People who are not employers have no idea how vulnerable we are to the people we hire. We may have our life savings and our life's work invested in a small business (or even a big business – think the drunk who rammed the Exxon Valdez), and it is all at the mercy of the driver we hire to deliver our goods, or the bookkeeper we hire to pay our bills. A driver who drinks, a bookkeeper who embezzles your money instead of paying the IRS, can ruin everything.

I once “laid off” (so she could collect unemployment – I'm not totally heartless) an assistant who came back from lunch and proudly showed me the umbrella she had “found” on a clothes rack at the store where she was shopping, where some other shopper had left it. What if she “found” a deposit that hadn't been properly entered in my books? I still needed to be able to sleep at night, and if she'd steal a $4 umbrella and think it was something to be proud of, what would she do when the opportunity presented itself to lift $10,000 or $50,000?

I also fired a young woman who became addicted to cocaine as a result of which she lied to me repeatedly about why she wasn't coming in to work on time or at all, or doing tasks that had been assigned to her. I organized an intervention and got her into treatment (again – not totally heatless), but she had lied over and over, and I could no longer trust her, so she had to go.

It isn't about retribution or revenge, it's all about risk. It's easy to argue for non-discrimination in employment on the basis of past felony convictions, when you don't have anything at stake and other people will be taking the risks.

While Jazz is correct that employers refusing to hire ex-prisoners does not represent a violation of their civil rights, it also doesn't do a lot for society. Fallenone is (IMO) absolutely correct when he points out that denying employment increases the chances of recidivism. The more that is done to alienate these people from society the more likely it is that they will continue to do things that are wrong.

Once convicted of a felony, an offender is locked out of society (as we think of it) *forever*. There is no end to the punishment in many cases. Employment, in particular, is the biggest problem. As anyone who's ever applied for a job knows, applications include a “have you ever been convicted of a felony” question. A “yes” answer there, generally, send that application (and hope for a job) right into the circular file.

In regards to employment, a problem surfaces when an employer denies someone an opportunity for redemption. It is all too common that no matter what crime we're discussing, society routinely denies employment to people with criminal records (unless you're rich and famous like Michael Vick). Research shows steady employment and housing reduces recidivism, yet society would rather shun them or whip out the torches and pitchforks. Instability is a critical factor in recidivism, so what does that tell you about the impact of NIMBYism?

You all err in justifying the discrimination of *ex offenders based upon their past. People who hate other groups use the same techniques, many will find the worst example to use then generalize it to everyone in the target group and call it “typical.” So we have a “kidnapping stereotype” which results in a high-profile murder which sparks raw emotions of the people (and usually, a law named after the murdered person). But what we call a stereotypical kidnapping is actually quite rare, according to the NISMART-2, which was done by the NCMEC, ironically the same organization that helped fuel the stereotype to begin with! And in generalizing, we assume all *ex offenders rape/ murder children. But there are many on the registry that never harmed a child and are on the registry for the most asinine things: one teen had consensual relations with another teen, another prosecuted under an antiquated law, drunks who pee in public, a woman who let her teen daughter have sex in her own home, or that guy who grabbed a teen's arm to scold her after she ran directly in front of his moving car. They're all on the list, and routinely discriminated against too.

Punishment should end then the end of sentence date passes. Yet we thirst for revenge. Our laws and beliefs are motivated by this bloodlust. You can justify it in your mind all you want but it does not make discrimination against ex offenders any more right than discriminating against all blacks because some of them may have committed some violent crimes — its a copout. Truth @ http://www.oncefallen.com