. He (…
One way around this is for them to become contractors, consultants, and other businesses.
Re: Study finds most unemployed young men have criminal records
#9They need to study deeper, why these young men engage in criminal activities in the first place, only to find themselves arrested and later ineligible for any job. Do they think that benefits from criminal activities outweigh the risks of being caught and not being able to pass any background check for entire life? First step if to stop young men from engaging in criminal behavior, to stop feeding jails with fresh bl…
> You can’t just ask businesses to stop doing background checks and employ convicted felons and hope they will not embezzle funds from their new employer. The risk is too high.
There is a reasonable solution to this, and it's "ban the box" or "fair chance hiring" laws. These laws make it illegal to perform background checks prior to making a conditional offer. The best ones make companies provide substantive, written justification for turning someone down after a background check, provide avenues for appeal, and make the companies front the legal fees so it doesn't just turn into a game of Who Has The Most Money. They still allow employers to reject candidates for whom there are legitimate concerns. But they give candidates, as the name says, a fair chance.
https://www.nelp.org/publication/ban-the-box-fair-chance-hir...
Re: Study finds most unemployed young men have criminal records
#10In 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 manual labor towards higher-skilled, higher-impact jobs, raises the trust bar, locking out those with criminal records, leaving them few opportunities to re-integrate with the mainstream economy, and an incentive to fall further into the criminal economy.