Criminal Record Questions, Statistical Discrimination, and Equity in a “Ban the Box” Era

• Published date: 01 February 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12265
• Date: 01 February 2017
• Author: Naomi F. Sugie

POLICY ESSAY

CRIMINAL RECORD QUESTIONS

Criminal Record Questions, Statistical

Discrimination, and Equity in a “Ban

the Box” Era

Naomi F.Sugie

University of California, Irvine

In the United States, the mark of a criminal record follows a person long after he

or she has served a prison sentence or paid a fine (Pager, 2007). Individuals with

criminal records are excluded and disqualified from an array of social and civil areas,

including voting, public benefits, and occupational licensing (Jacobs, 2015; Travis, 2002).

Employment is one such critical domain, and people with criminal records have a much

lower chance of receiving a callback for a job (Pager,2003; Pager, Western,and Bonikowski,

2009). Employers have the right to consider a person’s criminal record in their hiring

decisions; however, a concern is that by disclosing a record on a job application—at the

first entry point for hiring—an employer will immediately screen out jobseekers with a

criminal past without considering their other assets. For all jobseekers, personal contact with

the employer during the hiring process improves callback rates (Uggen, Vuolo, Lageson,

Ruhland, and Whitham, 2014), and for jobseekers with criminal records, the opportunity

to build rapport with an employer reduces the effect of a criminal record by approximately

15% (Pager, Western, and Sugie, 2009). Removing initial questions about criminal records

from job applications (i.e., Banning the Box) reduces the likelihood that jobseekers with

criminal histories will be evaluated and excluded based on their criminal records alone.

Despite widespread research and policy attention to this issue, we know little about

criminal record questions on job applications. The article by Mike Vuolo, Sarah Lageson,

and Christopher Uggen (2017, this issue) provides a rare look at the types of questions asked

by employers at this first point of entry in the hiring process. Vuolo et al. find that thereis a

wide range in the types of questions that are asked, and that a substantial group of employers

(greater than 20%) does not ask any criminal record question. They show that certain types

of employers, such as those hiring for hotel and warehouse positions or those that are located

Direct correspondence to Naomi F. Sugie, Criminology, Law and Society, University of California, Irvine, 3319

Social Ecology II, Irvine, CA 92697 (e-mail: nsugie@uci.edu).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12265 C2017 American Society of Criminology 167

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 16 rIssue 1