Through the experience of one formerly incarcerated woman looking for work, this article explores how a feeling of captivity resonates not only with the imprisoned but also with the recently released. Burch, M. (2019). Captive afterlives in the age of mass conviction. History and Anthropology, 30(5), 515–520. https://doi.org/10.1080/02757206.2019.1638778

Through an up-close look at the daily interactions of hiring managers, workforce development professionals, and job-seekers with felony convictions in Southern California, this book explores how a convergence of policy, law, and profit drives the use of criminal background checks in hiring. Burch, Melissa. The Criminal Record Complex: Risk, Race, Capital, and Hiring in America. Princeton University Press, 2025.

Do Ban the Box policies really work? This article compares data from before and after BtB policies were implemented in Minnesota to show how attitudes and practices among hiring managers have stayed fairly similar. Employers rarely face consequences for noncompliance and can use criminal background checks and employment history as a substitute for a criminal record question on an application. Schneider, L. E., Vuolo, M., Lageson, S. E., & Uggen, C. (2021). Before and after ba

Many colleges use criminal record history in their admission processes and can deny a student admission purely based on a criminal conviction. However, many of the reasons why administrators used criminal background screening on applicants have no supporting evidence for their effectiveness. This article presents four lines for additional research: whether a college education can reduce recidivism, whether collecting criminal records on applications discriminates against cert

The human resources department of businesses have adopted criminal background checks as a tool for screening job applicants even though U.S. law does not require it. An employer can be punished if an employee commits harm while on the job and the hiring process didn’t show “reasonable care” toward the employee’s potential for harm. Because it’s unclear what “reasonable care” means, HR departments often turn to criminal background checks as a cheap and easy method for avoiding

Calling for a fundamental shift in the accessibility of criminal records, this piece offers a concrete proposal for how to legally reconceptualize criminal records, arguing that current remedial measures like ban the box and certificates of relief largely miss the point. Criminal records, says the author, should not be available to the general public and only in rare cases should certain employers be able to run background checks. Provides a helpful overview of the growth of

People with criminal records are often forced to find work through unofficial means, or by 'working around the law' because of the barriers they face to standard employment. Using qualitative interviews with formerly incarcerated people, this study finds that job seekers with criminal records often resort to one of four methods in order to find work, ranging from omitting their criminal record on job applications to undertaking illegal work. Augustine, D. (2019). Working aro

Collateral consequences have effectively resurrected the colonial era of 'civil death' (a state in which a person's legal status is diminished) and must be understood as punishment, in the same way that civil death was. The author argues that every person being charged with a crime should be informed of their impending civil death if convicted, and provides an a sample template for how to do so. Chin, G. J. (2012). The New Civil Death: Rethinking Punishment in the Era of Mass

Many believe that a background check is necessary to create and maintain a safe workplace. The underlying assumption is that it can...

All of Us or None v. Hamrick In May 2021, the appellate court in California ruled in All of Us or None v. Hamrick that trial courts in...

Requiring people who have been convicted of sex offenses to register on a list that is publicly accessible appears to do more harm than...

People who are required to register on a sex offender list are more likely to be homeless, in large part because shelters are less likely...

Courts should be required to inform people charged with a crime of any consequences, legal or otherwise, that a reasonable person would...

Prisons perpetuate the criminalization of specific groups of people by sorting and labeling them as gang members. Analyzing how Latinx...

As the most commonly imposed criminal sentence in the U.S., probation functions to expand the sprawling reach of the carceral state. This...

Collateral consequences are imposed as a measure of preventative risk management and should be regulated as such, rather than regulated...

Informal collateral consequences can be just as harmful as those that are considered formal. In addition to alleviating the impacts of...

People with criminal records face a multitude of barriers after incarceration. This article explains what collateral consequences are,...

Collateral consequences are actually not 'invisible' as they are discussed relatively frequently during court proceedings. This article...

The unemployment rate in the U.S. would be higher if fewer people were incarcerated. By analyzing employment and prison data, this...