No one says jail is a pleasant experience—it isn’t designed to be. But it must be even worse to get out of jail, ready to make a new life for yourself, only to have your criminal record bar you from finding a job or a place to live. Sadly, it happens a lot to people transitioning from incarceration to life in Seattle.
But the Seattle Office for Civil Rights has a solution—a proposal to end job and housing discrimination based on criminal records, drafted in collaboration with community groups, residents of Sojourner Place Transitional Housing, and the Seattle Human Rights Commission. Tonight, they’re hosting a community forum on the proposal. Even if you’ve never been to prison, this affects you. In a press release sent by the Seattle Office for Civil Rights, Brenda Anibarro writes, “Adding protections to end discrimination in housing and employment based on arrest or conviction records is one strategy… to decrease the likelihood of re-offending.”
The proposal would amend the City’s current anti-discrimination laws, making it illegal for potential employers and landlords to turn away individuals fresh out of jail solely because they have conviction records. But don’t worry, puritanical-leaning thinkers of the children, the proposal doesn’t get too crazy—it allows for exceptions in cases where convictions involve employment or housing (think arsonists and embezzlers), or if there is a perceived threat to personal safety (rapists, for example). Come voice your support for or opposition to this very reasonable amendment tonight.
The forum is free and takes place tonight in the Bertha Knight Landes Room at City Hall, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Puritanical-leaning thinkers of the children? You’re a dork.
This leaves me torn. I want to give someone a chance. I want to let them live where they want. But, the last time an ex-con moved into my building all hell broke loose. People where stabbed in the lot. Mail boxes were broken into. Fights became a constant problem. And the ex-con was always somehow involved. And they made life for everyone here hell for the long months it took to get them out. And they left a ton of property damage. I was always afraid they would burn the building down. People should not have to live that way. So, I’m torn.
@2, that is exactly why you should attend this event. Express your views, hear from a few other people… it’ll be worth it.
How about an except for Mother-in-Law apartments, accessory dwelling units with the owner’s family on the premises?
Vince’s point is excellent. If this goes through, there should be a one-strike-and-you’re-out arrangement. None of the gaming that goes on with undesirable tenants; they should be gone in 24 hours when they screw up.
Actually, it’s probably a moot point for most situations. Landlords will check credit references, and somebody fresh out of the slammer is not likely to have acceptable credit.
I’m sympathetic in one sense, but in another, I think we should recognize that people make their own choices in life, and sometimes the consequences are harsh.
I’m not torn. It’s just a bad idea, because it will make low income housing more scarce in Seattle. Mostly landlords who provide low income housing will be affected; the rest can still legally discriminate based on income and financial record. Forcing these landlords to assume a serious financial risk (it costs at least $5K to get rid of a bad tenant in Seattle) will cause them to jack up average prices. If Seattle wants landlords to house ex-cons, they should provide financial incentives and make it easier to kick out the bad ones.
This is a ridiculous idea. Seriously, Seattle? Criminals a protected class? Offenders made the CHOICE to offend. Protected classes are designed so that housing providers and employers cannot discriminate based on things that are outside of ones ability to control. (Race, Sex, Sexual Orientation…) There are also plenty of landlords and employers out there that choose to rent to ex-offenders. It’s called a niche market.
How would you feel if someone convicted of identity theft decided to move-in next door?
I agree with the above. Once you commit a crime you deserve ZERO second chance. Hell, we should probably just put anyone who commits a crime to death. That way you don’t have to talk about renting to ex-offenders. Problem solved!!
This is a necessary law.
A greater and greater percentage of our population is being imprisoned. We imprison a higher percentage of our population than any other country on earth. And minorities are grossly overrepresented in the prison population. Prisons have become an expensive and underhanded way to keep minorities down. And if someone gets out of prison, and is unable to get work or an apartment, he is far more likely to turn to crime again and re-offend.
While I totally sympathize with Vince’s story, you can’t use one bad example as an excuse to discriminate against a whole class of people.
@8
You are totally right! That is exactly what I was saying. All criminals should be put to death.
While I can understand the point that many of you are trying to make, (and I DO believe that people deserve a second change) why should someone who chosen to break the law AND BE CONVICTED be protected by another law? It doesn’t make any sense. Many landlords and employers already overlook the occasional DUI, bar fight, possession of marijuana. However, that should be at their discretion. It is their investment that they are choosing to let someone reside in or work for. As I said before, how would you feel if a convicted identity theif moved in next door? I’m just sure that they would NEVER consider re-offending when they accidentally receive your pre-approved credit card offer in their mail box. That’s just one example. What about someone who has been convicted of violating a protection order? Would you like them living next door to your wife, girlfriend, sister or children. Clearly they have learned their boundaries right?
Pretty soon, they will make people with bad credit a protected class. Why not, right?!?
@10 – Since we’re thinking of the children, did you know that these criminals are able to breed? Where do you suppose the children of ex-convicts go when their parents have no choice but to move into slums that don’t discriminate between rapists and those who might have once made a bad choice or lived a reckless youth? What community helps raise them? Or are we not concerned about these particular children?
An ex-convict would have to pass the “but for” test: they would have gotten an apartment but for the fact that they were an ex-con. It’s not like landlords won’t be able to financially discriminate against them (and anyone they please) just as they can now. And most private landlords don’t rent very low-income units anyway, since they don’t make money that way.
You can either have ex-cons on the street, homeless, or you can have them housed. Which do you want? Everyone’s gotta be someplace.
Tough call. I don’t want to fuck over landlords and employers. I wouldn’t want to rent to someone right out of the slammer myself. However we have to ask ourselves if we want to essentially mandate that people who have committed a crime (have you ever smoked, or god forbid sold, pot?) will never have any legitimate legal way of supporting themselves and give them no place to live? I don’t believe that’s a fair punishment and possibly more importantly I don’t think that it’s helpful to the community or our society as a whole.
It should only take the tiniest bit of empathy for you to see this from the criminal’s perspective. Let’s say next time you were buying a little extra pot that you were going to then sell to your friend. You’re now a dealer motherfucker! Go to jail, do not collect $200. You are now a felon. You serve your time in jail (which is supposed to be the punishment for the crime you’ve done) then you get out (having paid your “debt to society”) and nobody will hire you or rent you an apartment. What do you do? Without any legal means of supporting yourself you’re left with only illegal means.
So, what I’m asking of all the people who think this is a bad idea is this. Do you want the punishment for every felony to be life in and out of prison? Wouldn’t it be less expensive in the long term to try to rehabilitate the criminal, give them job training and try to help them have a normal legal life?
@13, couldn’t have said it any better myself. A++!!
I can’t say I’d be excited about being prohibited from hiring a convicted thief to run the cash register. Maybe after a time limit (no conviction in the last x years).
Also, wouldn’t it be odd if you could be denied employment because you’d been fired for, say, being late to work too often, but not because you embezzled?
I’m not a puritanical thinker-of-the-children, I’m a property-rights-minded thinker-of-the-property-owners. Because there’s some crimes that can have huge consequences for landlords if tenants commit them on their property, and screening out clients that have committed those crimes in the past is a very important way for landlords to protect themselves.
This proposal doesn’t go far enough in the exceptions involving housing – it’s still conceivable that a landlord could be forced to rent to someone with drug-related convictions and then be fined or lose their property when that tenant sells drugs out of their house.
I think it’s idiotic to basically ensure people will re-offend because they’re dumped from prison into legally -enforced poverty and homelessness. But doing it at the expense of landlords’ livelihoods is pretty dumb too.
Felonies that are non violent and non serious offenders should not be discriminated when it comes to housing especially employment. Once they have served their sentence and successfully completed their parole time they should be given a chance to change their lives. If not, upon their release from prison they are set up for failure. We complain about spending too much of tax payers money paid to state facilities. This will not change unless we change some of our laws. We all have done something in our past that we are not proud of or just never got caught. Not all of the felon offenders will learn but I believe there are those that want a chance. I believe discriminating against them is double jeopardy since they have already served their time. Lets try something different. If I was turned down numerous time when seeking employment because of my record, what other alternative do I have but to revert to past criminal behavior.