Ban the Box Campaign's website says "The campaign challenges the stereotypes of people with conviction histories by asking employers to choose their best candidates based on job skills and qualifications, not past convictions." President Obama has issued an executive order that federal jobs will now delay criminal background questioning until further in the application process in order to give ex-convicts a better chance at employment. Within a year of release as many as 60 percent of ex-convicts are unemployed and one in three adults will have been arrested by the age of 23. With these staggering statistics criminal background checks and the questioning of criminal background shouldn’t be placed on initial job application and if there is a security issue within that certain job the background check should be delayed to give all segments of society a fair chance of employment without bias, but some positions in certain areas are more sensitive and should have strict checks …show more content…
This order comes after “ban the box” protesting in front of the White House and soon after the president called on employers to eliminate the criminal history question from job applications all together. Nineteen states and the capital of the United States, Washington, D.C have the ban the box laws on the books regarding public employment. These nineteen states include Connecticut, Colorado, California, Delaware, Rhode Island, Georgia, Hawaii, Nebraska, Ohio, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Illinois, Virginia, New York, Oregon, New Mexico, Vermont, and New Jersey. Most of these states have implemented this legislation but it only applies to state government not private employers. Seven states have gone much further and banned the conviction history question on job applications for private employers. These seven states include Illinois, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Minnesota, Oregon, and Rhode Island. Currently all of the democratic candidates for presidency support the “ban the box” campaign. Republican candidate for presidency Senator Rand Paul introduced legislation to seal criminal records for non-violent