Why Cities and States Across the Country are Adopting ‘Ban the Box’ Policies
On April 29, the Oregon House of Representatives passed a bill that would prevent employers from asking about a person’s criminal history on job applications. Backed by labor leaders and civil rights organizations, the bill aims to give people with past criminal convictions a better chance at finding and securing a job.
Outside of Oregon, 15 other states have adopted similar ‘ban the box’ and fair-chance hiring laws, which delay conviction inquiries until later in the hiring process. ‘Ban the box’ laws don’t prohibit background checks, they just postpone them so job applicants are evaluated on their qualifications first, not solely on past mistakes.
For the nearly 70 million Americans with an arrest or conviction record, these reforms provide hope and opportunity to qualified job seekers who struggle against significant odds to find work and give back to their communities. By helping increase access to employment opportunities and economic support, fair chance reforms also help reduce recidivism.
Aggressive policing and the war on drugs have caused the number of people with a criminal record to balloon—nearly one in three adults has an arrest or conviction history that will show up on a routine background check. Such policies have disproportionately harmed African Americans, who are incarcerated at a rate six times higher than Whites, and have effectively locked millions of skilled workers out of the job market.
Major companies in the private sector have also embraced fair-chance hiring. Recognizing that people with an arrest or conviction history can be talented, productive workers, companies like Target, Walmart, Koch Industries, and Bed Bath & Beyond have already banned the box on their job applications.
In March, more than 200 organizations urged President Obama to issue an executive order to ensure that federal agencies and federal contractors are doing their part to eliminate unnecessary barriers to employment for people with criminal records. In its May 2014 report to the president, the My Brother’s Keeper Task Force strongly endorsed fair chance hiring reforms because they “give applicants a fair chance and allow employers the opportunity to judge individual job candidates on their merits as they reenter the workforce.” By adopting a federal fair chance hiring initiative, the federal government can be a model employer and help lead the way toward fairness in the hiring process for all Americans
The time is now!
Image credit: National Employment Law Center