By The Editors

Studies show that access to stable employment is a key factor in helping ex-convicts turn their lives around. Yet employers frequently refuse to hire anyone with a conviction record.  Those “no-conviction” policies make it much more difficult for people with convictions in their past to find gainful work and stay out of prison.  Since such policies also disproportionately affect racial minorities, in many cases they violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.

Attorneys with the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) have written to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), urging an update of its policy statement on the use of criminal records screening under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The LDF letter contained recommendations to “accurately apply Title VII law to the context of employer policies barring hiring of people with criminal convictions, and [to] balance minority job-seekers’ equal employment rights with appropriate policy concerns.”

The attorneys also wrote that, “All readily available data on criminal charges and convictions shows that African Americans and Latinos are far more likely to carry a conviction record than whites, across crime type and region of the U.S.

“The most recent estimate is that nearly one-fourth of the black adult male population (23.3 percent) was once convicted of felony but is not currently under any form of criminal justice supervision; for the adult male population as a whole, the figure is only 9.2 percent.

The share of adult males that has ever been imprisoned is 16.6 percent for blacks, 7.7 percent for Latinos, and 2.6 percent for whites.”

Another recommendation was that “When employers seek to show that their rejection of an applicant based on his or her conviction record is consistent with business necessity, they should be required to demonstrate that their hiring policy accurately identifies ‘applicants that pose an unacceptable level of risk.’”

Citing studies, it was pointed out in the letter that “Criminologists have long studied the likelihood that a person with a conviction record will commit a future criminal offense, and have found that risk declines with age, time since the offense, and time since release … factors associated with personal rehabilitation and stability – such as work history, family and community ties and recovery from substance abuse – all indicate a decreased risk of recidivism … all legitimate elements in an employer policy designed to accurately screen for risks in the workplace.”

Read the text of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.