Study: Incentives to Employers Could Help Past Offenders Land Jobs
ALBANY, N.Y. (Aug. 29, 2024) — Millions of Americans with past criminal records are looking for jobs. So how do you convince employers to give record holders a chance?
Professors Shawn Bushway and Justin Pickett from UAlbany’s School of Criminal Justice researched whether offering employers incentives, such as tax credits, would make them more likely to hire those with past convictions. Their experiments show that incentives work, and they recommend that existing policies implementing such incentives be expanded.
Nearly half of all unemployed men prior to the pandemic had at least one adult conviction. But, Bushway said, “the vast majority of these workers are not actively offending. Crime is a young person’s game, and we know people change.”
Bushway noted that New York has some of the most progressive laws around hiring people with records, and “ban-the-box” laws prevent employers from asking job applicants about their criminal records until a tentative offer is made. Still, individuals with previous convictions often have their offers rescinded after employers find out they have a record. These decisions by employers prevent those with records from gaining the kind of social and financial stability that other adults take for granted.
Bushway and Pickett led a study of hiring managers, comparing their employment decisions with and without knowing in advance about criminal records. In both cases, hiring managers were offered incentives – a $2,400 tax credit, $25,000 in insurance against losses from employee dishonesty, or indemnity against negligent hiring lawsuits.
The study, “Direct incentives may increase employment of people with criminal records,” was published in the online, peer-reviewed journal Criminology & Public Policy, the leading policy journal for the American Society of Criminology.
“Across two experiments, we found that a $2,400 tax credit and $25,000 insurance both reduced participants’ reluctance to hire record-holders; they did so under traditional hiring and Ban-the-Box, and they did so regardless of whether applicants had misdemeanor or felony convictions,” the authors wrote, further noting that while such federal incentive programs exist, they are not widely used.
Bushway pointed out that “(o)ur previous research in New York with the Department of Health showed that good things happen when people with prior convictions are hired: The new employees commit less crime, earn more money and employers are able to fill vacant jobs. But society benefits more than employers, so it makes sense for the government to offer employers modest incentives when the only thing keeping the employer from hiring the person is the criminal record.”