Extending Punishment Beyond Prison

Our ability to get information about people's backgrounds has expanded massively in the past several years. Governmental agencies and private companies have relatively easy access to huge amounts of information about your personal history. This is a little unnerving for most people, and it raises some serious problems for individuals who have a criminal records. People with convictions, or even arrests, on their records are blocked from receiving certain benefits and necessities. In civil legal services, I constantly meet clients who are paying for their crimes long after their sentences are served. And it is not only convicted criminals who are paying: there are significant public costs associated with surveilling convicts and denying them benefits based on what we find.

I work mostly in housing, and old convictions constantly present barriers for my clients. City and state agencies frequently deem individuals with criminal records ineligible for public housing. Private landlords can use background check companies to screen tenants for criminal histories. These background screenings don't only pick up convictions; sometimes arrests or charges of which defendants are acquitted show up. Based on this information, landlords decide not to offer leases. This surveillance also takes place in the employment arena. A criminal conviction can make it difficult or impossible to get a professional license from the state. Like private landlords, employers make increasing use of background checks. If you have a criminal history it will be much harder to get a job. At the margins, this surveillance and discrimination on the basis of criminal record will force people into joblessness and homelessness.

The public cost of homelessness is massive. Coalition for the Homeless in New York City estimates the cost of housing a homeless individual in the shelter system at $23,000 per year. Similarly high costs are reported in other metropolitan areas. People in steady and long term public housing, on the other hand, are much less expensive to support. Similarly, joblessness is an expensive reality for cities and states. Large unemployment rolls cost municipalities huge sums of money in public benefits. Further, joblessness is a big contributing factor to recidivism. It makes sense that if you don't have a place to live, and you don't have a job, you would be more likely to commit another crime. To the extent that there is more crime there are likely to be more prisons funded by public bonds. In other words, a homeless person living in the shelters and without a job is much more expensive to the public than an employed person living in steady housing.

Because of these costs, our willingness to permit public and private background checking turns out to be a very expensive decision. When someone is denied public housing because of a criminal conviction, we have to pay for them to be sheltered. When someone is denied a job, we have to pay for certain public benefits and for the increase in crime that joblessness entails. And it is not just that this policy is expensive. It also results in social and physical segregation and stratification.

At the state level, agencies and courts should make it easier to demonstrate rehabilitation. Some level of background screening is probably necessary, but if someone has served their time we should make it easier for them to move on with their lives. The use of background checks by private companies should be more sharply regulated. Private organizations are not as easily subject to democratic control, and it doesn't make sense to subsidize their preferences by paying for their decisions.