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The problem with this is they ask you up front on your application for most jobs whether you have been convicted of a crime. If the answer is yes, generally your application is thrown in the trash. If you lie and they catch you, they have grounds to reject you.

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San Francisco was one of the few places in the world to try to address that with it's 'ban the box ' initiative. Crimes must be relevant to disqualify a candidate. https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/...

As I recall, the effect of this was reduced hiring of black and Latino candidates, which employers used as a proxy for criminality.

It's the law in the UK (and presumably similar in the rest of the EU).

Every conviction must be declared for a small number of years if asked. After that period it must only be declared if you're applying for a sensitive job (e.g. school teacher) and it resulted in a custodial sentence.

If you were to game this system you'd have incentive to lie, just in case they don't catch you. Companies could just ask candidates for the criminal record. This is actually common practice in Europe.

Former cons should be able to get a job, otherwise they'll just end up in jail again. If it's white collar crime then they could be just temporarily barred from that profession as part of the sentence.

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