Employers are desperate to recruit hundreds of thousands of workers who seemingly have vanished from the workforce. People with criminal histories represent a large pool of labor that could fill the gap. So why aren’t more managers hiring them?
We consistently hear of several fears: Fear the person will commit another crime. Fear of negligent hiring lawsuits. Fear of customer reactions or how other employees will respond.
New research findings, however, show these generalized fears are tough to square with the facts. Given the current era of near-record low unemployment, the moment may finally have come when facts can outcompete fear and spur a critical mass of employers to access the deep well of untapped talent represented by people with convictions.
An expansion of what’s often called “second-chance” or “fair-chance” hiring could drive a triple win for the U.S. economy: Employers get the workers they need, people with convictions get jobs they need, and costs to society decline with the lower rates of re-offending that are associated with holding a job. To get there, employers need to recognize some of the myths that impede progress:
Myth: People with criminal histories are likely to commit another crime.
Fact: Most people who are convicted of a crime don’t have a second conviction.
A 2022 RAND Corp. analysis, co-authored by one of us (Shawn), strongly counters the mistaken assumption “once a criminal, always a criminal.” The analysis, based on a large data set of people with convictions in North Carolina, showed that 70% did not acquire a second conviction over a 25-year follow-up period.
The data also showed that after a relatively short time in the community, the risk of a person with a conviction committing another crime can mirror the risk levels of some people in the population without a conviction, particularly younger people. This speaks to another oft-overlooked fact about hiring: Those without a record also have a risk of future conviction.
RAND’s research also confirmed a long-established fact of criminology: Crime is a young person’s enterprise. As people age, they tend to create connections (family responsibilities, jobs, social bonds) that crowd out criminal behavior. And if a person is convicted and incarcerated, the time they spend in prison can put them out of the peak age range for criminal activity by the time they are released.
When we share this research, people sometimes bring up widely cited statistics from the Bureau of Justice Statistics showing that substantially more than half of people who are released from prison in a given year will be rearrested within three to five years. A 2022 RAND report (also co-authored by Shawn) raises questions about the sample used to generate these. The BJS sample measures only those exiting prison in a given year, a population that is likely to have a disproportionate ratio of people who cycle in and out of prison frequently. However, in looking at the North Carolina data set, RAND found that only about 46% of the people who had ever been released from prison (which is the population of people free in society who might actually be looking for a job) had a new conviction within five years — a difference of 15 percentage points. So from an employer’s standpoint, the risk of recidivism that a person with a record has drops from roughly 60% to roughly to under 50% if you use the right statistics.
Myth: Recidivism depends on the type of crime committed.
Fact: Type of crime is a poor predictor of risk of future offending.
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidelines say an employer can use a candidate’s criminal history in making employment decisions so long as it doesn’t result in discrimination based on a protected class, such as race or national origin.
This rule is unsupported by a well-established body of research that shows few people specialize in a particular crime type. Knowing the type of crime committed in the past tells us little about type of the crime that a person may commit in the future — or whether they will commit any crime at all. And counter to prevailing misimpressions, people who have served a longer sentence (say, for a crime of violence) can have a lower risk of reoffending than a younger person with multiple recent convictions. So when companies consider a person’s type of crime to assess their fitness for particular job duties, they likely unnecessarily exclude candidates who statistically are no more likely to become a problematic employee than any other person with a conviction.
Myth: There’s no way to tell whether someone will reoffend.
Fact: There are research-backed factors employers can look for.
The RAND study of North Carolina data demonstrated that the single most reliable factor in predicting future likelihood to reoffend is the amount of time that has passed since a person’s last conviction. This finding bears out the intuitive conclusion that success augers future success: The longer someone operates in free society without a conviction, the less likely they are to return to criminal acts.
Two other factors that are most predictive of risk of reoffending are age (for the reasons noted above) and the number of prior convictions in a job applicant’s record.
Alongside those more reliable factors (time since last conviction, age, and number of convictions) employers can look to first-hand information about a candidate to inform their assessment of risk of reoffending. A 2020 RAND report co-authored by Shawn and published in the Annual Review of Criminology demonstrated that participation in training or rehabilitation programs is more predictive of risk of reoffending than many other factors. This may partially result from self-selection; those motivated to change are more likely to enroll in those programs.
Companies can also partner with community-based organizations in many states to help them make more holistic assessments of applicants with criminal records who have signaled they are changing their lives by taking part in re-entry programs.
In Jacksonville, Florida, Operation New Hope has provided a talent pipeline to inclusive employers. Turn90 trains and sources fair-chance talent in Charleston and Columbia, South Carolina, and central Ohio businesses partner with human services agency Alvis. Whether employers use an organization with national scope like Goodwill International’s reentry programs or rely on a local church, these intermediaries can provide the critical assessment of character at the heart of a prudent hiring decision.
In the context of promoting people with criminal histories who are already on staff, an employer’s own observations of strong job performance are also predictive of future success.
Myths busted. Now what?
Additional streams of research provide evidence that corporate and social policy changes can generate the triple win referenced above.
First, many employers may not realize the scale of the opportunity to hire people with convictions. A 2022 report by RAND researchers published in Science Advances found that 25% of people working in 2018 had at least one adult conviction for a non-traffic offense. If a quarter of people who already have jobs have a conviction and businesses continue to operate effectively, how well-grounded are hiring managers’ fears of hiring people with convictions?
As a society we benefit from reduced crime when a person with a conviction gets a job. Research on nursing home employees in New York showed that people who were denied a job after a background check because of their record had nearly twice the risk of being arrested in the next year relative to what would have happened if they had been able to keep their job.
It’s possible that government policy can help businesses by reducing the costs, real or perceived, associated with hiring certain people with records. A 2018 RAND research report showed that incentives, including wage subsidies and insurance, can increase employers’ willingness to hire people with convictions. Of course, success in those initiatives depends on implementing best practices.
We know that many most people simply grow out of the behaviors that could lead to a criminal record. Given that, should some other person’s worth as employee be determined by the fact they got caught? We’ve busted some myths and laid out facts that show the the risk of hiring a person with a conviction is probably lower than they assumed. And we know hiring people with convictions can improve outcomes for employers, those with records, and society in general.
So, other than fear, what’s holding businesses back?