Please do not confuse "felons" with violent and sexual offenders.
Obviously you do not want to employ people with those kinds of backgrounds in a setting where they could repeat past behaviour, but there is an overwhelming number of felons without violent or sexual records and by denying them employment, you are participating in a system designed to coerce poor, uneducated and misguided individuals into repetitive criminal behavior.
If you already understand this distinction between non-violent and violent federal offenders, please consider reflecting it with your choice of words as to not cause further harm to others caught in this system.
I strongly suggest that anyone considering denying someone employment for the reason "I don't like felons" seek legal counsel before putting this reason in writing to the rejected applicant.
It is completely unfair for felons to be shut out of jobs because of non-violent past mistakes that are ancient history and would not re-occur.
On the other hand, we have no idea who made this page. If they want to be taken seriously and given a chance, they need to be transparent enough to at least tell us who they are, and let us make our own decision on working with them.
You're not opening yourself to a lawsuit, it's still perfectly legal to refuse to hire felons because "I don't like felons." You just can't avoid meeting them and interviewing them.
There are a lot of people with a felony record who pose zero additional risk to their employer. Of course it depends on the person and it depends on the job. It certainly doesn't make sense to have a strict policy against all felons regardless of individual circumstances.
They are two different things. One is directly related to the job. The other is being a felon for an unrelated reason.
I wouldn't mind someone being a teacher if they got caught with pot 20 years ago. I would mind if they raped a few kids.
The point is that if their crime was related to the job, it's fine not to trust someone to do that same job again. That's not the same as never employing them for anything.
You can't refuse to hire someone for race, or family status. It would be reasonable if you couldn't refuse to hire someone for a crime they have already completed a sentence for (unless it's relevant to the job). There already exist some state laws of this sort, especially for crimes that have been expunged.
Friendship is unrelated, and you wouldn't even know if they were a felon.
And non-felons are capable of horrible crimes too. They weren't born felons.
My experience is different. I'm not a felon but I come across them in the workplace fairly often as an internal investigator. We have infosec personnel working for us with nonviolent sex offender convictions who also maintain security clearances (defense contractor). Life does not end with a conviction; don't wear a sandwich board broadcasting it but honesty goes a long way. It's the lies that I'll eventually hang you with.
Go west if you can. If you're on the east coast it's hell. The "liability" concerns are (IME) a pervasive east-coast racist myth from the 60s, but it's a real threat. The same justification was used to expand routine drug screening from forklift operators and truck drivers to keyboard jockeys. Equifax did drug testing of white-collar employees and did not hire criminals; so much for their liability and reputation following the worst data breach in history. It's all bullshit; both justifications are veiled cause to not hire blacks.
Mind your co-workers inclined to cyberstalk everyone around them and using your skeletons to raise PR hell to advance their own career. We've unfortunately thrown employees under the bus due to public outcry. Social "justice" in action! (What was the prison sentence for, if not justice...?)
It's ironic that in a post about conflation between violent and non-violent offenders of some class, you seem to have conflated the orthogonal classes of “felons” and “federal offenders”.
Even if you've "reformed your past ways of crime" after serving jail time and "learned your lessons":
non-felon > felon
Especially in terms of potential risks to my staff or property. Basically, would you hire a babysitter with a criminal record or one without a criminal record and good references?
Maybe my employees break the law when they're not at work, but that's none of my business. If one of my employees is indicted or cited for rioting / DUI, welp I'll fire them on the spot.
Also, re "all crimes are behind you once you leave prison" - how would you explain repeat offenders? At this point I'm trusting my business against statistics of a felon committing a crime again lmao.
Yes, I would, I have, and will do it again. Being a felon is not a standard definition. People can go to jail for very different things. Of course, I won't work with anyone who committed a violent crime, but I will consider people who have committed small stuff. You can't measure everyone with the same ruler.
How so? They're prohibited from possessing firearms, so they're not suited for armed security, but there's nothing structural preventing them from earning a living. Plenty of companies will hire felons, just not all of them.
I'm just curious, what would be your concerns? Again, we're assuming they have the exact attributes you're looking for in a candidate. Do you think they'd be disruptive around the office by virtue of their past? Are you afraid they'd rape and pillage the workplace? I'd love to understand your rationale here.
Keep in mind, felonies include: DUI, Terrorist threats against a girlfriend or boyfriend,
Driving without the owner's consent, Embezzlement, etc. There are varying degrees of "seriousness" when it comes to crimes considered felonious.
That's a bit of a false equivalency. That's like saying why not drop out of college? Bill Gates did and he turned out fine.
Those positions are not a dime-a-dozen. For the regular working person, being a felon is a very heavy weight to carry and it immediately discredits or otherwise disqualifies many people, where they rarely have a chance to even have their story heard.
Obviously you do not want to employ people with those kinds of backgrounds in a setting where they could repeat past behaviour, but there is an overwhelming number of felons without violent or sexual records and by denying them employment, you are participating in a system designed to coerce poor, uneducated and misguided individuals into repetitive criminal behavior.
If you already understand this distinction between non-violent and violent federal offenders, please consider reflecting it with your choice of words as to not cause further harm to others caught in this system.
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