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Comment by mrtksn | Hacker News Reader

Mark steal cookies, gets caught and serves his sentence in jail.

Now Mark is out, looking for a job as a JavaScript developer but when Mark is Googled to check about his involvement in OS projects and personal portfolio before his Github profile the article on CNN from 5 years ago is displayed and apparently Mark is a cookie monster.

Is Mark sentenced to never be employed again? Mark made a mistake but Is He really worse from all these people who commit crimes and never get caught or end up in the news?

Maybe the balance could be to not display Marks convictions until specifically asked for?

I don't say that I have the answer but I really don't understand the concept of unforgiveness.

Maybe we should approach all this from a utilitarian perspective? What's the utility of labelling Mark as a thief years after he paid for what he did?

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"Maye the balance could be to not display Marks convictions until specifically asked for?"

This is basically the status quo before. But ... the employer is going to background check mark and find them anyway, because they are public record and available in easily searchable databases (see Lexis, etc)

In practice, this stuff simply doesn't affect any employment case (at least in the US). None of the right to be forgotten stuff allows you to avoid any of the above except the "easy google search" (which again, practically doesn't matter).

So the argument you make should be limited to that. (and i think it is entirely reasonable to question whether your neighbors, who won't background check you, but will search google, should find it)

To the employment case...

With the pre-Google system, at least Mark gets his foot in the door and has a chance to impress the prospective employer during the interview process. While his conviction may still impact his employment prospects, at least he has a fighting chance.

With Google in place, Mark never receives a call-back. The employer doesn't bother.

How much does this impact Mark in the real world? I have no idea. But, I'd prefer the non-Google system and avoid the potential of Mark never finding meaningful employment.

"With the pre-Google system, at least Mark gets his foot in the door and has a chance to impress the prospective employer during the interview process. While his conviction may still impact his employment prospects, at least he has a fighting chance." While this sounds like intuitive it is, AFAIK, wrong.

I'm pretty sure there are ssrn papers/etc on this, where they found that 99% of employers (or something ridiculous) had non-overridable policies, so in practice, no, there was no fighting chance.

I'd personally prefer a system where neither could be used after a cooling off period depending on crime.

Oof. I knew those policies existed. But if it’s truly 99%, out system is well and truly broken.

> With the pre-Google system, at least Mark gets his foot in the door and has a chance to impress the prospective employer during the interview process.

Would the companies start asking in their screening process "Have you been committed of crime before" and that would wash out all the benefits of censoring Google?

the employer is going to background check mark

Are they? I've been involved in hiring people, and I've never seen that. Is it common in the EU?

But you're not talking about forgiveness, you're talking about forgetting. Forgiveness is when we acknowledge mistakes and give them another chance, forgetting is when we erase mistakes. Perhaps instead of artificially limiting our own memory we should be looking to learn to better forgive people in the age of perfect recall.

Am I? Do the victims forget Mark? Do his friends and family forget what Mark did years ago? Are the criminal records also deleted?

You search For Mark Javascript, you are greeted with "You won't believe what Mark, a JavaScript Developer, did to steal cookies" headlines. A lot of the News is for-profit entertainment, it's not public record of Mark but public record of entertainment. The same "News" source might have omitted the news about Oliver the Cookie monster because he advertises a lot with them and they don't want to lose his business.

Maybe it's simply not his potential employers job to forgive Mark. The employer is put in such a position because he's exposed to information that's not his business in first place.

You’re an idealist, the world doesn’t work this way.

Mark paid his debt to society by time served. And if you want to not hire ex convicts, you simply ask for his criminal record. Is that not a possibility in the US?

Anyhow, Google giving you tabloids or other crap simply cannot be a reliable criminal record.

And note we’re talking of somebody that’s actually proven guilty in a court of law. What about people being the target of scandals that aren’t guilty of anything?

Recently, some states have passed laws barring criminal record requesting for employment purposes.

If you’re referring to the “ban the box” campaigns in Sf/nyc et al, I believe those just prohibit asking on the application (so the candidate has a chance to win you over), not checking for a criminal record entirely.

And if you want to not hire ex convicts, you simply ask for his criminal record. Is that not a possibility in the US?

Yes, it's possible to get criminal records in the US. Almost all major employers do so.

But is it right? I have mixed feelings. If the crime might reasonably impact the job, sure. White collar criminal probably shouldn't ever be CFO or CPA or whatever. But, if somebody got in a bar fight in college, is that grounds to never hire them? By policy, many companies will not hire somebody with ANY criminal record, no matter how serious or how old.

Sure, you can find out that information about him, eventually. But you might not find out the information IMMEDIATELY.

After the background check is completed, he may have already gone through your full interview loop, and impressed everyone, and you may just decide that you want to hire him anyway.

In a different world, you would have rejected him outright, without giving him a chance to prove himself.

I think this matters a lot.

Basically, you can't hide the info from HR, we need HR to have a less extreme view of who is hirable and who is not.

Or maybe Mark shouldn't be anywhere near cookies anymore - unless he's shown he's been rehabilitated.

Because if we know that he stole cookies before, he must axiomatically be considered less trustworthy around cookies than someone who has no history of treat theft.

That doesn't mean that Mark doesn't deserve a second chance at life. But it does mean that, for the first while at least, you are ill-advised to give him the keys to the room where the cookies are kept.

> Because if we know that he stole cookies before, he must axiomatically be considered less trustworthy around cookies than someone who has no history of treat theft.

For his entire life? Even if he was a teenager or young? Doesn't american society even consider something as simple as possibility of changing your behaviour in 60+ years of life?

I mean... half of my most successful highschoolmates, leading great companies and organizations, would be untrustworthy and unemployable by American logic since they smoked a bit of pot and got caught for it.

Smoking pot is not the same as theft. One is harmless to society, the other is not.

Yet, some people have got a different point of view and think that smoking pot is not harmless to society.

Same thing and op's point of view and yours

Having a different point of view doesn't make it valid, you need a chain of reasoning with cause and effect.

> Smoking pot is not the same as theft. One is harmless to society, the other is not.

With the current US system those both things will punish you for the whole life, even if you grow out of it. Even if its petty theft. Or large theft. Or a bit of pot. Or selling pot. Social media and background checks will damage your future prospects forever for a minor thing that doesn't make a difference in other societies.

I disagree. Someone who was caught stealing at the age of 18 shouldn't be excluded from jobs in their 30s.

What about at 18? 19? Why 30s?

You say you disagree, but even the parent suggests as much: "But it does mean that, for the first while at least,"

That's what I take their meaning as. That after you commit a crime, you have to prove yourself again, and that takes time. It's why you suggest 30s, and not 18. For a while after their crime, it would make sense to exclude someone.

On top of that, why so late? Why are you forcing your view that 30s is the earliest someone can trust someone again? Why not 18? Why can't a citizen decide to trust someone earlier than some arbitrary number?

This isn't even true in law.

In most states (and the feds), evidence of prior bad acts is not able to be used this way.

"(1) Prohibited Uses. Evidence of a crime, wrong, or other act is not admissible to prove a person’s character in order to show that on a particular occasion the person acted in accordance with the character."

True in case law vs. advise for a private company to make hiring decisions?

Not at all the same thing. Actions have consequences, and we can't force companies to hire people they see as unsafe.

We can and have, in America at least. Companies used to think all black people were untrustworthy and women couldn't handle the responsibility of leadership. We didn't let them continue to discriminate like that

Race is a protected class [1]. Evidence of criminal history is not.

[1] https://www.archives.gov/eeo/terminology.html

"Protected Class: The groups protected from the employment discrimination by law. These groups include men and women on the basis of sex; any group which shares a common race, religion, color, or national origin; people over 40; and people with physical or mental handicaps. Every U.S. citizen is a member of some protected class, and is entitled to the benefits of EEO law. However, the EEO laws were passed to correct a history of unfavorable treatment of women and minority group members."

The protected class didn't pop up out of nowhere. It wasn't a law of physics. We could easily change what is a protected class.

Additionally selected enforcement of laws has turned criminal convictions into a way to get rid of a statistically higher rate of minorities without saying that's why you are doing it. If I recall correctly that is the main reason that Massachusetts banned asking for criminal history on applications

I don't think we should make criminal a protected class. This would fail the sniff test for any legislator that doesn't desire to lose his seat next go round.

As the poster above you said, "We can and have,"

Where do you think this protected class came from?

Do you think its presently illegal to use criminal history to make a hiring decision?

> Not at all the same thing. Actions have consequences, and we can't force companies to hire people they see as unsafe.

That doesn't mean we have to provide them with the means to do it. No public information, no option to see someone unsafe because of that information.

> if we know that he stole cookies before, he must axiomatically be considered less trustworthy around cookies than someone who has no history of treat theft

You are confused about what the word "axiomatically" means. If this is an axiom, your system is easily proved inconsistent with reality. Person A is known to have stolen a cookie from the cookie jar when she was three. Person B, who has never stolen a cookie, brandishes a weapon and says "I intend to steal your cookies, so choose: your cookies or your life." Under your axioms, every person must trust person B more than person A with respect to whether they will steal your cookies.

Your argument is probabilistic, not axiomatic. There's a huge difference.

> Is Mark sentenced to never be employed again?

The argument seems to be that because society does pass that sentence already, we who disagree should "fix" it by making sure society doesn't learn that Mark is a cookie monster.

Does that not sound backwards? If the answer to your question is really "no", then we wouldn't need to have this discussion.

I suppose I can see the argument that things are unfair to Mark because other people got away with stealing cookies without having it on the public record.

I agree that it’s backwards but it’s not realistic to expect that from now on people will act rationally and not dismiss without a chance for an explanation a perfectly capable coder, Mark the Javascript developer, simply because his crime ended up in the news.

News doesn’t cover all the criminals even if they are convicted. For the most part, It’s an entertainment and the editorial process can make Mark unemployable because his crime brought a lot of ad impressions but the wife beater never ended up on the news because wasn’t shocking or interesting enough.

This a perfectly bad example, because your example makes the reader's intuition pump in a certain way. Consider the alternative story where Mark is a wife beater. Would still come to the same conclusion? Or does it say something about Mark's character or his possible future behavior?

Even if that was his crime it shouldn't prevent him from getting a job. Forcing people to drop out of the labour market massively increases the chance of them committing another crime. Rehabilitation works best if you give people a second chance.

What's good for the society is not necessarily good for the individual.

Him getting a job is good for society, but I don't want to be the one shouldering the risk.

For the individual it's a high risk / low reward situation, so the rational decision is to pass.

Tragedy of the commons.

What risk? It's just easy to pass and assume that those who don't have News articles about are lower risk.

Not all crimes are reported on the News as it's for-profit entertainment business that needs to pick the most shocking/entertaining incidents and portray those in a way that more people share it.

Bayesian statistics, there are different priors.

The probability of a convicted person to do something criminal again is not the same as the risk of an random unconvicted person, just like the risk of a flood reoccurring in a previously flooded area:

> According to an April 2011 report by the Pew Center on the States, the average national recidivism rate for released prisoners is 43%.[2]

> According to the National Institute of Justice, about 68 percent of 405,000 prisoners released in 30 states in 2005 were arrested for a new crime within three years of their release from prison, and 77 percent were arrested within five years.

> According to a national study published in 2003 by The Urban Institute, within three years almost 7 out of 10 released males will be rearrested and half will be back in prison.

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

It's not that simple.

Some ridiculous percentage of startups fail, yet not all startups have the same risk of failure.

That's also why it's not a good idea to dismiss a candidate on a single criterion unless you're randomly hiring.

I would not object that you might be less sympathetic to some criminals than others but as far as I can tell criminal courts don't judge one's character.

Even if you claim that you can judge one's character by a mistake He/She did in the past, news organizations are not always accurate or might not portray the picture factually.

Maybe it's better if you ask Mark for past convictions and give him a chance to explain so you can judge his character in an informed way.

Chances are if he's a wife beater it won't be in the paper -- the vast majority of domestic violence cases aren't reported.

Also a good point, only the most shocking or entertaining crimes would be on the Googleable public record. Mark's misfortune is that stealing cookies was entertaining enough piece that passed the editorial.

> Consider the alternative story where Mark is a wife beater

An unemployed and bitter wife-beater is a much greater risk of continuing beating his wife (and possibly kids) compared to a wife-beater who is employed. Also, and it pains me to say this, there is a really low correlation between wife-beaters and professional performance, and in today's world where most everything is oriented on results that matters. Case in point: John Lennon was a wife-better but he was also a very good singer and song-writer, so people focused more on his music talents than on his wife-kicking abilities. And his case is not the only one. Not saying that it was the right thing to ignore his private life when judging him, just mentioning the facts.

> Is Mark sentenced to never be employed again?

This is not Google's fault and they should not be the one's being punished. If a government wants to have a say here they can, but in general society will act on information and you can't hide it from them.

I'm someone who once upon a time had a very bad trip after consuming some hallucinations, then freaked out and resisted when the cops attempted to arrest me. Local news heard the story and had a field day reporting on it. I served 3 months for it but now it will follow me around for the rest of my life. I'm not a bad person but one might get that perspective googling my name and there's essentially nothing I can ever do about that except try and manipulate the page rank and/or change my name. I appreciate that there are people out there like you that consider the views of people like "Mark".

Everyone makes mistakes, only some are punished and even less ends up as subject to the entertainment 'news' industry.

I hope you're doing well and I'm glad that you're not repeating your mistake.

The problem is future employers don't know if mark made a one time mistake or is a serial cookie monster. Why would they hire mark over a similar employee with a clean record?

Mark needs to be given the opportunity to demonstrate to an employer hes no longer a cookie monster. He needs to rebuild that trust.

He would do this by taking a lower than average pay, agreeing to periodic cookie-tests, and giving the employer the option to terminate his employment at any time without cause.

If mark really isn't a cookie monster anymore he should be fine with this precautions to minimize the company's risk - after a year or so when there is more trust these disappear.

This is not a realistic scenario: Pretty much all employers will just hire someone else.

If I was HR and I had a choice between a Javascript developer for 50k with a clean record and a Javascript developer with a 5 year old conviction for 40k - I'd actually pick the later. But only if I could fire him immediately if he turns out to actually be a cookie monster.

That's how HR acts in practice though. Especially with automated tools, checking off a "have you ever had a prior conviction" box just gets you an automated rejection without a human ever looking at it

Where I live they aren't allowed to ask anymore, I think. But they'll likely find out on a quick search.

Yes a lot of companies do. Especially minimum wage jobs. Because there are vastly more people without a record willing to work. But now imagine you have a previous conviction but you are willing to work for less than minimum wage?

If I value a fry cook for $10 an hour and I get 1 person with a previous conviction who wants to work for $5 - I'll hire him in a heartbeat so long as I could fire him at any moment. And since I'm a good employer I'll make him a deal to pay him $10 an hour after 6 months provided he stays clean and works hard.

As it stands I'm not allowed to do any of that - so the convict remains unemployed and will probably commit more crime just to survive.

I'll let my man Friedman take it from here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca8Z__o52sk

That's just going to make a space underclass. There's not a benefit to convicting people because hey, cheap labor. The same forces are already happening with prison labor.

What you are suggesting is that any single mistake is now a permanent albatross around a person's neck and a reason for them to be permanently deprived. In a society where we have so many laws that everyone breaks several a day, this just leads to selective enforcement and corruption.

> If mark really isn't a cookie monster anymore he should be fine with this precautions to minimize the company's risk - after a year or so when there is more trust these disappear.

The problem is that "mark" will be bogged down with that punishment for the rest of his life at every job he works, so the punishment doesn't fit the crime. Being a former "cookie monster" should not mean a lifetime of lower pay and fewer employment rights.

Facebook and Google's infinite memory, combined with all of our "zero tolerance" policies are going to make the United States a really crappy place to live in the not too distant future.

Not true - if mark has a resume listing a successful employment post-cookie incident I would call them for a reference. A good reference isn't completely trustworthy but 2 or 3 of them with good companies and I'd be convinced.

Two equal employees, that would be the eliminating point..

And once Mark rebuilds trust with company A, all is good. Until, that is, Mark decides to get a new job.

Once Mark goes to company B, they find the cookie monster article and make Mark completely rebuild trust from scratch.

Then Mark has to move, and goes to company C. The cycle repeats again.

Thus Mark is never able to truly get over the cookie monster incident.

You apparently live a privelaged life then. Laws are being passed in US states to prevent criminal history from being asked until an offer has been made precisely because people are not able to get over the result.

The HR pipeline treats any sort of checkered pass as and immediate rejection, whether or not a hiring manager would treat it as such

True - 100% true. If I had a checkered past with no references I would expect to get denied for every job I applied to.

To combat this prejudice I would fully expect to have to lower my expectations in the form of lower wage or other restriction. If I offer to work for half the normal pay not only will I definitely get hired but I'll get a good reference providing I prove myself capable and trustworthy.

Why would you get a good reference? Your boss can just always give a bad reference so that your forced to stay. After all he's getting cheap labor, and you have to risk never getting employed again.

You're coming at this from a viewpoint that implies that companies want to help people, when we are already dealing with that fact that they absolutely do not

If your criminal record is truly relevant to the job, then the employer should do the responsible thing and get a proper background check done. Which are factual and non-biased. Such things shouldn't be left up to google page ranking algorithms and media that tends toward sensationalisation. It's lazy and unprofessional.

> Why would they hire mark over a similar employee with a clean record?

Is it useful to have people with a history of low level crime habitually unemployable. Don't we want to reduce crime.

> Mark needs to be given the opportunity to demonstrate to an employer hes no longer a cookie monster.

Mark is innocent of further crimes until he is convicted and the employer would need to have reasonable cause to discriminate against him. We have parole and other such mechanisms where official bodies can decide how long a person needs to speed demonstrating they are no longer a criminal, and make sure the relevant people are aware of this. Why leave it up to some random employer armed with google.

> He would do this by taking a lower than average pay,

Why does he deserve lower pay. This is just enabling employers to take advantage of vulnerable people.

> and giving the employer the option to terminate his employment at any time without cause.

The employer has the right to terminate at any time for mark committing a criminal act. He doesn't need this. Plus this is europe and workers have rights

I don't like to break up arguments into tiny pieces and remark on each one - so I'll just wrap this up in 1 thought like a normal person.

You are essentially complaining about human nature. Here in reality people want to know if you've violated someone else's trust before trusting you. We are social beings and if you present two people - "This one betrayed a friend, this other one has not" - 99% of people will choose the later.

You will never ever convince a majority of people that someone who has demonstrated untrustability should be trusted the same as someone who has not. Regardless of how long he spent in a steel and concrete cage.

You misunderstand, I'm saying there are fair and professional ways to find out if someone is trustworthy. Googling their name, and finding some 5 year old article is not one of these. It presents a incomplete picture that is biased towards attention grabbing material from for-profit media. Use proper background checks and references.

There are also fair ways to deal with criminals, and staff you may not trust. Using google results as the bases of randomly deducting pay, removing employment rights, and other discriminatory acts, is not one of these. It would be far too easy for employers to abuse and doesn't lend itself to the employee having stability. This would just increase the chances of the employee returning to crime.

You are still arguing against human nature.

Give yourself a scenario - you have two equal candidates:

a) background check clean, no google results b) background check lists sealed conviction, no google results

you'll choose?

now another:

a) background check clean, no google results b) background check lists sealed conviction, google results says he stole some cookies

you'll choose?

Probably (a) both times. Unless in scenario B you can ask about his previous cookie conviction and pay him less and/or able to fire at any time.

By denying all potential information you sow distrust between a mutually consensual relationship. Do you think more or less convicts will be hired when you can't trust background checks to get all the relevant information.

In such a world gossip will replace google. "Did you hear about mark? Oh don't hire him I heard he murdered someone over a batch of cookies!"

This again misunderstanding what I'm saying. I'm arguing for background checks that allow employers to make reasonable decisions based on those checks show. and then act within the normal confines of employment law.

I've been through background checks for business, I'll probably have more in the future. They are extremely intrusive and uncomfortable, but I don't have a problem with them, because they are pertinent to the business, and conducted by professionals that are accountable for what they say about me and what they do with my information.

Google combined with any tosser that can put up a their side of a story on the internet is no substitution for a background check. This is a joke. People hitting the front page of google with my name are accountable to no-one. They aren't required to notify me, nevermind ask my permission to gather this information. They have no incentive to report back clear unbiased information

By conducting background research this way you sow distrust. It is not mutually consensual, controllable or fair. I wouldn't go near a company that was doing this without very good reasons. I have no problem with the EU making it difficult to abuse search tools in this way.

> The problem is future employers don't know if mark made a one time mistake or is a serial cookie monster. Why would they hire mark over a similar employee with a clean record?

Because for certain types of cookie monster, those who steal cookies, get caught, and serve their penalty are MORE trustworthy than the population at large.

Don't employers use actual background checks for this, though? With rules for what stays on the record and what disappears after a set number of years?

Appeal to CNN. They’re the ones that published the info. It happened. Can’t change that. It’s up to the employer to decide if it is relevant or not. Hiding the fact doesn’t change that it happened. The reaction to what happened is the responsibility of the employer — it certainly isn’t Google’s job to make judgements.

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