Increasing Employment of People with Records

• Author: Amanda Agan
• Published date: 01 February 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12266
• Date: 01 February 2017

POLICY ESSAY

CRIMINAL RECORD QUESTIONS

Increasing Employment of People with

Records

Policy Challenges in the Era of Ban the Box

Amanda Agan

Rutgers University

Each week approximately 10,000 offenders are released from state and federal pris-

ons (U.S. Department of Justice [USDOJ], 2016). The first major obstacle many

of these returning offenders face when trying to secure employment is the ques-

tion about their criminal history that often appears on job applications. Answering this

question affirmatively significantly affects an applicant’s ability to get an interview with

these employers: In a recent audit study, applicants without felony convictions were 63%

more likely to receive a callback than were those with records (Agan and Starr, 2016; see

also Pager, 2003), and a smaller but still non-negligible gap exists even for applicants with

misdemeanor convictions (Uggen, Vuolo, Lageson, Ruhland, and Whitham, 2014).

As a result, many states and cities have passed so-called Ban the Box (BTB) laws

that prevent employers from asking about criminal history on applications and legislate

when in the hiring process a background check can be performed. Although most of these

policies pertain to public employment, recently several states and cities have expanded

these restrictions to private employers as well (Rodriguez and Avery, 2016). The idea is to

remove this barrier to employment for people with records and allow them to get their foot

in the door with hiring managers—hopefully increasing the probability they eventually get

a job. This is important because employment is a key avenue for reducing recidivism and is

often a requirement for parole (Grogger,1998; Schnepel, 2016; Uggen, 2000; Yang, 2015).

Mike Vuolo, Sarah Lageson, and Christopher Uggen (2017, this issue) use data from

a previous field experiment to answer several questions of interest about the potential

impact of BTB policies. In this experiment, they sent same-race pairs of testers to apply

for entry-level jobs at 605 establishments in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota in 2007

Direct correspondence to Amanda Agan, Rutgers University, New Jersey Hall, 75 Hamilton St, New Brunswick,

NJ 08901 (e-mail: aagan@econ.rutgers.edu).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12266 C2017 American Society of Criminology 177

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 16 rIssue 1