Bills would keep past crimes from affecting job search
Eric Smith of Chicago is ready to take over his grandmother’s funeral home when she retires, but he can’t. That’s because Smith earned a criminal record when he was 17, and that mistake 27 years ago prevents him from obtaining the state license he needs.
“I went to school for three degrees and two certificates,” Smith said, “and each time, I was denied because of my criminal background from when I was 17 years old.”
Smith testified before a legislative committee in Springfield on Tuesday, asking lawmakers to support a bill which would remove certain restrictions keeping people with criminal records from doing many jobs which are often unrelated to their past crime.
“I’m asking for an opportunity,” Smith said.
“I was always told when I was growing up that education is something they can’t take from you, but they didn’t tell me that people can stop you from using it.”
That legislation is one of a trio of bills supported by the conservative Illinois Policy Institute to make it easier for people who have completed the punishment for their crime to become self-sufficient through work.
Bryant Jackson-Green, a criminal justice policy analyst with IPI, says Illinois has a problem with recidivism. Currently, about 45 percent of inmates wind up back in prison within three years of release. Meanwhile, the state spent $1.4 billion on the state prison system last year, with a per-inmate cost of about $21,000. Efforts to reduce the prison population and save the state money are already under way as a state panel examines changes to criminal laws, the courts and even prisons. However, Jackson-Green says there’s another area ripe for reform: removing restrictions to work for people with criminal records.
State law and regulations prevent people with criminal records from obtaining one of at least 118 professional licenses required to work in certain jobs. Examples include licenses for such diverse jobs as registered nurse, insurance broker, roofer and even barber.
Jackson-Green says people who find employment after prison are significantly less likely to reoffend. He adds that people tend to “age out of crime,” so the restrictions sometimes punish people for youthful indiscretions they’re unlikely to repeat. Additionally, there is typically little or no connection between the crime committed and the job from which a person is excluded.
House Bill 5973 would eliminate restrictions that currently prevent people convicted of most nonviolent offenses from obtaining certain professional licenses. The bill would prohibit the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, which oversees many state licensing programs, from using criminal history as its sole reason for denying a license unless the crime relates to the license being sought. Jackson-Green gives the example that someone convicted of embezzlement could still be denied a license to work in the financial sector.
The bill passed the House Business and Occupational Licenses Committee on Tuesday with a 6-4 vote.
Under separate legislation, House Bill 5533, employers would be protected from “negligent hiring” lawsuits based solely on having hired someone with a criminal record. The bill only applies to people who didn’t commit sex crimes or other violent crimes. Jackson-Green says such lawsuits are actually pretty rare, but the bill is meant to provide employers some peace of mind when considering hiring someone with a criminal record.
A third bill, House Bill 6328, would expand the state’s existing allowance for destroying or “expunging” criminal records. Currently, state law mandates that someone seeking to have an arrest record expunged must have never been convicted of a criminal offense. The bill would eliminate that provision, while also eliminating a fee for expungement in certain cases.
That bill was amended on Tuesday from an earlier version which would have expanded the state allowance for sealing records. Unlike with expungement, records which are sealed remain intact, but they can only be accessed with a court order, and the names of the accused parties no longer appear in searchable records.
Despite opposition from the Illinois State’s Attorneys Association, the Illinois Retail Merchants Association and the Illinois State Police, the amended version of the bill passed the House Judiciary Criminal Committee on Monday with a 12-3 vote.
