Panel Paper:
Ban the Box, Convictions, and Public Sector Employment
Thursday, November 2, 2017
Stetson D (Hyatt Regency Chicago)
*Names in bold indicate Presenter
- The grassroots civil rights organization All of Us or None, led a campaign for fair-chance hiring or “Ban the Box” (BTB) policies, aimed at improving the employment outcomes of the formerly convicted, especially within the public sector. Under BTB policies, initial conviction inquiries and criminal background checks are deferred until later in the hiring process, giving individuals the opportunity to highlight their qualifications and contextualize criminal convictions. Despite the well-intentioned objectives of BTB policy reform, scholars argue that young low-skilled minority males will be subject to employer use of statistical discrimination, because they disproportionately comprise the correctional population.
- This study is therefore the first to illustrate within the public sector context, the nation-wide impact of BTB policies on the employment of those with conviction records while addressing the issue of statistical discrimination. More specifically, the study uses nationally-representative longitudinal data along with quasi-experimental methods to identify the impact of public sector BTB policies on the probability of public sector employment of convicted individuals and young low-skilled minority males. The study finds that in general, public sector BTB policies increase the probability of public sector employment of convicted individuals by nearly 5 percentage points, accounting for about 40% of the outcome mean. In addition, no evidence of statistical discrimination against young low-skilled minority males was uncovered.
