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House Bill 5237, An Act Concerning Fair Chance Employment, is a set of hiring policies for private employers that are designed to ensure that applicants with criminal records are evaluated on the merits of their qualifications, not on their criminal records.
“We have too many hard-working people trying to find jobs that are being disqualified,” said Gomes. “We need to give everyone that is looking for a job a fair shot. I will continue to fight for an employment system that is fair to all our communities.”
The bill was approved in the Senate, and it now moves to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who is expected to sign it into law.
The bill would incorporate “ban the box” policies, which remove the criminal history question from job applications and postpone the background check until a conditional offer is made by the employer.
The bill would also require employers to take into account the age of the offense when making hiring decisions.
Research shows that once an employer has examined the qualifications of a job applicant, the applicant is more likely to be hired. Seven states, including Massachusetts and Rhode Island, have extended fair hiring practices to private employers.
Fair chance hiring policies do not prohibit background checks, but they postpone them until later in the hiring process.
Nationwide, more than 100 cities and counties — including Hartford — have adopted “ban the box” policies to encourage employers to put a candidate’s qualifications first. At the federal level, President Barack Obama backed a “ban-the-box” policy in directing federal agencies to wait until later in the hiring process to look into job applicants’ records.
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