Should a conviction still be allowed to hold ex-felons back?

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

How does one feed their family or themselves while getting into such a business when people don't want to hire them or take them on. How many sprinkler companies can a heavily populated urban area support? Now thankfully there are businesses that hire felons. They don't hire every felon who applies, but they look at the whole applicant, not just the felony.

Feed their families? Most newly released felons don't have families, they have child support payments.

Would you hire him to fix your garage? (Had he not been your client that is.)

Absolutely, he came highly recommended. He did all my parents' garage door work when they built their McManshion.

However that says nothing about the risks of the employer. And plenty of ex-felons are not in for violent crimes (or sexual harassment), why would an employer fear to hire them for the negligent hiring reasons?

That depends on the job. Would you hire a guy with a felony DUI charge to deliver pizza for you? Would you hire someone with a drug conviction to be a cashier? Probably not, and the first could get you sued.

A) you've made an assumption that ex-felons are dangers to society. B) Society doesn't get to kick people to the curb. The Constitution doesn't grant rights, it protects inherent ones. People deserve to have their rights protected.

Okay then, what Constitutional right are you suggesting keeps felons from experiencing what they're experiencing right now? That paragraph is almost as silly as something I'd expect from a 10ther.

So you can kick them to the curb and then put them back in prison or you could make an effort to teach them something different.

When there are limited resources and sticking 'em back in the pokey is more cost effective and protects society from them, that's just fine. Not everyone is able to be rehabilitated.

I'm all for second-chance programs like drug courts, but in most cases, once they have that felony conviction, they've earned it.

Not with sex-offenders we're not. We're really bad at predicting which person will reoffend. There are actual tools (supported by research) that can assess the likelihood of reoffending by non-sex offender felons, and then can give areas to work on such as obtaining employment, replacing antisocial thinking with prosocial thinking, etc. But they don't work well with sex offenders.

Cool.. well, since we're so bad at predicting, we should just let convicted child molesters run daycare centers, right? It wouldn't be fair to them if we said that they had a far better than average chance of recidivism. I mean, after all, they have served their debts to society and we can't accurately predict whether they'll reoffend.

So OK needs to get it's shit in order. here, DOC gets cut, and everyone works mandatory OT. My state's broke as hell too. But either we want prison to be rehabilitative or punishing or both. We claim both but don't do a lot of the rehabilitation that would actually reduce crime and make society safer.

Citation needed.

It's on a different scale, but it's the same thought process. So, you've kept speeding, but you didn't get caught? (Also mostly here, talking about non-violent offenders. But there's a difference between the 22 year old involved in violent crime and the 30 year old too. And your use of raping and killing is just as dramatic an overstatement. Rapists would be sex offenders, see previous comments. Murderers would not be out after a 10 year bit in any state I'm aware of.

You made the comparison, not I. I agree, it was absurd. Thinking one does no harm in speeding is not the same as thinking one does no harm in committing a felony. And a murderer could be out in less than 10 or not even serve time depending what kind of homicide crime he's convicted of.

Drug dealers, car thieves? Same logic. "They have insurance. I need the money. Everyone does it, I just got caught. They're out to get me. " They get busted and say "i'll never do that again." And then they do it again.

Yeah, actually, I was recently a victim of several petty felonies like that. One of our movers stole my checkbook and decided to write himself a few paychecks. Guy was dumb as dirt--signed his real name, legibly to the signature line. I'm a cooperating state's witness now. I wasn't damaged in the least because my bank took care of everything, but I'm going to do what I can to make sure this idiot does time and never gets a job again where the employer places him in a position of trust.

Had he had this felony record before the moving company hired him, I would have a viable cause of action for negligent hiring. Or at least my bank would since I'm not really damaged.

Felons never come from good families though right? So you're "safe." That's your silver spoon talking.

Yes I am.

As long as you think of ex-felons as "damaged people" you're going to keep thinking like this. I'm not saying that the guys who work with me are even qualified to be a receptionist, I'm saying they're qualified to be hired and work fixing your roof, washing your car, or making your stuff in a factory.

But why would any of those employers employee felons when there were equally qualified non-felons out there?