Download - HRMG 3003 Ex-Felons Denied Employment
Ex-Felons Denied Employment 1
Ex-Felons Denied Employment
Final Project Paper
HRMG 3001-3/MGMT 3003-3
Instructor:
Walden University
By William Linville
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Abstract
The topic this author has chosen to research is that of the Patriot Act and Anti-
Terrorist Acts which is being applied as a discrimination tactic by some employers
against the hiring of ex-offenders who have ex-felony cases more than 10 years old and
who were not convicted of drug crimes or terrorist acts within the United States or other
countries. It has been brought to my attention over the past two years that many
employers deny ex-felons employment opportunities due to their past involvement within
the Department of Corrections. And supposedly these denials have been reported as part
of the rights of the employer due to the Patriot Act and theAnti-Terrorist Act enacted in
2001.
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The purpose of the paper is to prevent further discrimination of these individuals
by employers and to make awareness of this situation to those who are in power to
change stated laws so as to not reflect on individuals who are American Citizens and do
not deserve this type of stereotyping as terrorist. Within the confines of this paper the
reality check of what the Anti-Terrorist Act and Patriot Act is actually about and its
purposes as well as why it was enacted.
The Anti-Terrorism Act
The Antiterrorism Act of 1996 was a response to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center
and the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. “This Act was the loss of the American
First Amendment Rights of freedom of speech, assembly, and petition and simply placed one in violation
of the Act by guilt of association.” (Cole, David and Dempsey, James, 2002) There were no longer any
barriers to FBI or other federal investigations upon the American public including surveillance and
methods that catch income and outgoing telephone calls. “It also called for open door policies with
Immigration and Naturalization services to deport Muslim citizens all based on secret evidence and nothing
else was needed for deportation of the Muslim people.” (Cole, David and Dempsey, James, 2002)
The Patriot Act Purpose of Enactment
“The Department of Justice's first priority is to prevent future terrorist attacks.
Since its passage following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Patriot Act has played a
key part - and often the leading role - in a number of successful operations to protect
innocent Americans from the deadly plans of terrorists dedicated to destroying America
and our way of life. While the results have been important, in passing the Patriot Act,
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Congress provided for only modest, incremental changes in the law. Congress simply
took existing legal principles and retrofitted them to preserve the lives and liberty of the
American people from the challenges posed by a global terrorist network.” (Department
of Justice, 2012) This statement is quite proficient in that most certainly it does help to
quill the assault of terrorist such as those involved in the Oklahoma City bombing of the
Murrah building and the attacks on the Trade Center in New York, however the question
that remains here is how does it actually effect American populations and their civil
liberty rights as well as the ability to gain employment to provide for themselves and
their families?
Perhaps sitting in your living room and watching television trials and juries
handing down guilty votes with sentences to imprisonment for various crimes and
numerous years of incarceration is just that a “television show.” However, reality is that
this occurs in our communities each day in every state in America. The sentences are
often excessive for non-violent offenders and more excessive for violent offenders as a
rule dependent upon the crime and prior convictions. We rely heavily upon our state
courts to give righteous retribution and give those people who commit crimes the proper
punishments.
Indeed within our American society prison inmates are one of the greatest
costs we face. However, how long must the punishment for these offenses go on after
their payment to society for their deeds? And must their families and children continue
suffer poverty as well due to lack of employment? Are we Americans who have paid
taxes to support these imprisoned inmates now to support them on welfare and
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unemployment when they are now free citizens and able to support themselves and their
families? I ask again how long must punishment continue?
The National Security Letters (NSL) authorized in Title 5 of the Patriot Act is an
administrative subpoena used by a number of government agencies, according to Philip
Giraldi (2011) “the NSL is used to obtain documents and information relating to any
individual or to organizations, to include employment, health, financial, and credit
records. There is no requirement for probable cause and there is no judicial oversight of
the process. The recipient of the NSL cannot reveal that he has received the letter to
anyone and can be prosecuted if he violates that restriction. At FBI, the letters can be
issued by any Special Agent in Charge of any field office, which means that the authority
to approve a NSL is essentially local, is not reviewed at a higher level, and does not have
to be linked to any actual terrorism case. As of 2005, the NSLs had been used to obtain
more than one million personal records, including medical histories and credit reports. A
Justice Department investigation determined that most had nothing to do with terrorism.”
Anti-Terrorism Act
The Act was requested for enactment by President George Bush and enacted by
the many others in Congress who wanted to increase governmental powers over
Americans thereby the 9/11 attacks were a most valid excuse to pass the Patriot Act
which was already written and just needed an opportunity to be passed by the frightful
American public. The Act gives the American government the right to spy on its citizens
and retrieve any information on its citizens that it chooses to do so including the emails,
wiretapping phone calls and medical records etc. anything the government desires to
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know about a citizen. In essence American citizens or anyone else who lives in America
has absolutely no privacy.
“The American Civil Liberties Union, say that the Act has undone previous
checks on civil liberty abuses of the past and unnecessarily endangers privacy and
discourages free speech.” (Search Data Management 2012)
How These Acts Effect Employment for Ex-Felons
As previously stated it has been brought to this authors’ attention that due to the
Patriot Act and Anti-Terrorism Act effects ex-felons within the state of Oklahoma are
now being denied employment by a large number of businesses including the State
Department of Substance abuse and Mental Health services, as well as many
manufacturing companies and hiring in agencies. This author’s involvement began when
advised by a reliable resource Mr. L., that he had applied for several positions of
employment throughout the state for over eight months and had been told that although
he met the qualifications and exceeded qualifications in most respect the “one thing that
kept him from being hired was the fact that he had a 30 year old felony conviction.”
Of course, I did not just take Mr. L’s perspective on the situation and yet this
seemingly discriminatory act greatly interested this author and through much in-depth
research it was found that Mr. L was a most reliable source as many of these companies
were personally contacted by me and interviewed as to their policies concerning hiring
ex-felons in the State of Oklahoma. Although State of Oklahoma laws specifically forbid
the discriminatory practice of not hiring ex-felons and many businesses specifically state
within their policies a time frame of 5-10 years after incarceration including some truck
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driving training schools before hiring ex-felons the source herein was not able to work
anywhere in the state of Oklahoma at a job he was more than qualified for.
This author further contacted a person who has a very high position within the
State of Oklahoma Mental Health and Substance Abuse agency as well as had
involvement with the Oklahoma Department of Corrections and was specifically
informed after in-depth questioning that the “bottom line is that no one is really interested
in hiring felons due to the Anti-Terrorist Act, so the best you can advise Mr. L is to find a
job in another state.”
I found this actually an intriguing statement especially from a State of Oklahoma
Department head and thereby continued research into this matter further with examining
the written Anti-Terrorism Act and its predecessor the Patriot Act. I also took my
curiosity further wondering how other states viewed these two acts and how they affected
employment by ex-felons within those states. I therefore had Mr. L., apply for several
positions in manufacturing, warehouse work, management, and three truck driving
schools in the States of Missouri, Texas, Kentucky and Arkansas. All positions were
denied and all referenced the fact that Mr. L was an ex-felon was the cause of inaction on
the parts of the parties.
Although it has not been mentioned at this point, I might add that each of the
agencies contacted and applied positions for were those who claimed to be Equal
Opportunity Employers which are governed by the Federal Equal Employment
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Opportunity (EEO) Laws which prohibit job discrimination as stated in Section II under
Discrimination Practices are as follows:
1. “hiring and firing;
2. compensation, assignment, or classification of employees;
3. transfer, promotion, layoff, or recall;
4. job advertisements;
5. recruitment;
6. testing;
7. use of company facilities;
8. training and apprenticeship programs;
9. fringe benefits;
10. pay, retirement plans, and disability leave; or
11. other terms and conditions of employment.
Discriminatory practices under these laws also include:
1. harassment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin,
disability, genetic information, or age;
2. retaliation against an individual for filing a charge of discrimination,
participating in an investigation, or opposing discriminatory practices;
3. employment decisions based on stereotypes or assumptions about the
abilities, traits, or performance of individuals of a certain sex, race, age,
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religion, or ethnic group, or individuals with disabilities, or based on
myths or assumptions about an individual's genetic information; and
4. denying employment opportunities to a person because of marriage to, or
association with, an individual of a particular race, religion, national
origin, or an individual with a disability. Title VII also prohibits
discrimination because of participation in schools or places of worship
associated with a particular racial, ethnic, or religious group.
Employers are required to post notices to all employees advising them of their
rights under the laws EEOC enforces and “their right to be free from retaliation.” Such
notices must be accessible, as needed, to persons with visual or other disabilities that
affect reading.” (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2012)
The Laws also include age, sex, religion discrimination etc. however, in
examination of the EEO laws no place does it designate specifically discrimination
against ex-felons. Nor does it specifically state anything a person can do about these
employers who refuse to hire ex-felons all of which this author believed was quite
negligent due to the large prison populations in the United States and common sense that
many of these populations have been released over the years which are employable. With
these specific thoughts in mind I contacted several recently released inmates from both
the women and men facilities in the State of Oklahoma and found that only about 10% of
50 persons had been actually hired in a position, even though the position were menial
labor positions and paid minimum wage. None of the fifty were related to violent, drug,
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assault, or terrorist crimes yet were found unworthy of jobs in their communities due to
prior incarceration.
Title 4 and Title 8 of the Patriot Act deal with defining terrorism. “The definition
was broadened to include many criminal acts hitherto regarded as non-terrorism, to
include mass destruction, assassination, kidnapping, intimidation, coercion, and
racketeering. It also includes activities “dangerous to human life.” The definition of
terrorist support activity was also made extremely broad and elastic, meaning that even a
letter to the editor defending a terrorist group or the inadvertent contribution to a charity
that was somehow linked to a group that the State Department had defined as terrorist
could lead to criminal prosecution. Under the new law, any alien, including legal
residents, who is arrested on terrorist related charges can be detained indefinitely under
orders from the Attorney General. The evidence used to determine that the accused had
possible links to terrorist organizations can be withheld at the discretion of the Justice
Department and cannot be challenged, which means that it can be based on suspicion or
uncorroborated information. There is no guarantee of any kind of due process for those
who are arrested.” (Giraldi, Philip, 2011)
In conclusion during 2010 according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (2010)
“the number of persons under supervision of adult correctional authorities reached 7.1
million at yearend. About 7 in 10 persons under the supervision of adult correctional
systems were supervised in the community (4,887,900) on probation or parole at yearend
2010, while about 3 in 10 were incarcerated (2,266,800) in local jails or in the custody of
state or federal prisons.”
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Employers continue to deny employment opportunities to those who are under
Department of Corrections jurisdiction (i.e., probationers) as well as those who have been
released as free American citizens again into society as the Equal Employment
Opportunity laws are cast to the side under the veil of the Patriot Act and Anti-Terrorism
Act. Our counties, states and the United States as a whole are going under due to
financial difficulties and yet we continue to pay taxes and provide available welfare for
recipients who are employable but cannot find an employer to hire them. What is wrong
with this picture?
WE cannot object due to being in duress from our own government who sees
objection as a tool of terrorism to this country! This is the insanity we have come to
because of our fears and our loss of power over our government and legislation. We have
become lax and dependent upon the government for our welfare where and when does it
stop. Who has given us the right to judge others. The foundation of this country was built
by prisoners sent here from England and other countries. Seems to this author it America
turned out fairly well, now if we can get our government back in check our America will
be what is has always represented “Freedom and new life for all.”
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References
Cole, David and Dempsey, James X. (2002) Terrorism and the Constitution: Sacrificing
Civil Liberties in the Name of National Security. Counterpunch
http://www.counterpunch.org/2002/10/19/anti-terrorism/
Department of Justice (2012) The USA Patriot Act: Preserving Life and Liberty
http://www.justice.gov/archive/ll/highlights.htm
HR Bill Anti-Terrorist Act (2001) What the Patriot Act Does for You
http://epic.org/privacy/terrorism/ata2001_text.pdf
Giraldi, Philip (2001) What the Patriot Act Does For You
http://original.antiwar.com/giraldi/2011/03/30/what-the-patriot-act-does-for-you/
Search Data Management (2012) Patriot Act
http://searchdatamanagement.techtarget.com/definition/Patriot-Act
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEO) (2012) Federal Laws
Prohibiting Job Discrimination Questions and Answers
http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/qanda.html