Criminal Background Checks and Access to Jobs: A Case Study of Washington, DC

“This report examines the collateral consequences [of criminal background checks] specific to job opportunities using Washington, DC, as a case study” (p.v). It “examines how background checks, local and national regulations, and the nature of the Washington, DC’s labor market create hurdles for justice-involved people looking for jobs.

First, [the authors] estimate the number of Washington, DC, residents with criminal records to determine how many people are affected by the issue. Then [the authors] dive into the ways they are affected, analyzing the policy landscape to determine how heavily local regulations affect the job opportunities of justice-involved people and identifying aspects of Washington, DC’s labor market that limit employment opportunities for people with criminal records. [The authors] contextualize the issue by describing its total impact on vulnerable groups and communities, and [the authors] conclude by describing programs and practices under way that could help mitigate the challenges, along with the opportunities for further research to better inform policy and practice” (p.2). “These programs, some through the city’s government and others through local nonprofits, include the provision of job training and legal recourses for justice-involved people who may have been unfairly denied employment” (p.v-vi).

“[T]o understand what information employers may be seeing in background checks, [the authors] accessed publicly available court records from 2007 to 2016” (p.3) on the District of Columbia Courts’ website. “The main objective of analyzing these data was to estimate how many people have a criminal record available online and understand the type of disposition—that is, ‘convicted’ and ‘not convicted’” (p.18). The authors pulled all “criminal cases from January 1, 2007 to December 31, 2016, including felonies (levels I, II, III), misdemeanors, domestic violence, traffic offenses, and criminal contempt. The raw data included approximately 151,000 criminal cases. [The authors] screened out approximately 39,000 cases… [resulting in an analysis sample of] 112,359 cases” (p.18). The report also draws on an “employer-specific labor market dataset for Washington, DC, through Burning Glass Technology” (p.7), as well as interviews with stakeholders, local regulations, and findings from other studies.

(Abstractor: Author and Website Staff)

“Limited data make it difficult to estimate exactly how many people in Washington, DC, are affected by having criminal backgrounds….[The authors] estimate that approximately 68,000 people in Washington, DC, have criminal records” (p.v). This equates to “approximately 1 in 7 DC residents….However, just under 35,000 people, or 1 in 14, have a recorded conviction in the past 10 years….In other words, nearly half of people with criminal records may not have been convicted of a crime, but they may still be flagged in criminal background reports submitted to employers” (p.3). “Examining local regulations and DC’s labor market reveals that justice-involved people—whether formerly incarcerated or not—face significant challenges finding work in the city. Some local regulations limit the jobs these people can qualify for; even the recent ‘ban the box’ legislation…has significant exemptions. Most online job postings in Washington, DC, call for high education levels or many years of experience, while only 4 percent of people exiting prison in Washington, DC, have college degrees. Whether incarcerated or not, justice-involved people average fewer years of job experience, more gaps in employment, and lower educational attainment” (p.v). The authors also describe “how finding jobs for those with criminal history is further compounded by income and race” (p.11). • “Stable housing, access to education, reliable transportation, and legal identification documents…are all important to obtaining and maintaining employment, but they require resources to facilitate” (p.12). • “Following the national trend, Black or ethnic minority residents are disproportionately represented across every part of the criminal justice system in Washington, DC—from arrests to jail to prison” (p.12). • “[S]tudies [outside of Washington, DC,] have yielded mixed results [on the ban-the-box initiative], with the most recent research findings suggesting that employers are `screening out’ candidates of color earlier in the process” (p.13). The authors highlight three programs in the Washington, DC, area that use a variety of strategies to assist justice-involved people. Promising practices include linking and building relationships with local employers, providing job readiness and job search assistance, and connecting job seekers with barriers to employment to city sponsored entrepreneurial services and free legal clinics. (Abstractor: Author and Website Staff)

• Last Updated:
• Created:
• Resource Publication Date: 2017
• Author(s): Duane, Marina; Reimal, Emily; and Lynch, Mathew.
• Organizational Author(s): Urban Institute
• Resource Availability: Publicly available
• Posted by: Wesley Peterson
• Posted in: Workforce System Strategies