So are many people without criminal convictions. What's your point? I for one think that, say, the Walton heirs or similar rent-extracting landlord heirs are more of a drain on society than poverty-stricken kids selling drugs or making other bad life choices. Life isn't black and white, and further to the point data shows that rehabilitating criminals delivers better outcomes than shoving them into criminality schools (i.e. prisions), as it should be crushingly obvious by now.
Is it a lazy approach to hiring? Yes. So is hiring anyone with an MIT degree just because of their credential.
If the signal is imperfect and there are efficient ways to reveal whether the signal is valid or not then some market participant would likely figure out how to exploit that right?
As other threads have been discussing, if this is the signal that people are receiving, maybe the punishment based system isn’t working and we may want to investigate systems where rehabilitation based systems are seemingly showing more promise. This may help us shift what signals society is receiving.
What do you do with "bad people?" Are they to be forever a drain on society? I agree that it's a government issue, but we should be rehabilitating our criminals instead of (just) labeling and punishing them: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/wh...
I think he's usually using it synonymous with "deadbeats you don't want to hire anyway"
The fact that we incarcerate for drug possession seems pretty strange. Petty crimes have way too high of cost in and out of prison.
I associated with a boy in highschool who shortly after graduation murdered two unarmed people in their home with a sawed off shotgun. I would consider him a very bad person.
Both the petty and the extreme carry the same label. Each join the untouchable class.
I'm not sure how to fix that, but it's an issue worth solving
You've pinpointed a major flaw that is mostly invisible to the public.
So are many people without criminal convictions. That's one of life's Great Aporias.
In addition to what others are saying, I'll also point out that many with criminal convictions merely made bad or stupid decisions many years (even decades) ago. To put too much weight on that is to commit the fundamental attribution error[1].
Further, in our justice system there are plenty of innocent people who were convinced to take plea bargains to avoid risking much worse sentences that they don't have a good enough lawyer to do them justice. This is especially true for poor people relying on overworked public defenders. Better to just take the six months than risk 10 years and not get to experience your children growing up.
If any of what I've said above is untrue, I would love someone with more direct experience in the justice system to chime in.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error
Having a record for MJ possession and sale is not the same as having a record for murder or even domestic abuse.
>Capitalism doesn’t just determine our source of income but how we relate to each other, our surroundings, and ourselves. To be rendered superfluous by the system is damning to social wellbeing as well as economic livelihood.
https://qz.com/1269525/capitalism-is-unfolding-exactly-as-ka...
Your best bet is to move to a state with "ban the box" type legislation that prevents them from asking about criminal history until they've sent an offer. Those laws usually set up a regime around criminal history checks as well, that require companies to spend a decent chunk of change on compliance if they request criminal history. As most of these companies we're just being lazy and didn't actually care about criminal history they all tend to use cheap background check companies which give them the legal protection of having done a "check", but which usually find nothing that doesn't come up in 30 seconds of googling. The only companies that tend to do official background checks anymore are healthcare, banks, and government contractors.
I have one friend who had a checkered past and hasn't had anything come up in their background check in the past 5 background checks he's done, so there is a way forward.
then you run into not society but government issues as well. just some examples my cousins run into all the time, they have to use temporary agencies to filter people and stock crews each week. Why? Drug convictions can ban them from some sites their company does work at. It can also jack their company's vehicle insurance and health insurance cost. Plus, go figure, those with more than one don't turn out to be good employees. They used to do direct hires, they even tried VA recommended people. some just hang on long enough to start collecting benefits again or meet eligibility requirements. they have good jobs to offer as do thousands of small employers do but they cannot afford the cost of that risk.
but ignoring their hiring issues, occupational licensing which prevents competition in many fields can include clauses that block those convicted of a crime from entering a field and drug convictions doubly so.