Ban the Box
Imagine someone that committed a crime. The person get arrested and charged with the crime. That person attended a preliminary hearing and their case sent off to a grand jury and they get indicted. That person is founded guilty and get a sentencing date. The person is sent off to some state or federal department of corrections. The person do his/her time under good behavior. That person comes out of prison determined to live a righteous and normal life. His/her first step is to find a job to get back on their feet. That person put in applications after applications for different jobs. Some of the jobs that require little or no experience, doesn’t even call that person back. After months of trying, he or she realized that they
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In April 2012, Ban the Box campaign successfully advocated with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or EEOC to clarify and strengthen its policies by updating the Enforcement Guidance on Consideration of Arrest or Conviction Records in Employment Decisions. During that same year, EEOC started immediately going after employers who had a ban on hiring people with criminal backgrounds. One employer that was hit with this policy was Pepsi Cola Company. Pepsi was order to pay over three million dollars because the EEOC ruled that Pepsi discriminated against race of African American applicants based off their background check. Pepsi was also ordered to provide job offers and training to their applicants (bantheboxcampaign.org). Later in November 2015, former President Obama signed an executive order to ban the box on applications for federal jobs (Upworthy.com) As of June 2016, 23 states such as California, New York, and Hawaii and over 100 cities such as Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Chicago have all enacted ban the box policies (politico.com). Accordingly to a professor from Harvard University, Dan Shoag, employment rate has increased by 4% with most of the increases are particularly large in the public sector and in lower-wage jobs