When the Hartford Business Journal offered me a columnist slot, I decided not to tell them about the time I robbed a bank. My fear was that bank robbery might not have been popular with a business audience — unless we were referring to walking away from underwater mortgages and stuff like that.
The criminal record was sealed; no one ever would have found out. I think that’s fair. My life shouldn’t be ruined, and you shouldn’t be denied a great columnist, just because of a bank robbery.
It was my sister’s bank. A piggy bank. We were sitting in the back seat of the family car and she bit me. In return, when we got home, I raided her bank. The prosecutor and judge was my mom. She ordered restitution and sealed the record.
Mom was a woman ahead of her time. Across the country, the criminal justice system is wrestling with a growing population of charming men and women with criminal records and, thus, shaky job prospects.
The response has been a bewildering blizzard of state and federal initiatives to hide, avoid, pretty up, discourage, and prohibit talking about, asking about, requiring, disclosing, or otherwise thinking about whether a job candidate sitting across the desk has been convicted of a crime or at least a serious crime … or a crime committed so recently that the felon still has a rash from the polyester prison suit.
Connecticut’s new version of the don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy goes something like this: There will be no criminal history question on government job applications, but the hiring agents are free to ask about a criminal record, or conduct a background check. The theory is that once the bad boy at least has the opportunity to sit down for the interview, he will have the opportunity to explain that his sister bit him and that was why he robbed the bank.
The Connecticut rules are riddled with all manner of complication for government jobs. Even if the criminal conviction is discovered or disclosed, the poor Human Resources creature must take into consideration the level and length of rehabilitation and whether the crime and the job are too closely aligned for comfort, and whether the applicant is so spectacularly qualified that he’ll get a pass on the assault and battery.
Massachusetts this month tweaked its existing version of the hide-the-criminal-record policy: felony convictions will, for all intents and purposes, disappear after 10 years, if a nosy employer comes looking for dirt.
Most jurisdictions have exceptions for jobs in law enforcement and nursing homes and child protection — and there are spotty non-employment exceptions that allow public housing administrators to screen out unsavory potential renters.
The theory behind all this has its charms. If a population of miscreants is doomed to wander the Earth, unable to get past the job application, we are risking a permanent class of folks directed toward criminal activity.
On the other hand, the hiring side of the fence might well begin to use guesswork — to “profile” — to find reasons other than criminal record to reject applicants who may or may not have a criminal record.
The real test will come when a gainfully employed ex-felon on the public payroll reverts to a life of crime. The public will lost its patience for the abstract thrill of lower recidivism rates.
In a perfect world, there would be no mandatory secrets in the hiring process. Lacking perfection, the ongoing experiments to hire convicted criminals are justifiable, but rigorous evaluation and honest reporting must be in place.
Laurence D. Cohen is a freelance writer.
