The John Jay College Institute for Justice and Opportunity is excited to share our latest publication: Beyond the Record: A Justice-Oriented Approach to Background Checks.
We created this guide to help employers, educators, education and employment program operators, licensing bodies, and housing providers bring a critical lens to their use of background checks and update their processes so we can move toward a more equitable future. It provides guidance on steps you can take right now to lessen the disproportionate impact your process may have on any candidate or applicant with a conviction record, especially Black and Latinx candidates.
Over 77 million people have a criminal record in the United States — they are subjected to perpetual punishment because of the extensive use of background checks in employment, housing, and education. But that pervasiveness speaks to an opportunity, too. As decision-makers reviewing background checks, there are so many of us who have the power to expand opportunity to candidates with conviction records right now.
At the Institute, we believe the best way to end conviction record-based discrimination — and expand opportunity for the millions of Americans impacted by the criminal legal system — is to discontinue the use of background checks unless required by law. If that is not feasible in the short term, however, we hope this guide will help you create as fair and equitable of a process as possible.
This guide is a continuation of our work to support people with convictions in navigating barriers to education and economic opportunity.
Last year, we released Getting to Work with a Criminal Record: New York State License Guides (2020 Expanded Edition), which explains the process for obtaining licenses in 25, high-demand occupations and professions for people with conviction records. And earlier this year, we released Getting the Record Straight: A Guide to Navigating Background Checks, which helps people with conviction records navigate the individual, institutional, and systemic barriers erected by the practice of background checks.
For more information, please contact Zoë Johnson, Policy Coordinator, at zjohnson@jjay.cuny.edu.
Copyright © 2021 John Jay College Institute for Justice and Opportunity, All rights reserved.
To read more articles, access David Geiger’s blog at www.davidegeiger.com
Read Goodreads reviews of In the Matter of Edwin Potter at www.davidegeiger.com
IMOEP YouTube and other videos at www.davidegeiger.com/videos
IMOEP is available at Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, and www.davidegeiger.com
David Geiger is a licensed and retired professional electrical engineer who spent 7 years in psychiatric hospitals and over 40 years since 1979 in the courts as a result of his schizophrenia. He worked for Consolidated Edison in NYC for 20 years and won recognition and an award for his work there. He writes about his illness in the book as well as those who have the illness and are caught up in the criminal legal system.