C.R. Douglas
Q13 Fox News political analyst
6:30 p.m. PDT, September 17, 2012

SEATTLE —
Right now there are certain things an employer or a landlord can’t use against you when you are applying for a job or an apartment -- race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc. But if you are a convicted felon, often you are out of luck.

“I can’t pass a background check,” said Vance Bartley, who served years in prison for armed robbery. “No one will rent me an apartment.”


Bartley has been out of prison since 2008, and been living with friends and family ever since. “Even if I offer to pay first, last, and the first three months’ rent, the answer will be, ‘No, we will not rent to felons. We don’t care how old your felonies are.’”

Bartley’s story is dramatic. He was a three-striker, serving a life term. But after spending time in the prison’s law library, he got one of his convictions overturned, which led to his release – and to his job as a paralegal. But most felons aren’t that lucky.

“You continue to serve that sentence every time you go to apply for that job,” he said.

Seattle City Councilman Bruce Harrell wants to change that.

“The data is overwhelmingly supportive of the fact that when people are working, they are less likely to commit crimes,” he said. “In particular, property crimes.”

Harrell’s bill would make it easier for felons to find jobs. It would prohibit employers from using a person’s criminal background against them. Harrell hopes later to do the same with housing. He argues it’s about public safety.

“We have become a country of mass incarceration,” he said. “This is a policy designed upstream to help convicted felons and convicted misdemeanants get access to jobs, and this is the kind of policy changes that we have to have.”

But critics worry what such a policy would do.

“Are we opening the door for anybody to say if you’ve got a criminal background it just doesn’t matter anymore?” asked Bill Hinkle of the Rental Housing Association of Puget Sound. “I can tell you right now after what’s been going on in Seattle with the violence and what not, people aren’t willing to do that.”

Members of Hinkle’s group are both landlords and employers who hire building managers, maintenance staff, janitors, etc.

“You have to be able to give us a tool to measure the risk,” said Hinkle. “You can’t lump felons in with guys who have petty crimes and say, ‘Well, you have to accept everybody.’ ”

But Harrell said the first phase of his legislation, dealing with employment, would allow for exceptions if there is a direct relationship between the job and the conviction record of the applicant.

“For example, people who work around vulnerable people or children, people that are dealing with financial institutions,” he said. “These kinds of jobs we know that there should be some special protections for these kinds of communities.”

Bartley, who has worked with many offenders coming out of prison, said this is the kind of support they need to regain a footing in society.

“We’ve got to change the way that we deal with this issue,” he said. “People are going to come back from prisons. It’s small percentage that don’t. It’s a greater percentage that do.”

Once you complete your sentence, you've served whatever your debt to society was determined to be for your particular crime. From that moment forward, it shouldn't be anyone's business except you and the judge who passed the sentence.

No, you've served your sentence. Your "debt to society" is whatever society deems it to be. Furthermore, we have public trials in this country. Your criminal history is public business. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever it should be secret.

Past behavior is the best indicator of future behavior. It is not the job of apartment owners or employers to make sure criminals get rehabilitated.

I've got a great idea though. Let's hire all these ex-felons as police officers. I bet you'd be thrilled that they've been rehabilitated.

Except that society has given over to the judicial system the power to carry out its demands. Therefore, whatever the results of a trial, those results are the dictates of society. Once someone has done as society (by way of the judicial system) deems necessary, then that should restore them to the good graces of society. If it doesn't, something is fundamentally broken, and not with the felon.

Yet past performance is no indicator of future gains.

I'm fine with it. I'd be willing to bet they would do at least as well a job as the current law enforcement.

No, not really. It's called "freedom of association".

Hence there is no particular reason to regard a felon as rehabilitated just because he has finished a jail sentence.

It's no wonder you hold these opinions when you're so disconnected from reality.

So, we are ok with a property owner not being allowed to use 'prior felony convictions' as a reason to deny a rental?

I mean they can deny them based on bad credit history, but not bad criminal history?

What you're attempting to describe isn't. Unless you'd like to posit that spite is acceptable?

And a con artist is identical to an honest man, except for one time.

Disconnected from what reality, DE? I fully recognize that if you keep telling somebody they're worthless and criminal, they will remain worthless and criminal.

I'm not saying that it's vengeful in itself, but when 95% of landlords refuse to rent to anyone with a felony without consideration for when it occurred, what exactly it was, and the circumstances of their conviction, then it creates a real problem for felons trying to re-integrate into society.

I agree that people have a right to choose who they associate with and criminal records should be public record, so I disagree with this law on that basis. However, I do think there is a real problem with the way we prevent convicts from re-integrating into society. And while it certainly sucks *** for anyone with a felony, we all suffer because of it.

The US is too concerned with vengeance and retribution for criminals and not enough with rehabilitation and actually solving the problems that lead to crime. The numbers all show that our current system is obviously not working, yet no one gives a **** because no politician can afford to be "soft on crime." It's just depressing.

I think a lot of people like to just lump all criminals together as if they are all equally bad. There's a wide range of "felons" out there, and a lot of them aren't much different from you and me. I'd bet most people on this board have technically committed a felony at some point in their lives. Just look at the incarceration rate for the US, which dwarfs all other countries. Something is obviously wrong.

Again, I don't think laws like this are the solution. People have a right to refuse to hire felons. But something needs to be done. Unfortunately it's another issue both Republicans and Democrats have the exact same stance on. Let's continue to bicker about gay marriage and birth control while people's lives are being destroyed every day.

Clearly. That's their problem.

We are never going to have a society with no social problems. If the price of not requiring people to associate with felons when they don't wish to is that felons have a hard time, so be it.