In Pursuit of Standards for Ban the Box Policies

• Date: 01 February 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12273
• Author: Robert Apel
• Published date: 01 February 2017

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION

CRIMINAL RECORD QUESTIONS

In Pursuit of Standards for Ban

the Box Policies

Robert Apel

Rutgers University

That criminal justice involvement has a stigmatizing effect on job seekers is a

long-standing idea. In an early variation of an experimental audit, Schwartz and

Skolnick (1962) documented a much lower callback rate (at least, what we now

refer to as a callback rate, but which they referred to as a “positive response”at the time) for

employment files reporting a conviction and sentence for assault, relative to files reporting

no criminal record. But easily the most alarming finding was that employmentfiles reporting

a trial and acquittal—that is, an applicant who was accused of assault but proclaimed to

be without guilt—also exhibited a lower callback rate. Therefore, individuals who have a

brush with the law, however minor, can experience hiring difficulty if potential employers

find out about it.

The current article by Mike Vuolo, Sarah Lageson, and Christopher Uggen (2017,

this issue) speaks to this very issue—how employers find out about criminal records, and

the consequences for hiring when they do. Their study rounds out a research program

formed from an experimental audit of entry-level employment in the TwinCities (Lageson,

Vuolo, and Uggen, 2015; Uggen, Vuolo, Lageson, Ruhland, and Whitham, 2014; Vuolo

et al., 2017). The findings from this study provide good policy fodder for Ban the Box, an

initiative that prevents employers from asking about criminal histories on job applications.

Importantly, Vuolo and colleagues (2017) carried out their study prior to the enactment of

a statewide Ban the Box law in 2014, before which establishments varied considerably as to

whether job applications included criminal history questions.

First, Vuoloet al. (2017) document wide variation in the presence and scope of criminal

history questions on job applications. More than three quarters of employers (78%) include

a criminal history question on their job applications, but the degree of variation in the types

of questions is stunning. For example, half of employers (51%) inquire about nonfelonies,

Direct correspondence to Robert Apel, School of Criminal Justice, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ 07102

(e-mail: robert.apel@rutgers.edu).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12273 C2017 American Society of Criminology 135

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 16 rIssue 1