Criminal Record Discrimination Harms Society

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Recommended: Consequences of discrimination in the criminal justice system

The rise of the information age has made it increasingly easy and cost effective to conduct criminal background checks on prospective employees. According to Adams (2011), this ease of access is due to the fact that investigators no longer have to sift through actual court records. But does this type of discrimination actually do any good for a company, and what is the greater cost to society when so many companies are engaging the same type of discrimination?
Cost and Benefit
According to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management (2010), 73% of the companies surveyed conduct background checks on all prospective employees, and an additional 19% indicated that they conduct checks on select candidates (p.3). Of the companies in the survey which conduct background checks, 5% said that an arrest which did not lead to a conviction was “very influential” in the decision to hire, while 22% indicated the same for a conviction of a non-violent misdemeanor. For a violent felony conviction, 95% of the companies surveyed indicated that the offense was very influential in the decision to hire (p.5). With 65 million Americans having a conviction or an arrest on their criminal record, approximately one in five Americans are in some way affected by criminal background checks when seeking employment (Adams,2011).
Pre-employment background checks are largely justified by the reasoning that a criminal record is an indicator of a person’s character, and to hire a known criminal presents a legal liability for a company. According to Buckhoff , “Employers can be held liable for their employees' criminal actions, under certain circumstances” (2003). What this line of reasoning lacks is the ideology of human individuality – the assumption ...

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...rightoncrime.com/2011/05/the-widespread-use-of-criminal-background-checks-in-the-information-age/
Blumstein, A. & Nakamura, K. (2009). Redemption in an Era of Widespread Criminal Background Checks. Retrieved April 20, 2014 from http://www.nij.gov/journals/263/pages/redemption.aspx
Buckhoff, T. A., & Colson, R. H. (2003). PREVENTING FRAUD BY CONDUCTING BACKGROUND CHECKS. CPA Journal, 73(11), 52.
Carson, E. J. (2010). Off the Record: Why the EEOC Should Change Its Guidelines Regarding Employers' Consideration of Employees' Criminal Records During the Hiring Process. Journal Of Corporation Law, 36(1), 221-237.
Society for Human Resource Management. (2010). Background Checking: Conducting Criminal Background Checks SHRM Poll. [Computer software]. Retrieved April 20, 2014 from http://www.shrm.org/Research/SurveyFindings/Articles/Pages/BackgroundCheckCriminalChecks.aspx

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