Senator Sponsors Bill to ‘Ban the Box’
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Should Alabamians have to disclose whether they have a criminal background on employment applications? One Senator doesn’t think so and he’s sponsoring a bill that would get that question removed.
This piece of legislation is called “ban the box” and some say it would help reduce Alabama’s prison population.
Richard Bell says he dreads employment applications for one reason.
“I can’t get a job because of the box.”
The box asks whether someone has ever been convicted of a crime. And now there’s a push to get the question removed from Alabama application forms.
“We know that when you fill out applications for employment, a lot of times, one of the first things that you see is this question,” says Senator Quinton Ross of Montgomery.
Ross is sponsoring legislation to ‘ban the box.’ He says it weeds out individuals who would otherwise be good employees.
“We’re giving them an opportunity to, at least, get through a second interview because then you can divulge your particular issue, your particular situation.”
The bill is now in committee, where several advocacy groups are looking into it. Alabama Appleseed, a non-profit, non-partisan organization that deals with public policy supports the bill.
“We should think it ought to be called the job opportunity act for qualified applicants,” says John Pickens.
Pickens is the Executive Director of Alabama Appleseed and says banning the box would help with prison reform by reducing the number of inmates.
“If they don’t get out and get support and have a fair opportunity to get a job then it’s probably a matter of time before they’re back in the same place where they came from,” he says.
And nobody understands that better than Bell, who tells us he believes employers discriminate when he checks YES.
“They throw it to the corner probably,” he says, “I mean, I don’t know what they do. But at the end of the day, I want to be the next man. There’s millions of people that have got felonies.”
Although we only found those who support banning the box, there are no doubt many people who are against it, including employers. There are concerns that getting rid of the box would burden businesses, who have to spend money to recruit employees and do background checks.
