Since the adoption of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, Americans have annually celebrated the achievement of such “self-evident” truths and “inalienable” rights for all human beings. As a general consensus, citizens of the United States characterize their country and pride themselves in such a declaration that brings equal opportunity for everyone. However, equality for all has not been the case since the moment it was adopted. During the signing of the Declaration of Independence slavery was still allowed and slaves were obviously exempt from these rights. Many years after the declaration, the Jim Crow laws deliberately institutionalized racism and discrimination into the system, ignoring such principles of equality. But yet, even when the Civil Rights law outlawed these laws in 1964, discrimination continues to be present and legal today when discussing the lives of former and currently incarcerated individuals. These discriminated individuals, overwhelmingly Blacks and Latinos, are born into a criminal justice system that racially profiles, targets and criminalizes the minority, and sentences them with longer and harsher penalties. Therefore, it is absolutely vital to support and pass the Ban the Box campaign, a fight for the civil and human rights of the former and currently incarcerated that demands the banishment of the question, “Have you ever been convicted of a crime? Check one: Yes or No”, on job, housing, insurance, loan, and public benefits applications. Currently, “the box” has resulted in the legalization of Jim Crow laws against this group of individuals who are discriminated in applications due to their past mistake, prohibiting them from “life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness”, and equality.
Throughout the years, the United States has expanded greatly in its prison-industrial complex and criminal justice system that has only served to feed back into its own system. According to the Prison Policy Initiative’s graph on “State Policy Drives Mass Incarceration”, the population in state, local, and federal prisons have all increased, specifically that of the state prison population that had an increase of around four times compared to the 1980s. However, this is of no surprise when policies such as Stop and Frisk, that was originally meant to allow the stopping and frisking of individuals for a policeman’s “reasonable” suspicion of criminal activity, pushed police officers to do the opposite. In some occasions policemen were forced by their supervisors to fill certain quotas and obliged to push their values on equality away in order to stay in good standing. As a result, this practice only perpetuated racial profiling and continued a disproportionate criminalization of Blacks and Latinos who become labeled as such and make it hard to get out of the system. Michelle Alexander, a legal scholar, graduate and professor of Stanford Law School, discusses the gravity of such increasing rates of incarceration in her book, “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness”. Michelle argues that with the current criminal justice system it is visible that “rather than rely on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color ‘criminals’ and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind [in the Jim Crow era]” (2). These practices are currently visible through increased rates of incarceration and “the box’s” conviction question. We are no longer sentencing the criminal on their crime, but on their race.
As mentioned earlier, Ban the Box is a campaign that focuses on giving a second chance to individuals who are former and currently incarcerated by eliminating the question, “Have you ever been convicted of a crime? Check one: Yes or No”, on applications. The campaign began in 2004 by the All of Us or None organization that is committed to fight for the rights of these individuals, their families, and for a fair employment system. Their goal is to fight
"against the discrimination that people face every day because of arrest or conviction history…strengthen the voices of people most affected by mass incarceration and the growth of the prison-industrial complex…[and] win full restoration of our human and civil rights".
The campaign itself has also started the Fair Chance Initiative campaign that particularly deals with employment applications. The campaign also proposes to remove “the box” question in order to deny employers an opportunity to discriminate against job applicants who have been convicted of a crime or felony. This would campaign would drastically improve the lives of many individuals who, at the moment, are trapped, have no income and no real possibility of getting a job.
Currently with the job market, former and currently incarcerated individuals struggle immensely to find a job due to past conviction. According to the “Ban the Box Fact Sheet”, “in nearly 50% of cases, employers were unwillingly to consider equally qualified applicants on the basis of their criminal record…[while] [a]nother major survey reflected that 40% of employers will not even consider a job applicant…” This clearly portrays the discrimination that occurs in the job market, the application of the Jim Crow laws towards these individuals - that of discrimination, and a need to ban the box. With this type of exclusion, these individuals have a difficult time integrating back into society even when doing their best to fulfill their role as a citizen. They face barriers with housing, employment, and public benefits applications that do not allow them to pursue their “self-evident” truths and “inalienable” rights. Michelle Alexander describes the transition by saying that “former prisoners enter a hidden underworld of legalized discrimination and permanent social exclusion” (13). She also describes them as “America’s new undercaste” because they are not given an equal opportunity, but instead restricted and limited in their rights and seen as second-class citizens (13). This as a result commences a life-long battle for survival and a series of consequences for the former or currently incarcerated individual.
Through the filling out of applications, individuals are labeled felons and attached a series of deprivations, along with life long consequences. However, no matter the conviction, no one should be deprived of his or her rights to vote, get a job, live with family members, get public benefits, insurance, and more. However, safety concerns about banning “the box” have made people dislike the idea. Some have been misguided about the aspect of background checks, but that is simply a constant misunderstanding of the campaign. As stated in the New Jersey’s “Fact Sheet: Ban the Box”,
"Ban the Box laws do not prevent employers from conducting background checks. They do not require an employer to hire an unqualified applicant…[t]hey simply ask employers to consider an individual’s full application, providing a realistic opportunity for a person who has changed his or her life".
Just last year, New Jersey joined a number of states who have signed the Ban the Box laws through the “Opportunity to Compete Act”, meaning that employers withhold the background check after an offer of employment – a concern expressed by the Columbia Chamber of Commerce and Missouri Retailers Association. Once proposed to work, the employer may question the person about the conviction and is able to analyze the relationship of the job and record, in addition to their behavior since out of prison.
The Columbia Chamber of Commerce and Missouri Retailers have been first to express concerns about the time required to wait for a background check. They believe this background check to be extremely late in the hiring process, however, doing this before the offer will only allow for the discrimination of individuals with a conviction or felony. Research, like in the case of Devah Pager’s “The Mark of Criminal Record”, not only allows us to see the racial disparity between whites and blacks with similar resumes and appearances, but also between white individuals with felonies and black individuals with a clear record. The results demonstrated that while whites applicants are preferred over black applicants, “the negative effect of a criminal conviction is substantially larger for blacks than for whites”, putting blacks at a larger disadvantage. In similar studies, white applicants with felons are more likely to be hired than a black applicant with a similar education and skill set with no conviction. Overall, these studies continue to show the need for banning of “the box” because even when controlling for a conviction or non-conviction background, blacks are still put at a disadvantage. Banning the box will allow the employer’s decision of offering employment to be based on the qualification of the individuals. Therefore, these adjustments to employment practices will and have allowed for the decrease of discrimination and a real opportunity to land a job.
In an attempt to measure the results of the “Ban the Box” laws, its research summary called “Research Finds Fair Chance Policies Support Families and Communities, Increase Public Safety” shows that the adoption of “Ban the Box” laws, also known as the Fair Chance policies, have resulted in positive outcomes. The states that have implemented the Fair Chance policies by implementing equality in employment “found that employment was the single most important influence on decreasing recidivism, and that two years after release nearly twice as many employed people with records had avoided another brush with the law than their unemployed counterparts”. This effectively speaks to the safety concern of society and the effectiveness of the laws. Not to mention, the reduction of discrimination in the hiring process and the ability to provide for their family and themselves - a constant problem in the lives of many who had just gotten out of prison. In terms of the state, “removing job barriers for people with records helps the economy”. Therefore there is a gain in sales tax revenue due to their new possibility of a job and income and also annual savings of “$2 million by keeping them out of the criminal justice system”. In sum, the research summary was intended to show the effectiveness of the laws in states they have already been implemented and clearly they have been successful.
Given these points, there is an urgent need for the implementation of the “Ban the Box” laws all throughout the United States. Former and currently incarcerated people should not lose their rights due to a conviction or arrest. As individuals, we all make mistakes and deserve the opportunity of a second chance, but most importantly as citizens of the United States we should not have to fight for rights that have been guaranteed to us through the Declaration of Independence. Ban the Box allows us to not only keep those principles alive, but also banish the legalization of discrimination that was evident during the Jim Crow era. To be convicted of a crime should not be “your personal badge of inferiority” (95), as Michelle states it currently is. Society should not belittle anyone’s worth nor restrict their rights; they should make their re-integration to society smoother, less restrictive, and less discriminatory by banning the box. In the end they should be allowed to pursue their right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.
