Most US Workers Support Hiring People with Criminal Records

Getting a job is hard, but getting a job when you have a criminal record is even harder.However, a survey from background check company Checkr has found that four in five employees would approve of their company hiring people with past convictions.

The survey was done in the US in September 2021, and included both 1,200 employees and 400 executives.

Almost half of employees said they would be comfortable working with people with convictions, as long as they were for nonviolent crimes, while 33% said they’d approve of their company hiring people with any type of conviction.

Many thought other things should be considered when deciding whether to hire someone with a criminal record.

For example, 87% of employees said employers should offer a job to someone whose previous criminal history had been dismissed, 85% believed the candidate’s age at the time of the crime was important, and 84% believed the amount of time that had passed since the crime should be considered.

Plus, 85% believed employers should ignore some types of criminal records, such as nonviolent crimes or marijuana possession in states where the drug is now legal.

Thirty-six US states have now made it illegal to ask about criminal records on a job application. However, the survey found that 82% of employees were asked about their conviction history while applying for their current job.

Almost 90% of executives said they do background checks on every candidate, and 90% said certain types of criminal records would automatically disqualify candidates for a job without the opportunity to explain the situation.

According to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics, more than 112 million Americans had criminal records in 2018 — more than 1 in 3 people in the country.

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