House Bill 1388 restricts some employers from asking potential employees for their criminal history on their initial job application. (Thickstock)
Re: Why Colorado should ‘ban the box’ on job applications, April 5 guest commentary.
As justification for House Bill 1388 — which would ban employers from including a question about past convictions on job application forms — the authors note that roughly 20 percent of Colorado citizens have a criminal record. They contend that allowing employers to screen for criminal records will condemn former offenders to a life of poverty. With state unemployment at 4.2 percent, most of the 20 percent with criminal records have jobs. Those who do not are likely to have few job skills, no GED, or habits that keep getting them fired. We should address those problems by putting resources into prison programs for job training, GEDs, and success skills and requiring progress in those programs before parole.
Forbidding employers from screening for prior offenses would mean churches and mom-and-pop businesses would not know if an embezzler applied to be the bookkeeper; colleges would not know if a prostitute applied to be a dorm mother; hospitals would not know if a drug abuser applied to be a nurse.
Ray Harlan, Aurora
This letter was published in the April 12 edition.
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