Politics & Government
‘Ban the Box’ Bill Would Eliminate Criminal Records On Job Apps
Colo. would be 12th state to make it harder for employers to discriminate against people with criminal records, supporters say.
DENVER, CO – By Alex Burness for The Colorado Independent. In 2016 and 2017, Colorado’s legislature took up the question of whether to prohibit employers from asking job applicants up-front about their criminal records. Both times, committees in the Republican-controlled Senate rejected the idea.
But it’s a new day at the Capitol, with Democrats having seized control of the Senate in November while maintaining a majority in the House. And on the opening day of this year’s legislative session, Democratic Reps. Leslie Herod and Jovan Melton filed a bill to restrict how and when public- and private-sector employers can inquire about applicants’ criminal histories.
Such restrictions already exist in 11 states, and the Herod/Melton bill mirrors those states’ actions, which are parts of a movement commonly referred to as “Ban the Box” — as in, the little box on job applications where one might put a check mark to indicate they’ve got a criminal record.
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“The data is there, showing that when you give someone an opportunity to have a face-to-face conversation with an employer, to get out of that application process, they’re more likely to get that job,” said Herod, who represents northeast Denver.
“All we’re trying to do is ensure that people aren’t automatically screened out for a mistake they made in their past and that they’ve paid their time for. This will allow them to sit next to an employer one-on-one and say, ‘Here’s what I did in my past, here’s who I am now and here’s how I plan to move forward.’ Ban the Box will give them that opportunity.”
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If passed, the bill would also ban employers from advertising that people with criminal records can’t apply for open positions. (They’d be excluded in cases where law prohibits employment of individuals with certain records; Ban the Box would not, for example, let a child sex offender apply to be a schoolteacher.)
READ MORE in The Colorado Independent.
Handcuffs at the Alamosa County jail. (Photo by Evan Semón)
