Perceived Criminality, Criminal Background Checks and the Racial Hiring Preferences of Employers

1
Perceived Criminality, Criminal Background Checks
and the Racial Hiring Preferences of Employers

• Harry J. Holzer
• Georgetown University
• Steven Raphael
• UC Berkeley
• Michael A. Stoll
• UCLA

2
(No Transcript)
3
(No Transcript)
4
(No Transcript)
5
(No Transcript)
6
Collateral Consequences of Imprisonment

• Individual
• Employment
• Public Assistance, Voting, Public Housing,
  Drivers Licenses, Adoptive and Foster Parenting,
  Student Loans
• Community
• Neighborhoods, families, health, state budgets
• Groups with High Incarceration Levels

7
Why Are Employers Adverse to Hiring Ex-Offenders?

• Reluctant to hire ex-offenders
• May steal or harm customers
• Imperfect monitoring of employees-premium on
  trustworthiness
• Certain occupations are legally closed to
  applicants with prior felony convictions
• Protect against lawsuits
• Legally liable for criminal actions of employees
  - theory of negligent hiring

8
(No Transcript)
9
(No Transcript)
10
Correlates of Employer Aversion to Ex-Offenders

• Smaller establishments
• Service and FIRE sectors (Manufacturing open to
  hiring)
• Customer Contact
• Use Informal Recruiting Methods
• Unwilling to hire other disadvantaged groups

11
Potential Mechanisms to Act on Aversion

• Use of Criminal Background Checks
• Statistical discrimination

12
Do employers have access to criminal records?

• Records of arrests, convictions, and time served
  are housed in state central repositories.
• In general, states are more likely to give out
  information on conviction than arrest.
• The U.S. DOJ recently concluded that criminal
  history record information is becoming more
  available to non-criminal justice users.
• Several firms advertise on the internet, offering
  nationwide criminal background checks for as
  little as 15.

13
(No Transcript)
14
(No Transcript)
15
Use of Criminal Background Checks

• larger firms
• industries with more customer contact (retail
  trade, service and FIRE)
• increasing over time
• mostly from private sources

16
Effect of Checks on Black Hiring Ambiguous

• Checking employers more likely to eliminate Black
  applicants since they are more likely to have
  criminal history records
• Non-checking employers may infer likelihood of
  past conviction based on race (perceived
  criminality)

17
Description of the data

• Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality
• Conducted between June 1992 and May 1994 in
  Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, and Los Angeles
• Sample of firms generated from two sources (1) a
  concurrent household survey, and (2) a sample of
  firms purchased from Survey Samples Incorporated
  (SSI).
• SSI list was stratified by establishment size and
  sampled according to the distribution of
  employment across size categories.
• Telephone surveys were conducted with the person
  at the firm in charge of hiring for firms that
  have hired into a position not requiring a
  college degree in the last three years.
• The response rate for successfully screened firms
  was 67 percent.

18
(No Transcript)
19
(No Transcript)
20
Other Major Findings

• Effects stronger for firms unwilling to hire
  ex-offenders and for smaller firms
• Pattern not explained by application patterns
• Similar effect for those with spotty work history

21
Conclusions

• Employers who use checks more likely to hire
  black applicants than employers who do not.
• Implies that adverse consequences of checks on
  those with criminal histories is more than offset
  by positive effects of eliminating statistical
  discrimination.
• More true for firms unwilling to hire ex-offenders

22
What to Do to Raise Employment?

• Supports for Reentry
• Reverse Bans on Financial Aid and Public
  Assistance
• Employment Bans Based on Content of Criminal
  History, Not Blanket Use
• Conviction Not Arrest Records
• Ensure Accuracy of Records
• Incentivise Desistance-Expunge Certain Records
  After Fixed Time Period
• Indemnify Employers Bonds, Not in Blanket
  Fashion
• Re-examine Federal, State and Local
  Employment/Licensing Restrictions
• Child Support

23
(No Transcript)