When Is It Safe to Hire an Ex-Convict?

With the increase in the number of companies performing background checks and advances in information technology, employers are finding more applicants with past criminal records. This can present some tough decisions when an otherwise qualified applicant has a record.

Research by Carnegie Mellon may give employers a basis to use in assessment of potential employees with a criminal record.

Most large companies now perform background checks on all employment applicants. Criminal records are maintained for a longer time and are distributed more easily these days due to advances in technology.

Consequently, background checks will turn up more criminal records for more applicants, with some of the arrests and convictions going back many years.

Should You Hire an Ex-Con?

What do you do if a background check turns up a criminal charge from years ago? What if the criminal offense was fairly recent?

According to the Carnegie Mellon researchers, after five years of maintaining a clean criminal record, an ex-convict is no more likely that someone who has never committed a crime of committing another crime.

The researchers looked at the criminal records of 88,000 first-time offenders in New York in 1980. Most of them had committed other crimes within the first five years of their first arrest. But those who did not have further crimes with the first five years were no more likely to commit new crimes that people who had never been arrested.

Not Likely to Commit a Crime

The longer they maintained a "clean" criminal record, the less likely they were to commit new crimes over the following 25 years after their first offense.

"In the past, employers had no way of knowing when it might be safe to look past a criminal record," said Alfred Blumstein, co-author of the study. "Hiring an ex-offender was a totally arbitrary decision."

"We believe our model can change that and help provide employers with data in making such decisions. Or it can be used by state criminal-record repositories in deciding when a prior arrest is too 'stale' to warrant distributing," Blumstein said.

The Carnegie Mellon study was published in the journal Criminology.

source: About.com