War on crime presents challenges for employers

HR Magazine, Sept, 1997 by Maureen Minehan

How will employers handle applicants with criminal records? This will become an important social policy question in the coming years.

The prison population in the United States tripled from 500,000 to 1.5 million between 1980 and 1995-and it will continue to grow over the next 10 years due to the popularity of tougher sentencing and "three strikes you're out" policies. The resulting loss of potential workers to imprisonment and the growth in the number of applicants with criminal records will affect employers - and society as a whole - over the next decade.

Of all groups, young African American men were hardest hit by rising incarceration rates. Nearly 30 percent of African American men between the ages of 20-29 were in prison, on parole or otherwise under the supervision of the U.S. criminal justice system in 1994, according to a report from the Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization that advocates alternatives to prison sentences.

(By contrast, 12 percent of Hispanic men and 7 percent of white men between the ages of 20-29 were under the supervision of the U.S. criminal justice system in 1994.)

The 1994 figures represent a 20 percent increase from 1989, when one in four African American men were involved with the judicial system. The increase reflects new mandatory sentencing policies for drug offenses, not a surge in crimes committed by black men.

Several non-profit organizations are working with ex-convicts to help them overcome their criminal records and gain employment. The Michigan Employment Security Commission, for example, held a job fair last year to match convicted felons with area employers. Potential employees were able to meet prospective employers, get assistance with their resumes and interviewing techniques, and register for substance abuse and job training programs. And the Safer Foundation in Chicago is the nation's largest nonprofit employment agency devoted to serving convicted felons exclusively.

Many employers, however, may remain reluctant to hire someone with a criminal record. According to a survey of more than 3,000 employers in four major cities conducted by Michigan State University, two out of three organizations refuse to hire ex-convicts.

That may prove unfortunate. The increase in high incarceration rates - which will render increasing numbers of individuals unavailable for employment or unable to secure employment due to their criminal records - may eventually drag down economic growth, some economists predict. And, if high rates of incarceration are concentrated among specific racial groups - as they appear to be - the overall economic well-being of those groups will lag behind, creating additional social and employment pressures.

For more information on these and other emerging issues, please visit the Issues Management Program section of SHRM's home page on the World Wide Web (http://www. shrm.org/issues.htm).

Maureen Minehan is issues manager for the Society for Human Resource Management. Her e-mail address maureen@shrm.org.