From the Columbus Dispatch:
The “collateral sanctions” bill that raced through the Statehouse last year was hailed as a measure to allow ex-offenders who have paid their debt to society to shake off their records, find jobs and make a fresh start. It is doing just that — but with unintended consequences:
A rapist was cleared to work with children. A woman who’d been charged with murder but was found mentally incompetent to stand trial was cleared to work at a hospital. A person with a pattern of crimes that would make him an undesirable neighbor — menacing, burglary and terrorist threats — was cleared to move into public housing.
In each case, the state’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation had to tell the prospective employer that its applicant had “no criminal record,” when just the opposite was true. This is because provisions in Senate Bill 337 require the state to shield serious criminal histories during the pre-employment background checks it conducts for schools, day-care and senior centers, police departments and children’s services agencies and others.
These omissions are dangerous. They give employers a false sense of security. They give violent people access to unsuspecting victims.
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine is calling on the General Assembly to hold hearings to find a way to preserve the intent of the collateral-sanctions law and still protect the public.
The measure was billed as a way to remove unreasonable roadblocks that afflicted 1.9 million Ohioans. For example, one of the most-frequent sanctions, the revocation of a driver’s license, was tacked onto many crimes unrelated to the operation of a motor vehicle. And someone with a criminal record generally could not get a barber or cosmetology license. Such sanctions are pointless impediments to employment, making it that much more difficult for former inmates to go straight.
But the law also requires BCI to shield highly relevant information, including arrests without convictions. That’s a problem because Ohio counties fail to report one out of 10 convictions to the state’s database. And some conviction notices arrive months late. Further, a pattern of charges that haven’t led to a conviction — for domestic violence, for instance — is telling. It could prevent a wife-beater from becoming a police officer.
Also purged from the background investigations are serious juvenile-court convictions. The laws allow reporting only of murder, aggravated murder and sex crimes, but only if the youth is still required as an adult to report as a sex offender.
“From a common sense-point of view, if I was looking for a foster parent or looking for someone to work with children or to be with children, I would want to know whether they had been convicted of rape,” DeWine told the Associated Press.
Since the law took effect in September, DeWine has compiled a list of 24 background checks — he calls them “horror stories” — in which BCI had to cross its bureaucratic fingers behind its back and report “no criminal record.”
The intent of the law is worthy, but it needs fine-tuning, and soon.
Related Articles:
New Ohio Law Helps Ex-Convicts in Job Hunt to Bury Criminal Past
City Councils, EEOC Grapple with Employment Protections for Ex-Convicts
Ex-convicts in Massachusetts still face tough sell in job market
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