PMI question

[CA renter]

Yes, we totally agree on that.

[spdrun]

Then you have cases like this:

I have it one good authority that Verizon is a shitty firm to work for and has inept management. That someone might be driven to argue with their superiors is understandable.

He lost his job. Then jerkwater cops came to arrest him for unpaid child support. Something happened, and he ended up charged with, and pleading to “resisting arrest.” (Which can be something as simple as being rude to a cop.)

Sadly, a lot of Americans are credulous and don’t THINK that cops could ever make up or embellish charges. Especially in small rural NJ towns where the justice system doesn’t have anything better to do than to fuck with people’s lives.

[CA renter]

[quote=spdrun]Then you have cases like this:

I have it one good authority that Verizon is a shitty firm to work for and has inept management. That someone might be driven to argue with their superiors is understandable.

He lost his job. Then jerkwater cops came to arrest him for unpaid child support. Something happened, and he ended up charged with, and pleading to “resisting arrest.” (Which can be something as simple as being rude to a cop.)

Sadly, a lot of Americans are credulous and don’t THINK that cops could ever make up or embellish charges. Especially in small rural NJ towns where the justice system doesn’t have anything better to do than to fuck with people’s lives.[/quote]

I agree that we should find some way to help people who have criminal records find gainful employment. It’s a problem, but I’m not exactly sure how to go about fixing it. Perhaps some very specialized training for certain industries.

While I want to see them thrive and do better after “doing their time,” I also don’t want violent ex-convicts fixing the air conditioning or plumbing in my home. And these are the jobs that they are often trained to do when they are in prison. We need to find a better way to deal with this.

[spdrun]

Frankly, tough patooties. Working with people who have paid their debt to society and are being reintegrated is part of the price you have to pay for living in a relatively free and just society.

Not all crime is violent, even if it appears so at first glance. The guy in the article was essentially arrested for being poor and convicted of contempt of cop. What about someone caught with drugs at age 20 who’s now 30? Or how about someone who got in a bar fight while drunk, punched someone the wrong way, they hit their head and died resulting in a felony manslaughter record?

Yet plenty of people get into bar fights with non-lethal results without anything going on to their record. Oftentimes, a conviction might just be bad luck.

I’d agree with you about a very narrow subset of premeditated violent crime (premeditated murder, grievous bodily harm, rape), but most people who have problems getting a job due to their records were convicted of much less serious crimes.

Proposed solution:
(1) Forbid private sale of criminal background check data, which is often inaccurate or lists arrests even absent conviction. Police agencies should be the only source for such data, and should be required to hold arrests without convictions confidential. Innocent till proven guilty, you know.
(2) Require the subject’s notarized signature to release such data. Nothing gets released without explicit consent.
(3) Only allow employers to ask for such authorization after a job offer is made. The fines for violating this rule should be steep.

[FlyerInHi]

Glad to see criminal justice reform finally happen.

I think the war on drugs and crime fucked it all up.

Back in the 1950s, Americans started traveling the world and discovered drugs– hashish, pot, etc… Then you had the sexual revolution, the hippies, etc..

Then somehow America turned Puritan, and we had the war on drugs and all the related crimes. Local governments and corporations then saw all the revenue potentials and ramped it up into a criminal justice industry. 9/11 happened and we added on to that the national security apparatus.

It’s all fucked up. Now, it’s almost impossible to dismantle the big brother apparatus because there’s so much money involved.

Had we let people simply be rather than impose our puritan values, the world would have been a better place. No mass incarceration. No communist revolutions in the third world because farmers would have been happy to cultivate for the American markets, etc… Bagdad would still be what it was, and San Francisco would still be Bagdad by the Bay.

[spdrun]

The US was always Puritan and prone to legal overreaction — remember Prohibition?

Which is why we need another hard crash. If you can’t dismantle the thing voluntarily, you can starve it to death. Bankruptcy is a powerful motivator. Incarceration rates finally started falling after 2007-8, when states realized that prisons actually cost money.

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=spdrun] Incarceration rates finally started falling after 2007-8, when states realized that prisons actually cost money.[/quote]

“Crime fighting” used to make money thanks to large Federal grants.

I personally think that “crime fighting” is more like crime creation in many ways. There was a report on how a large portion of the population is unable to be productive because of criminal records. The right sees that as an untapped business opportunity and the left sees that as giving people a second chance. Glad to see a meeting of the minds for criminal justice reform.

Marijuana legalization would be a first step.

[CA renter]

[quote=FlyerInHi][quote=spdrun] Incarceration rates finally started falling after 2007-8, when states realized that prisons actually cost money.[/quote]

“Crime fighting” used to make money thanks to large Federal grants.

I personally think that “crime fighting” is more like crime creation in many ways. There was a report on how a large portion of the population is unable to be productive because of criminal records. The right sees that as an untapped business opportunity and the left sees that as giving people a second chance. Glad to see a meeting of the minds for criminal justice reform.

Marijuana legalization would be a first step.[/quote]

The growth in prisons, and the laws that produce this growth, are due in large part to the privatization of prisons.

https://www.aclu.org/prisoners-rights/private-prisons

Look at what happened in PA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal

—————

We need to find better ways of dealing with people who have mental/emotional disorders, as I think that a sizable portion of the prison population suffers from some kind of mental or emotional problem.

We also need to decriminalize victimless crimes (though some would argue that pursuing drug crimes is one of the most effective ways of catching some really bad people who commit other heinous crimes, but cover them up very well).

But we also need to address the breakdown of the American family. It’s no wonder that black people have such a difficult time in life when the vast majority of them are born into unstable, financially vulnerable families. It’s not politically correct to discuss this, but there is no other way.

Finally, the way in which people participate in society — economically, socially, etc. — needs to be evaluated. Perhaps we could offer more flexible work schedules that would benefit workers, and support more on-the-job training, even if that means public support for this type of education.

[CA renter]

[quote=spdrun]Frankly, tough patooties. Working with people who have paid their debt to society and are being reintegrated is part of the price you have to pay for living in a relatively free and just society.

Not all crime is violent, even if it appears so at first glance. The guy in the article was essentially arrested for being poor and convicted of contempt of cop. What about someone caught with drugs at age 20 who’s now 30? Or how about someone who got in a bar fight while drunk, punched someone the wrong way, they hit their head and died resulting in a felony manslaughter record?

Yet plenty of people get into bar fights with non-lethal results without anything going on to their record. Oftentimes, a conviction might just be bad luck.

I’d agree with you about a very narrow subset of premeditated violent crime (premeditated murder, grievous bodily harm, rape), but most people who have problems getting a job due to their records were convicted of much less serious crimes.

Proposed solution:
(1) Forbid private sale of criminal background check data, which is often inaccurate or lists arrests even absent conviction. Police agencies should be the only source for such data, and should be required to hold arrests without convictions confidential. Innocent till proven guilty, you know.
(2) Require the subject’s notarized signature to release such data. Nothing gets released without explicit consent.
(3) Only allow employers to ask for such authorization after a job offer is made. The fines for violating this rule should be steep.[/quote]

Once again, that’s all very easy to say when you’re a single, young-ish, childless man. Not so easy when you’re a single woman living by yourself, or an elderly man, or a family with young children who might be victimized by a criminal working in their home.

I do understand 100% what you’re saying about juvenile convictions or one-off situations and bad luck, but too many crimes are committed by “former” criminals who were “rehabilitated” and let loose in society. Easy to say “tough potatoes” until it’s your wife, daughter, or son who was raped, tortured, and killed by an ex-con who was fixing your air conditioner.

Can you imagine the liability for public agencies who withhold information from prospective employers when it’s later discovered that some of their new employees are ex-felons who’ve committed heinous crimes during the commission of their work, or who got access to their victims via work?

And there is no reason to delay getting this information until later in the interview process if it’s a no-go from the beginning. If I were hiring people, especially people who had to go into people’s homes, there is no way in hell that I would hire someone with a criminal background, particularly if it involved a violent crime or theft of some sort. No way in hell.

[spdrun]

I’m not advocating withholding conviction records. I’m advocating withholding arrest records. Being arrested is not a sign of guilt. Only a conviction by a lawfully constituted court or a guilty plea is. Remember? Innocent till proven guilty. There’s no good reason for arrest records in the absence of a conviction to be public, since they do not legally imply guilt.

Any hard-on cop with an axe to grind shouldn’t be permitted to ruin someone’s future merely by arresting them. That should be reserved for a judge or jury after a fair trial.

Speaking of lawsuits, if anything, jurisdictions that publicize arrest records without conviction should be sued themselves. Publishing accusations of a crime without enough evidence to convict, or even indict, borders on libel.

Having a family will not change my views one iota. I have close family who almost died during 9/11, and friends who lost family members. This did NOT in any way, shape, or form make me support the growth of the surveillance state, endless wars, nor the violation of long-standing legal procedure that came after.

And lastly, an ex-con without the ability to find a job is actually more likely to get into trouble than one who’s gainfully employed. FlyerInHI’s point about laws CREATING crime is a darned good one.

[CA renter]

While I see some problems with criminals who have good attorneys, we agree about arrests not being publicly available if there are no convictions.

We also agree about 911, the Patriot Act, and everything that follows it. I’m a staunch supporter of privacy and civil rights.

Also agree about your last paragraph, but think that we simply need to find jobs that don’t allow access to potentially vulnerable victims. Yes, this reduces the possibilities for many ex-convicts, but the rights of innocent victims (even potential victims) will ALWAYS trump the rights of criminals as far as I’m concerned.

[Author]

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