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Should employers & landlords be prohibited from asking applicants if they have a ....

Should employers & landlords be prohibited from asking applicants if they have ......

  • Only employers should be banned from asking about any criminal history

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Landlords should be allowed to ask about crimes that are "significantly related"

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • I do not know.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    39
Re: Should employers & landlords be prohibited from asking applicants if they have a

I have to ask one question: clean DMV? Does that mean if you had been in a car accident once, say you ran a red and t-boned someone without causing any major injuries or deaths, that you might not have gotten the place?

Pretty much anything more then a parking ticket or minor moving violation disqualified any applicant; and remains cause to evict, I might add, as per the terms of the lease.

Basically, if an applicant is such an absent minded retard that they don't even pay attention to street lights, then she sure as hell didn't want that person driving around on her lots where there's always children playing.

Otherwise, if you honestly care that little about your privacy, more power to you.

It's like submitting a resume: it's not an issue of how much I care about my privacy, it's about me marketing myself to the landlord so she chooses me over my competition. I pulled no punch. I had all the paperwork professionally assembled with the token application fee paid the same day. Hell I even wore my uniform to the 'tenant interview'.

It's good that some people are willing to take those spots, or else control freaks would never have anyone to monitor and control.

I'm sorry you hold onto an inaccurate view of the situation. I saw what I wanted and I went for it. I consider the permissions she wanted as part of her asking price, and imo I still got a deal. This place is awesome.
 
Re: Should employers & landlords be prohibited from asking applicants if they have a

The problem is that even if you make if illegal for employers to ask about a personal's criminal background, there are so many other ways to obtain that information. If you committed an assault ten years ago and your name appeared in the local newspaper, it will still be possible to see a record of your crime simply by typing your name in a search engine. There has to be incentives for businesses to take risks to hire ex-cons, like tax breaks or compensation by the state if the person turns out to be a poor worker or commits another crime while employed.
 
Re: Should employers & landlords be prohibited from asking applicants if they have a

The problem is that even if you make if illegal for employers to ask about a personal's criminal background, there are so many other ways to obtain that information. If you committed an assault ten years ago and your name appeared in the local newspaper, it will still be possible to see a record of your crime simply by typing your name in a search engine.

This is true. It won't stop an employer from learning about someone's past if they are determined to do so. But I think that making the practice illegal just erects one more barrier to doing so...a barrier that many employers will not cross, either simply because it's illegal or because it's just not worth the hassle to circumvent the law. I also think that the "criminal background check" companies need to be reined in. They provide a valuable service, so I don't want to shut them down...but the type of crimes that they're allowed to report to their customers (the potential employers/landlords) should be regulated IMO.

There has to be incentives for businesses to take risks to hire ex-cons, like tax breaks or compensation by the state if the person turns out to be a poor worker or commits another crime while employed.

I agree with this. I think that one of the problems is that in our tort system, an employer can be held liable for the actions of an employee, if the employer knows or should have known that they have a history of similar misdeeds. To some extent this makes sense, but I think that employers are so terrified of lawsuits that many of them will categorically reject ANYONE who has been convicted of a crime, even if it's not really relevant.

I agree with those who have suggested a statute of limitations for crimes to show up on a criminal background check: Maybe 10 years after prison release for murder/rape, 5 years for other violent crimes, 2 years for nonviolent felonies, and misdemeanors and/or drug offenses don't show up at all. And for the period of time following their release when the crime DOES show up on the record, perhaps the government could encourage their employment (in fields unrelated to their crime) by taking legal responsibility for the ex-con's on-the-job actions itself instead of forcing the employer to do so. Just a thought...I'm not sure if it would work in practice.
 
Re: Should employers & landlords be prohibited from asking applicants if they have a

As one of my favorite books says, one of my most valued rights is the right to be left alone. If you don't trust me enough to accept me without running a background check, that's fine. But I demand the right to not have that information revealed to the general public unless I choose to release it. If the police are in an investigation and I'm a suspect, I have no problem with they're having access to that information. But if I go to a restaurant and the owner won't serve me without a credit check, I have no desire for him to be able to paw through all my personal history. There's a reason that that stuff is called your personal history.

Demand anything you want, it doesn't mean a damn thing. If you do something that's in the public purview, it becomes public knowledge. Don't want it to be available? Don't do it in the first place. If that restaurant insists on running a credit check and you don't want them to, go elsewhere. If the apartment manager is going to run your credit and you don't want him to, live somewhere else. It's going to limit your choices, but you certainly have the right to take your business elsewhere if you don't like how things are done.
 
Re: Should employers & landlords be prohibited from asking applicants if they have a

Sometimes people make stupid mistakes. If people were as forgiving regarding past mistakes and tried to help other people instead of being anxious to protect their own image, this discussion would have died like 5 pages ago...

I get it: you don't trust people who have past criminal records. I wonder if societies disdain for people with a criminal record has anything to do with the percent of criminals who are repeat offenders....

It's called being responsible for your actions, stupid or otherwise. Like it or not, there are somethings that, once you do them, they can never be undone. Don't like that? Don't do it in the first place. Stupidity is not an excuse.
 
Re: Should employers & landlords be prohibited from asking applicants if they have a

It's called being responsible for your actions, stupid or otherwise. Like it or not, there are somethings that, once you do them, they can never be undone.

There's the question of practicality. If an ex-con can't find a job, he's more likely to return to crime. If an ex-con can't find a place to live (except for the occasional apartment that doesn't check, where other ex-cons also live), he's more likely to return to crime. So if we, as a society, want to prevent recidivism then we would do well to help the ex-cons turn their lives around.

Don't like that? Don't do it in the first place. Stupidity is not an excuse.

Of course it is. Some people just do stupid things. I bet that most of us have done something stupid in our lives, whether legal or illegal. Some of us were lucky and suffered no consequences for our actions, whereas others were not. But there is no need to go on punishing someone forever. Once their sentence is over, the state has effectively certified that they are ready to return to society. What is the point of ostracizing them even more? What does it accomplish?
 
Re: Should employers & landlords be prohibited from asking applicants if they have a

On credit rating, my personal goal is to have no FICO score (not a score of "0", but no score at all), and then freeze my credit history. At that time, should you look, you will not see a good or bad score, you see that I have no score at all.

Thats not hard. Just pay everything up front and in cash. They can't check on that stuff. I should know...before I had kids I had no credit rating.

Couldn't get a loan to save my life...much less buy a car or anything else that required a credit check.
 
Re: Should employers & landlords be prohibited from asking applicants if they have a

Thats not hard. Just pay everything up front and in cash. They can't check on that stuff. I should know...before I had kids I had no credit rating.

Couldn't get a loan to save my life...much less buy a car or anything else that required a credit check.

Like you said, just pay everything up front and in cash.

When it comes to a home, go the manual underwriting rout.

Problem? U-mad, Visa? Yeah u mad.
 
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