Employers Using Criminal Records as Background Checks

It is hard enough in today's world to live without having one indiscretion you had at the ripe old age of let's say twenty years follow you and hunt you down. After you've committed your CHUMP crime, a Driving While Impaired, Possession of a Controlled Substance (namely marijuana), Drinking Under Age, and an array of other NON-VIOLENT crimes, you grow up. As a part of the "grown up" experience you consider that you need a job...you begin filling out online applications, you walk into the variety of chains around our country and you apply. The interview does come because you're a healthy looking person, you're clean cut, you've finally grown up. The interview goes well and then you hear, "once we get your back ground check back, I'll give you a call." And all of a sudden that stupid mistake of yours just two years ago is coming back to haunt you, you know it before it happens. Let's go a bit further, say you're an middle aged adult man or woman, in this economy of cut backs and shut downs, you find yourself without a job. You've worked at the very same job now for well on twenty years so you know that you'll leave it with some consolation, at the very least unemployment. But you also know that unemployment benefits won't pay the bills so you begin to look for work. That Driving While Impaired charge that you got at twenty-two years of age has not crossed your mind in decades, your car insurance is no longer affected by it, it's over. You interview, it goes well and you just know that you got the job because you're qualified, educated, and grown up. The phone rings, it's the company that you interviewed with and wa-la, no job forthcoming, your criminal background check results were in, the D.W.I. HALTS this process. It is not fair. Anyone that has ever had any criminal trouble, REGARDLESS of what crime it was, the debt to society has been paid IF that individual completed his/her sentence, the majority do. It doesn't matter if it was actual prison time or merely the payment of fines, HIS/HER DEBT HAS BEEN PAID. Granted if the crimes were violent it would certainly lend to a more indepth study of what the person allegely did, but some people really do change and some crimes ARE NOT what they seem. According to Google (my favorite search engine) ONE in FOUR Americans have criminal records (http://nelp.3cdn.net...). Also according to Google, the majority of criminals are one time offenders, and the majority are misdemeanors (http://www.drtomoconnor.com...). It has been determined that a MAJORITY of reformed criminals remain reformed, that this same MAJORITY become productive members of our society. Until that is that dreaded cut back or shut down. IT IS THEN THAT THEY BECOME DEPENDENT ON THE TAX PAYER because companies around the world are turning GOOD PEOPLE with VERY GOOD SKILLS away due to a DRIVING WHILE IMPAIRED charge that crept up when the background search was performed. It is downright sad. It has been determined that AT THE VERY LEAST NINETY-THREE PERCENT of the information sold on the black market today regarding PRIVATE individuals has a tonnage of inaccuracies. It has also been determined that sixty-three percent of the information sold about you and I has been sold by the very states that we live in. Have you ever Googled your name? Have you ever entered your name into any people search engine? Try it, you'll be astonished. I have a very unique name, there are twenty-three individuals of the same name nationwide. I do NOT support criminal records as adequate records on any individual, because I know that people can change. I know what it was like to be young, and I know the mistakes that I made. I know too that criminal records are a matter of public record, but really, if I share the same name with twenty-three people on this planet, isn't it likely that I may inherit some of their misgivings...it happened, I can prove it. I think that it is time that WE THE PEOPLE give the systems that are currently in place regarding the often private information about individuals a good revamping. A majority of these systems are antiquated and should be put to rest. We should hold our government accountable for the ACCURATE distribution of information that is PUBLIC RECORD, MAKING THEM CROSS THEIR T's AND DOT THEIR I's. Any pros you may offer will be refuted.