On November 30, in front of a packed crowd at the Garfield Community Center, three ex-felons, all mothers, talked in plain terms about being unemployed and homeless because of their criminal histories—and how that instability kept them from gaining custody of their children. “I have to fight twice as hard to stay near my daughter and support her,” said Virginia Bromley, who has a record of drug charges. “It feels like I’ll never stop being punished for what I did.”
The stumbling block for Bromley—and indeed anyone with a record—is that whenever she fills out a job or housing application in Seattle, she must check a box to declare a criminal record. The box sits empty for most people, who don’t give it a second thought. But in broad strokes, many people who do check this box—whether they were busted for minor drug possession or convicted of robbery, have been back in society for decades or were released yesterday—don’t make it past a basic background check for an interview.
The Seattle Office for Civil Rights wants to change that.
The office has partnered with the Seattle Human Rights Commission and Sojourner Place, which provides transitional housing for single women, to draft a new city law that would make it illegal to discriminate against people based solely on their arrest or conviction record, with a few exceptions (arson, fraud, and other convictions that could threaten the safety of employees or neighbors, for example). “Employers would still be able to ask about criminal backgrounds—arrests and convictions—but they wouldn’t be able to use that in a discriminatory capacity,” says Julie Nelson, director of the Seattle Office for Civil Rights. Nelson also wants that box removed, except for certain jobs and housing applications.
The Seattle Police Department supports changing the rules. “All the people who go to prison, with very small exceptions, they’re coming back,” said assistant police chief Mike Sanford at the November meeting. “How we reintegrate them into the community is a key to how successful we are as a society.”
But the idea has landlords—like Julie Johnson, president of the Rental Housing Association of Puget Sound—worried about property values and public safety. Even though two-thirds of ex-felons in the U.S. have served time for nonviolent crimes (drug offenses account for 37 percent and property crimes for 25 percent of total crimes), Johnson says that statistics aren’t reassuring to landlords. “You don’t want to rent to people with drug convictions. If they turn out to be growing [pot], or have a meth lab, federally, they could seize the property,” she says. The legislation is akin to “making landlords do the job that the state should really be doing,” she says, like providing transitional housing and employment to ex-felons. Johnson says property owners should be able to decide whom they rent to.
But Nelson counters, “We want people to more carefully consider how and when criminal background checks make sense. From a business perspective, having ex-offenders employed and in stable housing will lower recidivism rates… and improve public safety.”
Nelson intends to present a final draft of the bill in January to Mayor Mike McGinn, who could transmit it to the city council by March.
Finally a little sanity regarding background checks. What I’d like to know is how come employers routinely ask about any convictions or arrests when WAC 162-12-140 states,
“Because statistical studies regarding arrests have shown a disparate impact on some racial and ethnic minorities, and an arrest by itself is not a reliable indication of criminal behavior, inquiries concerning arrests must include whether charges are still pending, have been dismissed, or led to conviction of a crime involving behavior that would adversely affect job performance, and the arrest occurred within the last ten years.”
The last ten years! So anyone have an answer as to why the vast majority of job applications don’t follow the law?
Washington State law already limits information landlords can receive about a person’s criminal history. A consumer reporting agency may not report any records of arrest, indictment, or conviction of crime that, from date of disposition, release, or parole, which antedate a consumer report by more than seven years.
Sounds like just the thing to get all the right-wingers howling. I like it!
I think somebody has already seized Julie Johnson’s brain. Please give it back so she can resume framing coherent thoughts, hopefully followed by intelligent statements! (If she doesn’t, we’ll cut off her supply of Alpo!)
Finally, a little light on the horizon. My felony conviction is only three years in the past, and I have had the damnedest time getting a job back in the restaurant industry. People just love the power of the background check, don’t they?
Housing and job stability REDUCE recidivism. Want less crime?
Finally some sanity regarding ex-offenders. Many decent people have a checkered, even criminal pasts. WIth our stupid, short sighted drug laws, that’s no surprise. Our governments have criminalized things which have no business being illegal. Treating adults like chidren who need parental supervision. Yet they have the nerve to tax those same citizens. THey shouldn’t be able to have it both ways. I’ve know several good people who can’t find a home or job of their own because of past offenses. This is NOT fair and UN american!
Virginia Bromley isn’t just an ex offender, she just got out of prison, for the fourth time. She continues to get clean then reoffend, as a member of her family, I can say keep her away from that child, she has allready ruined the lives of her two older children.
The Seattle Office for Civil Rights wants to change that? good luck?
If you have a conviction you have a automatic 3 strikes against you in the work and home place?
Like your credit rating has variable influences someone can steal your identity and ruin your credit.
A criminal conviction works the same way as the State or Federal government steals your identity and you become a number and a Bad Number at that?
Nope its not fair at all as like a car accident and Insurance rates it just don’t matter who’s fault it is as its just how the Insurance company works as they can and will get away with it.
Your criminal history should just flat out disappear if you stop committing crimes for a number of years and as well if they are addiction based crimes then you should have a better rout to go then America calling you a Scumbag not worthy of of oxygen and screwing you at every turn of the screw until you stop trying?
but believe me the police love dealing with mothers and fathers who have given up on the American Dream as they cant find a job or a home and basically have to admit the agony of defeat?
X-convicts! you “cant” live with them but you “can” kill them is the American way and its been that way since slaughtering Native Americans and making slaves of Africans was a everyday pleasure