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Comment by cortesoft | Hacker News Reader

The voting rights is one issue, but the 'lifetime denial of employment' would be hard to argue for; it isn't the court that is doing that.

How would you avoid it? You would need something like the EU's 'right to be forgotten', which has serious first amendment issues here in the US.

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As to other ways to avoid lifetime employment denial, a lot of places are forcing at least public sector places and many private sector employers to "Ban The Box" [1] that is to say remove the initial questions about criminal history. They are still allowed to ask at a later date, but the idea is that the people just won't be completely culled without care (which is technically against US employment law anyways).

1: http://www.nelp.org/publication/ban-the-box-fair-chance-hiri...

Ban the box legislature seems to do very little, it exists in Mass but it's paired with the CORI system where the court system simply gives you the court history over to employers. I have seen a business rescind an offer from an engineer <5 days from when he was supposed to start and after he had ended employment with his previous company, over a misdemeanor on his CORI.

The first amendment concerns with the EU's right to be forgotten aren't answered yet in my book, but as long as everyone's life is tracked and passed around effortlessly via the internet it will be difficult to impossible for former criminals to maintain employment at good jobs.

Like many things that worked out in the past, such as cops being able to look up any individuals license plate, but are now incredibly cheap and easy to do because of technology, background checks are becoming onerous because they are done for _everyone_ instead of being done only when necessary

Edit: I want to add that businesses rescinding offers like this means the employee I quit can not access unemployment because they have quit their oldjob but not been "fired" from their new job. The obvious response is to no longer give two weeks notice to your old employer but then people talk and you get a reputation as a mercenary while companies look for some level of loyalty. The end result is you get fucked either way

you could have something like the rehabilitation of offenders act from the UK. After sometime old convictions are spent and don't need to be declared to potential employers, even if they ask about them.

http://hub.unlock.org.uk/knowledgebase/a-simple-guide-to-the...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehabilitation_of_Offenders_Ac...

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