Prospective Job Applicants Should Not Be Asked To Reveal Prior Criminal Convictions

Judge, I would like to start by refuting the Opposition's points, strengthening my own, and then adding two new points to the table for my side. Refuting The Opposition's first point was that this can affect the safety of the work environment. According to Forbes, if the crime in any way relates to the job, interviewers have access to all necessary information, showing that it isn't dangerous. And even if it was, according to the Guardian, less than half of criminals with jobs ever commit another crime. So there"s not a high chance that it will be dangerous. And also, people who have committed crimes that can put your life in imminent danger are in jail. If you are arrested for murder or assault, you will stay in prison for a long time - anywhere from 50 years to life! But either way, there are not many criminals out there who have committed dangerous crimes. Their second point was that it could harm the reputation of the business. How, judge? Are you going to tell everyone that you are hiring people with criminal records? And, if everybody agrees and we pass this law, it won't even be an issue, Plus, if driminals don't commit a crime, which chances are they WON'T as I mentioned earlier, then it won't matter whether they have a criminal past or not. Strengthening The Opposiition's refute to my first point, that everybody deserves a second chance, was that some people will return to a life of crime, and that not all criminals do not get jobs. However, I would like to say that according to the Los Angeles Times, 1 in 2.3 Americans without criminal records have jobs, as of 2013, where as 1 in 16 Americans with criminal records have jobs. Judge, this is showing that those who have a criminal record, even one as minor as multiple traffic violations, has a lesser chance of getting job, and as I mentioned earlier, even though some people do commit crimes again, statistics show that having a job GREATLY reduces this risk, and if the majority do not reoffend, we should not be afraid of the few who do, because we are losing many job applicants to the rare chance that they may commi another crime. This point remains valid. Their refute to my second point, that not getting a job can lead to reoffends, was that this is correlation not causation. Let me up this another way, judge. I said 'can' and 'lead'. The Opposition is right, it would be a complete coincidence if not getting a job meant reoffense. However, I said can lead to, which means in SOME situations it will BEGIN the road o reoffense, it is a lot of chance, however, the pieces seem to fall in this manner quite frequently, and, seeing as this is the only logical explanation, it is not simply a correlation, for not getting a job leads to a lack of necessary supplies, which means there are few ways to acquire them, one being thievery. Judge, since I have shown that the majority of people follow this path, causation or not, it is more likely that someone will reoffend if they do not get a job and therefore this point remains valid. Their refute to my third point, that it is discrimination to have a bias against job applicants with criminal record, was saying that it is a false point. I beg to differ, for the New York Times FLAT OUT STATED that it is classified as discrimination to turn away job applications with criminal history on them, and that is exactly what job interviewers are doing, showing that this point is still true and their refute was invalid. My new points Point Four: This will help America"s problem of massive unemployment. This will help our unemployment rate with ex convicts, bringing more employment to them, and as a chain reaction, it"ll help America"s unemployment rate. 1 in 4 Americans have a criminal history-millions. So when we remove the bias, think of how much more steady we"ll be, how much more employed. The current unemployment rate for people returning from convictions is 60 to 75 percent for those a year out of jail. This is because of the bias behind those with a check mark in that box. Realize that the employer only asks whether someone has been incarcerated, not why. Why is crucial. Why they were in jail can have nothing to do with the job they are seeking, and yet there is bias just because of that question. This has to do with unemployment, a problem plaguing America, because then they aren"t going to be able to find a job, then they can"t provide for themselves, then they go back to their old ways. But that is all in the past, and it should be, but that isn"t going to happen when we stop asking. We are going to see an upwards spike of more employment if we stop asking. When you don't ask about prior convictions, as demonstrated in Minneapolis, where a ban the box act was passed in 2007, ex convicts who were able to find a job went from 6 percent to 60. That is a huge leap! Just see how it could benefit our unemployment rate, a huge issue for this country. Point Five: It"ll also bring down the prisoner rate while it brings up the employment rate. I was just talking about how when an ex convict cannot get a job, it can very likely lead to reoffense because if they can"t provide for themselves, they might just steal to get things for themselves, and therefore re enter prison. A study in New York City found that applicants were 50% less likely to be called back to a job or offered one if they had previously been incarcerated. Again, there is a lot of wrongful bias here. And over 40% of people who go to prison in the U.S. go back within 3 years after they have left, and this discrimination against ex convicts is at least part of the reason why. This, of course, demonstrates that we won"t have as many people going to prison if we just don"t ask or judge someone"s past. And of course that benefits our issue with the prison system. In conclusion, I have refuted all of the Opposition's points and strengthened my own, plus added two new points to the table, showing that it is 5:0 now judge, and the Proposition should clearly win this debate.