Hacker News Reader

Comment by jl6 | Hacker News Reader

In previous centuries, there were plenty of jobs with low trust requirements - chiefly, unskilled manual labor. A criminal record wasn’t such a barrier to that type of employment. Someone could spend time in prison, and then still find work on the outside. Not great work perhaps, but a living - a way forward for them, to re-integrate back into society. A way to slowly rebuild trust.

The shift away from unskilled manual labor towards higher-skilled, higher-impact jobs, raises the trust bar, locking out those with criminal records, leaving them few opportunities to re-integrate with the mainstream economy, and an incentive to fall further into the criminal economy.

View on HN

> In previous centuries, there were plenty of jobs with low trust requirements

These still exist in the modern era, primarily in industries with high turnover like the restaurant industry, farm labor, and other unsavory industries such as meat processing.

> unsavory industries such as meat processing.

I often wonder what the impact of these jobs is on the humans that are doing it. Half the reason I'm avoiding (supermarket) meat is that I feel bad about keeping these jobs alive. (The other reason is the animal suffering ofc.)

It's documented to be extremely traumatizing and physically disabling.

They still exist in all sorts of industries but have almost all been offshored to capitalize on lower wages.

The jobs left are largely just the ones where the finished product can't be put on a container ship for 2 months.

If globalization unravels due to rising geopolitical tensions and continent spanning supply chains buckle and break we will likely be quite surprised at how much unskilled labor is suddenly in demand at home.

Nope. Those jobs require trustworthy people too.

If I were running a meat processing plant, and there was:

- Sexual harassment

- Racism

- Violence

- Etc.

I'd have a huge liability on my hands. Unfortunately, prison convicts would be much more likely to expose me to those types of liability. If an employee catcalls another employee, that places a lot of burden lands on the employer.

This happened largely due to progressive reforms. I'm not claiming to have any solution here, or to even have a semblance of idea of cost/benefit. People need jobs. People deserve to be safe.

Yep. When I was a student I worked in a restaurant with an ex convict who described his previous job at the meat packing plant in precisely those terms. He told me it was a hard dangerous s*** job, and back of the house in the restaurant was a lot better. He said safety measures and equipment were inadequate, and some of the other guys that worked there wanted to kill him (his remarks on your other areas of concern would be ill suited to this forum).

That put things in perspective for me, because I had thought that the back of the restaurant was a hard dangerous s*** job - - in fact the hood fans and ac didn't and work, the food thermometer in my shirt pocket regularly read above 110F, and I was generally surrounded by sharp things, hot things, greasy floors and boiling oil, and the shift manager chest bumped me and screamed in my face. But for that guy it was a promotion.

That was in Texas, which is a "business friendly" state, so those progressive reforms might be more... incremental than the average hn reader might wish.

Why are you censoring yourself? If a job is a shit job, just fucking say it. Why pretend?

> his remarks on your other areas of concern would be ill suited to this forum

This isn't a kid's show. Your comment is really interesting to me, and I'd like to hear what he said about these issues.

(This won't make sense to anyone else but I don't care. I liked your response and I don't want mine to go to waste.)

---

My apologies, that's hilarious.

Not sure what that word is that you don't want to say, but if it's a racial epithet then I have to admit I won't say any of that shit either. I try not to even think those words, lest they become part of my internal monologue that becomes not-so-internal when I get old and demented. Maybe that makes me a hypocrite when I accuse others of self-censoring.

Your friend sounds like trash. I have some super trashy friends and acquaintances, and I can just hear them talking through your description. Trash white people are a tribe, and there's hardly anything trashier than the kind of grifting that painter did to you.

I love that Johnson quote, and it seems ever more prescient now that trash whites are a distinct voting bloc.

That quote applies just as well to black trash. There seems to be a resurgence of black nationalism now, with multitudes of black revolutionaries talking pan-africanism, reparations, and utopian black socialism. Moors and whatever the fuck else. I was reading about a group of these characters that briefly set up shop down in the far corner of my state. Black Hammer, they call themselves. They got a bunch of suckers to gofundme them to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, saying they'd liberate some land and start some sort of black-supremacist commune. Surprisingly it didn't work out and the leaders have since moved on to more mainstream BLM-type activism. And they kept the money obviously.

The reality is that the margins are thin and it’s really hard to retain staff, so those problems are routinely swept under the rug in meat processing plants.

Maybe that would work with construction, but they also hire a lot of exconvicts due to turnover and pay.

>restaurant industry

A job for teenagers and aspiring actors.

>farm labor

Okay, but we specifically import people to work for low (often illegally low) wages. Work for an adult, maybe, but not much of a living.

>and other unsavory industries.

Same problem as with farm labor, except now it's "unsavory" instead of "honest work".

It's not right to have a bimodal distribution of "high class professional jobs" and "unsavory jobs with low trust requirements". You need a lower-end but respectable place for people to be that's better than criminality, and you certainly can't say "go work in one of those unsavory industries" if you want them to think its better than being a criminal. In American culture we GLORIFY criminality, and loathe low-class "unsavory" work. Why would anyone choose unsavory work over being a criminal in the current environment?

From what I've read and heard, most truck driving jobs (every thing from rollback/tow trucks to long distance OTR) are full of ex-cons or ASPD type individuals-- it may even be a pre-requisite for towing companies.

Day labor like roofing, sheetrock, landscaping, etc. also typically have similar representation. Any temp agency for factory work will have a threshold or types of conviction that they will overlook, but they may be even more hostile towards their workers.

I wonder if the growing number of WFH jobs would help alleviate this. I'm a software engineer who mostly works from home. We sell (mostly) support for OSS. This seems like a situation where an ex-con might have an opportunity.

I'm not seeing this materializing. You're talking about not only jobs where employees have secret keys and admin access to data, but on top of that, no fear of anyone peeking over their shoulder even if there is some remote system monitoring. The trust required for the person not to abuse the privileged access and to have a reduced chance of getting caught is a huge risk.

What does that have to do with anything? There's not a shortage of jobs that they are able to do, there's a shortage of jobs we're willing to let them do.

I think the opposite is more likely. WFH increases the level of trust needed between employer and employee.

I don't really check who's building my websites or little tools I purchase. It's not exactly wfh, it's just having your own business that does not require (much of) an office.

It seems besides the point. The vast majority of cons are people without a huge range of skills to choose from.

I'm sure convicted hackers or white collar criminals have trouble finding work that suits their skill level but probably able to do so at a cut/lower level. The one convicted white collar criminal I know is working again.

Completely unrelated to the thread but

> I don't really check who's building my websites or little tools I purchase.

How do you sleep at night? Honest question. I want to know the assumptions and reasoning that leads to one being comfortable with this decision.

I’m probably more worried than I should be, but every time I look at my puny little openBSD webserver’s log, I find about 2 to 5 new attempts to scan my server for various exploits a month. Each attempt is a relentless scans looking for all sorts of holes with hundreds of potential exploits. The first time I read those logs, I swore I would never move from openBSD + httpd ever.

The internet is outright hostile to any computer with an ip address and a port open to the internet.

I’m sure there are some companies out there that provide hosting solutions that do a good job at keeping things updated - but even they are defenseless against things like the recent log4j vulnerability (and that’s just the stuff the good guys caught). At the very least, I would want to know who is building my websites and what their track record is.

Some people are natural worriers and others aren't. I'm not. In the end it's probably as simple as that.

So, you never pay for anything on an app store? You host everything on your own hardware?

I am far more worried about the air quality that floats into my home than a website that's hosted somewhere else and isn't connected to anything but its own content.

> So, you never pay for anything on an app store?

I buy software from the app store for sure. But I do not pull down .apk binaries from the darkweb and run them on my phone - especially if I don't know who the author was. I doubt most sane people would download and run binaries from random websites (darkweb or not) even today.

> You host everything on your own hardware?

No I don't. I trust my hosting provider, and they have a track record of reputable service, I have a business relationship with them. I would say I know who is hosting my website.

This misses the point. There's an obvious solution: disallow employers (except in outlier cases where there are safety concerns) from using criminal background checks in hiring decisions.

That’s only a solution if you think there aren’t any genuine trust issues in hiring people with criminal records.

That points to a major issue of the criminal justice system. You should be clear after your sentence and have repaid your debt to society. If society wants to send people to correctional facilities for life for things like theft or drug charges, then it should be honest and do that.

If you are imprisoned for embezzlement, do your time, get your name cleared, then do it all again, and again, do you want to hire them as your purchasing agent? I think the answer here is going to have to be on a case by case basis. I'd maybe hire someone for that position if their repeat offense was unrelated and unlikely to impact the position directly (such as, I don't know, 2nd degree murder from DUIs). I'd be wary if they came to work drunk, but that's a separate issue that I'd be concerned about for anybody.

Why not leave me in prison then if we're certain I'm going to do it again?

If the chance of me doing embezzlement is the same after I come out of prison than if I had never been to prison, what is the basis for caring whether or not someone has been to prison?

This assumes a justice system that works, at least in the sense that if you commit a crime and get prosecuted, the following actions are sufficient to prevent or deter you from doing it again, which given things like plea deals, etc. is not.

If we just want to reduce our justice system to a social credit verifier and background check database maintainer, or if this is really the best that can be dne, fine, let's admit that so we can try to do it a lot more cheaply than what we're doing now.

I don't want you in prison. I just don't want to interact with you.

It also ignores how the criminal justice system works, especially in the US, on both ends. Money buys all sorts of sealed, adjudicated, pardoned, plea-bargained down to a misdemeanor, etc, type solutions. Lack of money makes it easy to press "accept this plea bargain or risk eons in jail" convictions on innocent people. There's also a myriad of ways to enhance charges that make a relatively minor crime sound much worse.

I think you've missed the point. Employers have a valid reason to want to disallow those with criminal backgrounds from a large swath of jobs.

This is an area where I think regulation would be helpful/necessary, in that when doing a background check that the employer needs to enter business and job scope, and then the law would define which types of criminal background would be relevant and potentially disqualifying by job type.

Dude I got dinged for a weed possession charge from my 17th year when I was 21 for a job at Kum'N'Go. I don't give a fuck what kinda logical hoops they jumped through, but it's obscene considering about a month after that I was working in a critical industry with literally millions of dollars of equipment in my hands and a high-risk environment. It doesn't make sense in so many cases, probably most and it only increases recidivism.

Ok but if I run a bank I don't want to hire Bernie Madoff, no matter how much time he served. So having the government tell me I can discriminate based on conviction for financial crimes but not drug possession more than 5 years ago seems reasonable. At least to improve the status quo.

If the government says an individual isn't allowed to do something, like work in a financial profession or live near a school, that's up to the government to determine and enforce: "quit/relocate or you'll be back in prison."

Don't put that on businesses.

Right now there is a block list on hiring discrimination. I’m suggesting an allow list.

"Drug possession" is also not monolithic to me.

I'd be *much* more leery of hiring someone convicted of possession of addictive drugs than someone convicted of possession of recreational drugs. Recreational use can be done only in appropriate situations. Addictive use likely means they come to work impaired.

> Addictive use likely means they come to work impaired.

For the rest of their lives? There’s a time dimension here that implies being clean for five years.

I'm not exactly sure if you are disagreeing with me, because what you are saying is exactly my point.

A weed possession charge as a minor is the type of thing that I think regulation should disallow as a disqualifying factor for all types of jobs. The idea would be that I would ask a background check service "I am hiring for a CLERK at CONVENIENCE_STORE", and I would just get back a response "No disqualifying convictions found" if all you had were a weed conviction.

I work for a financial services company, and we have pretty clear guidelines about what is or isn't disqualifying. But why should I even have the right to know, for example, if someone was convicted of a DUI 10 years ago? But I absolutely do think I should have the right to know if someone was convicted of theft 2 years ago.

I'm not disagreeing. But I don't know that I agree, it's a pretty finicky line. Crime is super contextual, so you're barring people who have been rung through the system, and probably have a new environment, a new context; I mean assuming they committed a significant crime.

But honestly, in the beginning of "Noise" they start detailing some cases Marvin Frankel reviewed:

Frankel did not provide any kind of statistical analysis to support his argument. But he did offer a series of powerful anecdotes, showing unjustified disparities in the treatment of similar people. Two men, neither of whom had a criminal record, were convicted for cashing counterfeit checks in the amounts of $58.40 and $35.20, respectively. The first man was sentenced to fifteen years, the second to 30 days. For embezzlement actions that were similar to one another, one man was sentenced to 117 days in prison, while another was sentenced to 20 years. Pointing to numerous cases of this kind, Frankel deplored what he called the “almost wholly unchecked and sweeping powers” of federal judges, resulting in “arbitrary cruelties perpetrated daily,” which he deemed unacceptable in a “government of laws, not of men.”

Like those check fraud cases are crazy and having that on your record forever? That's some yellow passport shit. Over damages that could be settled trivially. If we did some criminal law reform, yeah I totally agree with you, but I think it's more complicated than just barring results. I'll grant you it'd be better than it is now, I guess, but order of operations I think would be pretty important, but that's an aside for another day.

But because of federal sentencing guidelines, which Marvin Frankel helped establish, those kinds of discrepancies are no longer possible.

They're possible, the regulation was strike in '05 and are now "advisory".

My point was more the fact that over what, in the worst case, a day's worth of labor can not only earn you fines, time, but also the record.

Check fraud, by my estimation is basically theft. How many employers are going to want a theif?

But here's the thing, that may well have been a one time thing. Homeboy isn't necessarily a theif, but rather he committed at least one singular theft. And one of such minor magnitude I can only assume it was an act of desperation. But any "theft sensitive" employer is going to red flag him. Maybe he's a Thenadier, maybe he's Josef K. You just don't get the granularity necessary to make the determination. And the Court isn't solving moral dilemmas, but simply determining whether or not someone is guilty.

Add in complications like degrees. Somebody gets in a precarious position in their life and steals $1k or something comparably petty, does time, reparations, et etcetera but now they're permanently barred from practicing their specialization.

There are legitimizable crimes.

> Over damages that could be settled trivially.

I'm going to be honest here: if I'm hiring for a CFO or corporate treasurer, I don't want to hire anyone who has intentionally passed a counterfeit check. The fact that they probably have enough cash in their pocket to cover their fraudulent check is entirely irrelevant.

This is currently how Pennsylvania works it’s background checks for working with children. PA law requires everyone who volunteers or works with kids to do a couple state specific background checks. The response from these is a “allow to work with kids” / “not allowed”. They don’t tell you the details.

it’s actually pretty privacy focused way to accomplish things.

Regardless of regulation, I don't see anyone who has to disclose a criminal history getting a job, unless the employer is already open to giving formerly incarcerated people an opportunity. IMHO, criminal background is a screening filter, not a thoughtful decision point. So while your criminal history is being cross-referenced with the regulation to see how you qualify, the potential employer has already labeled you as an "ex-con" in their head.

IIRC some countries in Europe do this; if you are hiring for a specific job, you call some office/bureau and they say whether you can do it or not based on your record, no why/etc.

Here in Norway employers can ask the police for the criminal record for a potential employee[1]. The employer must have a legal right to request the records, and must state the reason and use for the request.

Employers for most common jobs will not have a right to request these records.

The police will then filter the criminal records, if any, so that only relevant entries are listed.

This allows employees who have a genuine need reject potential candidates on legitimate grounds, while giving people a reasonable chance to start over in case they do something wrong.

[1]: https://www.politiet.no/en/services/police-certificate-of-co...

No, I think you're missing their point. They weren't proposing a solution. They were simply offering an explanation as to why the situation exists. A good explanation at that, too.

You'll just get discrimination based on proxies for criminal background instead (poverty, suspicious gaps in employment, zip code).

And race. If employers can't actually check your record, they'll make assumptions about it, and some of those are pretty unsavory.

I'd like to see some of those proxies removed from the picture.

1) Employment history: Ban putting dates on a resume and in general make it a prohibited question. You worked there X years, not from YYYY to ZZZZ. The current approach is obviously looking for whether you were fired, but ends up tainting you if you're ever laid off in a bad market, or even if you simply chose non-employment activity for some reason.

2) Address likewise should be removed. Phone & e-mail is all they need.

This is not a new idea, it goes by the name "Ban the Box" ("the box" here meaning the "I have been convicted of a felony" checkbox on a job application) and has been implemented in a bunch of US states. The general consensus is that it doesn't really move the needle on employment rates for felons, while at the same time making employment prospects worse for black men because employers now just discard them from the application pipeline entirely since they can't check criminal records.

I'm not sure why this is being downvoted, because everything said is pretty much valid or at least substantiated.

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/which-jobs-will-come-back-a...

>DOLEAC: So, we found that, on average, across the U.S., in places that ban the box, employment fell by 5 percent for young black men who didn’t have a college degree and by 3 percent for young Hispanic men who didn’t have a college degree. And so the next question is, who are they hiring instead? And we found, on average, the people who benefited were older men of color. So if you’re trying to avoid people who are actively involved in crime, older people are a pretty good bet. Criminal activity tends to decline with age.

>DUBNER: And what about young under-educated white potential employees?

>DOLEAC: For young white men who had the same level of education, we saw employment increase for that group. What seemed to be happening was that employers were substituting from young men of color to young white men.

If employers can't discriminate on the individual level, they will discriminate on the group level.

What I would like to see:

Utterly ban "have you been arrested".

The highest offense I have been convicted of is: xxxxxx

In special cases I would permit highest offense in certain categories.

That would not work. I do not want my teenage daughter to do part time work in a business that employs a sex offender. I do not want to work with an insurance agent who engaged in a financial fraud few years ago.

You've said why you don't like it but not why it wouldn't work.

It's pretty straightforward to extrapolate from his examples: people do not want to work with nor do business with ex cons. Therefore businesses that hire lots of ex cons likely "wouldn't work" because customers and employees would be scarce.

Are those not exceptions? How many of the unemployed young men have criminal records concerning sex offense or financial fraud?

The criminal mind uses the means available to him. Bernie Madoff was as much a psychopath as a your average mugger; he just had capabilities to not to have to resort to that crude a level of harm.

I would disagree with the implied dichotomy of 'criminal minds' and 'non-criminal minds', especially given the somewhat arbitrary nature of what we as a society decide is a crime worthy of prosecution. Possessing a bit of home-grown marijuana for personal use can give someone a criminal record the same as other more heinous crimes, and many employers will find it easier to blanket-reject anyone with a criminal record rather than dig into the context of each applicant.

Is the answer to not allow any sort of background checks? I would say no, but it also seems like there is a lot of room to improve our current system and find it in our societal heart to not perpetually punish a person for a past minor offense.

Here in the UK we a sex offenders register, but general crimes get struck off the official register after a certain period of time and no longer come up on background checks. It's not perfect, but it's a lot better than locking people out of work forever!

When is someone rehabilitated, though? Must someone's past mistakes haunt their life to their grave?

Another obvious solution.. don't commit crime.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com