Criminal records, Part II

“You know, if we did that, they’d worm us.”

—One old dog to another as they watched a couple of kids break dance.

Driver applicants with criminal records, like dogs and kids that dance around, will be treated differently. The reason one driver gets the job and the other doesn’t depends on several factors. Severity, job relatedness, timing and certainty are the main factors.

• Severity
  Severity means “How bad was the crime”? Criminal actions are separated into two broad categories: felonies and misdemeanors.
  A felony is more serious than a misdemeanor and is usually defined as “A serious offense carrying a penalty of incarceration from one year to life in prison, to the death penalty.” A misdemeanor is usually defined as “An offense of a minor degree, anything less than a felony.
• Job relatedness
  A “minor” crime or misdemeanor may be more pertinent or job related than a serious or felony crime.
  
  How? Say you own a construction company and need some extra hands at an excavation project. One individual applies for a job, looks good, but has a conviction for felony embezzlement. Should you automatically reject the guy? After all, if the person wants to slyly peek around and sneak a dirt clod or two in his pocket to take home, what of it?
  On the other hand, assume you are hiring drivers to haul away the dirt fill that Mr. Sticky Fingers hasn't put in his pockets. One person who applies for this position “just” has a misdemeanor on his record: a “Driving While Intoxicated” (DWI) conviction. If you hire this individual and he has an accident that injures someone while drinking, you might as well buy a mirror and start practice saying, “it was just a misdemeanor” without looking dumb. Good Luck.
  The point? Severity and job-relatedness should be considered together.
• Timing
  The older the crime (with good conduct since) the less relevant. There is a big difference in a crime committed 20 years ago and a crime committed 2 months ago.
• Certainty
  Did the person do the crime? Several important terms:
  • Arrest: Taking an individual into custody by law enforcement for the purposes of charging them with an illegal act.
  • Conviction: Guilty verdict in a jury trial.
  • Disposition: The final settlement in a matter This can be a conviction, finding of innocence or acquittal.
  Arrests are different than convictions because in the United States, we are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Agencies that sell criminal records to employers aren’t even supposed to give employers arrest-only records that are older than 7 years. Employers need to understand the difference. If you were arrested—but the disposition of your case was not a conviction—employers cannot hold that against you without walking a legal tightrope.
  
  To summarize, a criminal record should be evaluated by employers in terms of severity, job-relatedness, timing and certainty. Next month: determining if you have a record (even if you’ve never committed a crime) and dealing with it.
  

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