Hacker News Reader

Comment by abvdasker | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for sharing your story. It really makes me angry to hear about the countless obstacles the formerly incarcerated face when it comes to reintegrating into society. As you put it, the debt to society has been paid. Someone who makes a mistake when they're young and stupid -- I know I made my share -- shouldn't be prevented from ever being able to have a good, normal life.

View on HN

It is unfortunate that, although sentenced with finite punishments, ex-cons continue to be punished (i.e. judged, discriminated against) well after their sentence is over.

That said, I can also understand why companies avoid ex-cons. Companies make decisions based on statistics. A company will, ceterus paribus, always choose the candidate who has no criminal history because that candidate is less likely to commit a crime and hurt the company.

Allow companies to pay felons less for the same job, at least for some finite period of time, to compensate for that risk. Otherwise, as you say, it makes sense for them to hire people without a criminal record, other things being equal.

The truth of the matter is that us felons do work for less – at least I did – mostly because we have no choice. We are also less likely to be promoted. Three times I had job offers withdrawn because of my criminal past. Having much more to lose than someone without a criminal record I never considered doing anything illegal, or anything that would cast a shadow of doubt to my integrity. “Once a criminal always a criminal” is just not true. Unfortunately, too many people subscribe to the false cliché.

Most of the software companies I've worked for don't care about the relative salary cost because the all in cost and opportunity cost of a bad hire is way higher than the salary. For example, given the choice between a proven senior dev making 200k or a risky untrained dev making 70k they'd still just hire the senior dev. It's more about headcount with the big companies. They don't care about saving 40-60k in practice, from what I've seen.

"As you put it, the debt to society has been paid."

It's not so simple. A murderer or rapist may have served his term in prison but still not have made restitution to the victim or his or her family. However, it's good for felons to find work after incarceration so that they can support themselves and ideally make amends to victims.

Good point. I also find it to be an odd turn of phrase considering we spent those decades paying 70k a year or whatever to take care of them in prison. I'm going to have to start saying that my debt to society has been paid whenever I've just cost the taxpayers a great deal of money.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com