Theft, fraud and violence are applicable for all jobs surely.
Should a person convicted of theft, who's served their time, paid the fine, made the victims whole, and learned not to steal, be discarded from consideration as a useful member of society? In case it's not clear, I think they should have the same rights as any other human being.
No one seriously advocates the death penalty or life imprisonment for petty crimes. But depending on the ability of a society to forget (which the information age is rapidly making very difficult) and the ability of a society to forgive (which the climate of fear is also making difficult), a conviction in your record can ruin a life.
That's the issue at hand. Serving a prison sentence doesn't mean that you have learned not to steal. It's difficult for the company to verify that you have "learned your lesson".
If the job is minimum wage, of course, then it's not possible to lower the wage further.
Also, discovering the theft and proving it was that employee might be difficult.
There was an article a little while back about a company tracking the employees behavior on the computer, and a lot of people mentioned that ‘if you are not trusted regardless, what incentive do you have to be trustworthy’.
This is the exact same thing.
How do you know they "learned not to steal"? Can you look inside of their heads?
There are jobs with less opportunities to steal, for example. Trust has to be regained, simply "having been in prison" is not really worth much in that respect. You would stay in prison, regardless of your mindset, because you are forced to be there.
The equation isn't "bad person -> steals". Its "person maladapted to society / with unhealthy community -> steals". Why would someone be a thief if they have a stable job and community?
And how do you expect someone fresh out of jail, with no connections and community, to make a stable life for themselves if nobody will give them a job?
If you don't think somebody having done X before makes them more likely to do it again than normal people, I don't know. (More accurately, people who did X are more likely to be people who would do X again). We just have to disagree - but you can not enshrine such beliefs in law.
As I said, trust has to be regained, merely doing something you are forced to do anyways does not prove anything about your real attitudes.
In "How To Change Your Life In 7 Steps", the founder of the homeless magazine "The Big Issue" John Bird describes what he had to do to be able to have homeless people work for him. I have high respect for people like him.
'cause I mean...if not, what was the point of the jail term? Depending on perspective, it might be rehabilitative, or it might be punitive, but either way, time served should equate to a clear record, no? If not, you're either saying they need further punishment, or you don't believe that they've been rehabilitated, in which case why were they let out?
I don't think you should necessarily spend all that time in prison, but not having access to trusted jobs is not comparable to being in pain every day for the rest of your life.
On the other hand, I wouldn't mind if more punishments were metered out in the form of community service.
In the US at least, having a felony conviction (and the bar for that is not that high) is effectively a lifetime punishment. It’s incredibly difficult for someone with a felony conviction on their record to get a job with potential. That’s a big part of why the recidivism rate for felons is so high. They often don’t have many options to make a living.
This is a poor argument: the judicial system has also determined, by lack of prohibition, that it's appropriate for employers to discriminate based on criminal record.
It really was.
> Prisons and prison population
>There are 12 prisons in the Republic of Ireland with a total bed capacity of 4,106 as of 31 December 2009. The daily average number of prisoners in custody in 2009 was 3,881. However, most of these prisons currently operate at or above capacity.[13] On 25 January 2011 the prison population stood at 4,541. There were about 80 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants in October 2015,[11] and in Northern Ireland it was 78 per 100,000 in February 2016.
But even without taking it to its conclusion, I'd contend "fairness" as you define it there isn't necessarily the best outcome for society; an ex-hacker is probably an excellent choice when hiring for electronic security, an ex-robber an excellent choice for hiring for physical security, etc. Even a murderer can go on to great things that benefit society. I mean, hell, Miguel De Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, the first modern novel, wrote his first published work while in prison. The Birdman of Alcatraz (Robert Stroud), a murderer, published major works in ornithology, and found a cure for a bird disease. Rehabilitated criminals can still benefit all of us, as well as redeem themselves in their own eyes by doing good for themselves and their loved ones.
But all that aside, you're saying you believe the additional punishment should be societal scorn carried out by vigilantes (i.e., average citizens deciding the person shouldn't hold a job even though they've paid the price the courts decided on)? That hardly seems just or 'fair'.
There are problems. For example, breaking a professional tennis player's arm may be much more career-damaging, and arguably "worse", than breaking a professional chess player's arm; and excessive retaliation is itself a crime. In that case, it may be good to get a judge or some such to evaluate the severity before carrying out the retaliation. That also goes for judging the evidence—obviously, punishing someone for a crime they didn't commit is itself a crime. So one could imagine this turning into something at least vaguely resembling today's court system.
There have existed societies in which the penalty for murder was to pay a fine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weregild
Also, this doesn't insulate rich criminals from all repercussions. If they have enough money to pay the fines when murdering tens of people... well, you could try killing the criminal directly. You can do that today as well, if you're prepared to pay the price.
A really rich criminal could hire bodyguards, of course, but those would be costly, imperfect, and have some chance of turning against their employer. Ultimately it would become a rich guy in charge of an organized criminal gang, which... is also something that exists today.
> ...If they have enough money to pay the fines when murdering tens of people...
It's not about "murdering tens of people". It's killing someone whilst drunk driving, or murdering someone in an argument. These situations clearly still happen in the current system. But with what you're saying codifies that, if someonene is rich, as long as their crime is not against someone else rich, they can generally avoid any repercussions. Blood libel is still a thing, can literally see it in action in countries which have legal systems that allow it.
I have to say "almost" as there is the very rare criminal who is actually mean and targets people the way the state does.
People denied access. Denied votes. Denied work. Denied the means to live.