The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

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U.S. cities are ground zero for the record numbers of people with a criminal record who are now struggling to find work and contribute to their communities. More cities are taking on this "reentry" challenge by adopting a new "smart on crime" agenda which promotes public safety by creating more employment, housing and drug treatment opportunities. In the process, more cities are also evaluating local policies that create unnecessary barriers to employment of people with criminal records. As summarized below, several major U.S. cities have also taken the critical first step by removing unfair barriers to employment in their city hiring policies.

Boston City Council Ordinance

Of special significance, Boston's City Council ordinance (which takes effect July 1, 2006) applies not only to hiring in city jobs, but also to the hiring decisions of an estimated 50,000 private vendors who do business with the City. The successful campaign to reform Boston's hiring policy was backed by broad community coalition called the Massachusetts Alliance to Reform CORI (MARC).

According to the ordinance, the City of Boston and its vendors cannot conduct a criminal background check as part of their hiring process until the job applicant is found to be "otherwise qualified" for the position. This critical protection ensures that everyone is first considered for employment based on their actual skills and experience before the employer takes into account the presence or absence of a criminal record. The ordinance also requires that the final employment decision, which includes information about the individual's criminal record, also considers the age and seriousness of the crime and the "occurrences in the life of the Applicant since the crime(s)." In addition, the Boston ordinance creates important appeals rights for those denied employment based on a criminal record and the right to present information related to the "accuracy and/or relevancy" of the criminal record.

Resources:
-Boston City Council Ordinance, click here.

Local Contacts:
Horace Small
Union of Minority Neighborhoods
UMNUnity@att.net
www.unionofminorityneighborhoods.org

Fran Fajana
Massachusetts Law Reform Institute
ffajana@mlri.org
www.mlri.org

City of Chicago Hiring Policy

In May 2004, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley created the Mayoral Policy Caucus on Prisoner Reentry, bringing together government and community leaders to address the challenges facing 20,000 people each year who return to Chicago after being released from prison. In January 2006, the Caucus issued a major report calling for broad ranging reforms of City policy. With regard to city hiring, the report recommended that the Mayor "Adopt internal guidelines for the City of Chicago's personnel policies regarding criminal background checks, and advocate for fair employment standards."

At the same time that the report was released, Mayor Daley announced several major "reentry" initiatives, including reform of the City's hiring policies as recommended by the Caucus. The Mayor's press release described a new hiring policy requiring the City to "balance the nature and severity of the crime with other factors, such as the passage of time and evidence of rehabilitation . . . . Put more simply, this change means that City hiring will be fairer and more common sense." The Mayor added, "Implementing this new policy won't be easy, but it's the right thing to do . . . We cannot ask private employers to consider hiring former prisoners unless the City practices what it preaches."

Implementing the Mayor's new hiring policy, the City Department of Human Resources has issued guidelines imposing standards on all city agencies regulating hiring decisions related to people with criminal records. For the first time, the City of Chicago now requires all agencies to take into account the age of an individual's criminal record, the seriousness of the offense, evidence of rehabilitation, and other mitigating factors before making their hiring decisions.

Resources:
-Mayor Daley's Press Release (January 24, 2006), click here.
-Report of the Mayoral Policy Caucus on Prisoner Reentry (January 2006), click here.

Local Contact:
Michelle L. Light
Office of the Mayor
mlight@cityofchicago.org

San Francisco "Ban the Box" Initiative

The campaign to "ban the box" on San Francisco's applications for public employment was led by All of Us or None, a community-based organization of formerly-incarcerated people and their families.

Like most government employers, the City and County of San Francisco required all job applicants to check off a box on their initial job application indicating whether they have been "convicted by a court." In addition, job applicants were required to list all their convictions, no matter the age or seriousness of the offense. All of Us or None's investigation of this hiring policy revealed that it unfairly discriminated against people with criminal records because it discouraged them from even applying for City and County jobs. The policy was also found to limit the hiring pool of qualified candidates for public employment.

In October 2005, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a resolution initiated by All of Us or None which called on the City and County of San Francisco to eliminate hiring discrimination against people with criminal records by removing the requirement that criminal history information be provided as part of the initial job application for public employment. A new hiring policy has since been adopted by the Civil Service Commission of the City and County of San Francisco and the Department of Human Resources.

Like Boston's ordinance, San Francisco's new policy (which takes effect in May 2006) seeks to prevent discrimination on the basis of a criminal record by removing conviction history information from the initial application. Instead, an individual's past convictions will not be considered until later in the hiring process when the applicant has been identified as a serious candidate for the position. The only exception is for those jobs where state or local laws expressly bar people with convictions from employment. These applicants will still be required to submit conviction history information at the beginning of the hiring process. Unlike the Boston ordinance, San Francisco's policy only applies to public employment, not to private vendors that do business with the City or County of San Francisco.

Resources:
-San Francisco Board of Supervisors Resolution, click here.

Local Contacts:
Dorsey Dunn or Linda Evans
All of Us or None
dorsey@prisonerswithchildren.org
linda@prisonerswithchildren.org
www.allofusornone.org

For more information about city hiring policies that limit discrimination against people with criminal records, or for help developing similar policies for other cities, contact:

Maurice Emsellem
National Employment Law Project
Second Chance Labor Project
(510) 663-5700
emsellem@nelp.org
www.nelp.org

Glenn Martin & Roberta Meyers-Peeples, Co-Directors
National H.I.R.E. Network
(212) 243-1313
gmartin@hirenetwork.org
rampeeples@hirenetwork.org
www.hirenetwork.org