"Negligent Hiring" is the Life Blood of Recidivism

Much of the negative emotion I experienced upon encountering repeated denials in my search for employment dissipated when I learned of the real reason employers refuse to hire me.  As with virtually all convicted persons who find difficulty landing solid employment opportunities, those rejections slowly, but surely, began to eat away at my self concept.  While I had long embraced and processed my responsibility for my past criminal behavior, those most often non-verbal and non-responsive denials challenged the poise and confidence I had cultivated over the years, as I prepared for my release from prison.  As a first-time offender, I naively believed that once I had served my time for my crime, my positive attitude, highly-developed character, and educational achievements would open doors for me.  When that didn't happen as readily as I anticipated, I was essentially dumbstruck.  Then I learned about "negligent hiring."

Negligent hiring is the legal doctrine that often renders employers financially liable for the misbehavior of convicted persons in the workplace.  You'll find a recent article on the nexus between negligent hiring and the chronically high unemployment rate of convicted persons here. Once I understood negligent hiring, I understood that the primary basis for the exclusion of convicted persons from employment opportunities is legal, not moral.  That epiphany, oddly, removed my consternation and rescued my sagging poise and confidence from the assault of self-doubt.  Essentially, I realized that employers reject me, and those like me, because they just don't want to take the risk that something untoward will happen the workplace, and they will have to pay an exorbitant blood purse, simply because they hired someone with a criminal past.

Given the highly-litigious society in which we live, I can't blame any employer who simply refuses to even consider hiring a convicted person.  Bottom lines are often very tenuous, and the "hit" of a successful lawsuit against any business could well spell the end of that business.  But people like me, who have made criminal mistakes in the past, have to be able to make a living.  The simplest truth is that it truly does cost to live.  What are we supposed to do?

Sadly, and far too often, many convicted persons succumb to the dumbfounding consternation of systemic exclusion from equal employment opportunity with a recklessness birthed of the desperation of survival--or with a violence that bursts forth out of the accumulated stress and resentment that, alas, is only too human.

Our country is the greatest country in the history of the world.  We still have some of the very smartest people on the planet.  Surely we can find a way to relieve employers of the fear of excessive liability, so that those of us who have made serious criminal mistakes, and served the time for those mistakes, have a clear path to employment opportunities that enable us to contribute to the quality of life in our communities--and not to detract from it.