Portrait of a justice-involved individual…
As it attempts to bolster its political support by sucking up to convicted criminals and their families, the Obama administration has been incrementally making it more difficult to distinguish felons from law-abiding citizens, arguing that once they have paid their debt to society, maybe they are no different. HUD, carrying out the Obama administration’s new theory that felons are just plain folks, has decreed that landlords risk federal investigations if they reject rental applicants based on the applicant’s undisputed criminal record in newly-released guidelines.
The Justice Department and the Department of Education are now using a euphemism to make convicts and those with rap sheets sound like they have a hobby: the new cover-phrase is “justice-involved individuals.” (Hillary Clinton is apparently a justice-involved individual.)
The problem with all of this is that being convicted of a felony is not like catching a cold, and often provides a strong clue that the individual involved is not quite as trustworthy as the boy scout or girl scout next door. Take, for example, this story:
From the ABA Journal:
A woman with a history of financial crimes in multiple states got a job as an office manager and bookkeeper for a North Carolina law firm, after a background check failed to pick up her earlier convictions under a different name.
That resulted in a loss of more than $150,000 to the firm, Yow, Fox & Mannen, District Attorney Ben David of New Hanover County told the Port City Daily. The firm’s now-former employee, Felicia Menge Kelley, 44, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to one count of embezzlement and was sentenced to a prison term of between 82 and 111 months, the newspaper reports. She will also be required to pay over $145,000 in restitution.
Kelley, who has previously worked for other law firms in the Jacksonville area, was convicted earlier under the name of Felicia Dawn Menge…
But I’m sure she’s just an exception to the rule…and gives a bad name to decent, hard-working, justice-involved individuals. It’s not like they are criminals or something.
Ethics Alarms 
And yet, Obama wants to prohibit gun purchases to people suspected of being terrorists. By the EEOC’s logic, is that not racist?
https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2016/06/robert-farago/obama-no-gun-sales-americans-governments-secret-no-fly-list/#comment-2699953
“Somebody should ask Barrack Hussein Urkel if people on the “no-fly list” should be able to VOTE…”- Chris Morton
“… paid their debt to society…” Usually, this rarely happens. What actually happens is that the convicted felon serves out their court imposed penalty and that is all. For the victims, the damage is typically not repaired in any meaningful way. For financial crimes, court ordered restitution usually results in the collection of a few pennies on the dollar. So, NO, they have not paid their debt to society in any meaningful way.
Of course, I believe in the idea of redemption, but we need to be realistic and honest: Criminals harm people, businesses, their communities, their families and they rarely ever repay their debts to society.
What a mess.
Time for everyone to get rid of their rental properties.
When I read the initial bit of the headline:
“When You Consider Of The Wisdom Of Obama’s Campaign To Destigmatize Felons…”
I really thought you were about to discuss Obama finally endorsing Hillary as the Democrat Party candidate…
Hmmm…how did that extra “Of” slip in there? Just noticed it, Rushed today…fixed.
This seems to be a bit of a broad brush, no? Our system isn’t set up to facilitate restoration to victims (and seemingly doesn’t value that), so the only way a debt to society is mandated/discharged is through incarceration rather than restorative justice. Whatever the merits of that may be, recidivism varies greatly across category of crime, age of the person released, geography, access to programming in prison, and so on. If you categorize all people coming out of prison as a risk, why let them out at all? But they’re not all the same, and many don’t pose a risk, and fewer would if we would productively prepare them for re-entry and engage them upon release rather than continuing to condemn them to failure with restrictive housing and job markets, and dismissive attitudes. Your language about “sucking up to criminals and their families” is just silly in a lot of ways. Is this really an ethical consideration of the people and issues involved?
You don’t think all of the rhetoric about “over-incarceration” and black families is naked pandering to a voting bloc?
We do have the highest prison population in the world, due in no small part to laws against the use of drugs and laws regarding guns.
And the fact that we encourage individualism and risk-taking.
Aren’t you using too broad a brush? There are over 2 million people incarcerated in this country, it’s lazy to dismiss them all because of nomenclature or a particular policy or the actions of even a significant portion of that group. If you’re paying attention, you know that our system is geared toward punishment rather than restorative justice, so the only way that those who are convicted have to “pay their debt to society” is to do their time. And then they’re done. Recidivism rates vary widely depending on type of crime, time served, programming while incarcerated, age of the individual, and various other factors. Taking that huge group and all those factors and dismissing them out of hand doesn’t seem ethical. If you have no belief that people can change, or that circumstances can change, why let them out of prison at all? But barring that, invest in people by increasing the possibilities for them to succeed; that way there will be fewer victims, less recidivism, less money spent on incarceration, and a healthier society.
Who dismissed them out of hand? Not me. I simply think that employers should know what one’s past record of being law abiding and responsible, or not. Pretty simple. I also believe people who break the law should be accountable. A lifetime of having to explain what you did. That’s tough, no doubt about it. One more good reason not to break the law.
Two things in your initial post suggest where you are mired. You distinguish between “felons and law abiding citizens”. The felony was committed, time was served, and now the ex-convict may be law abiding, but not by your binary. You also say “The problem with all of this is that being convicted of a felony is not like catching a cold, and often provides a strong clue that the individual involved is not quite as trustworthy as the boy scout or girl scout next door.” The “not quite as trustworthy” part is in concert with the fact that all kinds of people break all kinds of laws, yet many of them are not convicted of (or tried, or even arrested for) their crimes. Some people continue to commit crimes, no question about it. You’re just treating complex circumstances and dynamics (with people and their families attached) in a simplistic way. It’s a problem that warrants more sophisticated treatment, including the discussion of mass incarceration.
It is binary. You either have committed and been convicted of a felony, or you have not. It is deceptive for one who has committed a felony to pose as otherwise. Nobody is a criminal 100% of the time.
Obviously other factors should be able to overcome the level of distrust warranted by criminal conviction.
It’s not that complicated. Ethical, trustworthy people don’t commit felonies. Someone who has been convicted of a felony is less trustworthy than someone who has not, all else being equal.
The fact that some people break laws and get away with it doesn’t argue for more lenient treatment of those that are caught—that is such a flawed argument that it poisons your credibility.
“You either have committed and been convicted of a felony, or you have not”. In other posts you’re railing against those who haven’t (yet?) been charged, let alone convicted. Here you’re collapsing committed and convicted. “Someone who has been convicted of a felony is less trustworthy than someone who has not, all else being equal.” But all else is not equal, that’s obvious, and you’re holding a person to a moment – in some cases – and using that moment, however long ago it was, whatever may have transpired since – against someone who hasn’t been CONVICTED of a felony. That’s just silly.
If you have been convicted, it is fair to assume that you have committed the crime. They are “collapsed.” Those who haven’t been convicted aren’t part of the conversation. Why do you think they are? It’s a different problem. The fact that every guilty person isn’t caught and punished doesn’t make it unfair for those who are caught and punished to be accountable for their very real crimes.
I hear this invalid and illogical argument so often. Amazing.
Those who are convicted obviously are caught and punished, I’m not challenging you on that. I’m challenging you on what happens after that – they become victims of stigmas that continue to hold them accountable for crimes that they have accounted for. Your moral judgement seems only to adhere – or you’re only here applying it to – those people who have paid something for their crimes, and you seem to tar them for life, whereas others – often those with privilege, pay less or nothing at all. Do you know anything about recidivism rates other than the general rates of occurrence? I hear your invalid and illogical arguments so often. Troubling.
“often those with privilege, pay less or nothing at all”…for WHAT? NOT committing crimes?
One’s past tells a great deal about one’s character and judgment. You seem to wish we should be able to pay a price, do a task, serve a sentence, and what happened never did. It still happened, and still is meaningful. Where did you get the idea that conduct no longer counts once you have “paid” for it?
Sorry for being unclear Jack – I meant that those with privilege don’t pay for the crimes that they (some of them) commit. And of course the crime still happened, and the victims remain victimized. But if the sentence doesn’t constitute payment, which is to say that the offender is thereafter able to leave prison and engage in “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” then you’re calling for a system of permanent punishment. Back to my original point and your original post, there are contaminated wells that become uncontaminated; the water is then potable, even if the memory endures. You can be against that concept philosophically, but those are the rules, and if you disagree, and the norms disagree, change the rules.
And there is a process of restoring felons who are believed to be “uncontaminated”.
It is called a pardon.
Prison Reformer,
Almost everything you are writing identifies you as a criminal apologist at your core, am I reading you correctly?
I honestly question the motives behind your arguments.
Not at all Zoltan, I believe in holding people accountable for their actions (I believe in holding communities and societies accountable too). The motives for my argument come from broader principles, and also from years of working with people during and after their incarceration. Experience can be a strong teacher….
Prison Reformer,
I asked you “almost everything you are writing identifies you as a criminal apologist at your core, am I reading you correctly”, and you answered “not at all Zoltan, I believe in holding people accountable for their actions”.
I don’t buy it, period.
Your arguments seem to be presented in a way that we, as a society, should ignore the fact that someone is a convicted felon and served time for that felony and we should hire that felon regardless of the felony and how that felony could relate to the job opening.
Using what appears to be the core of your arguments, an elementary school should somehow be obligated to hire a convicted child molester after that felon has done their time. Personally I don’t give a damn if that felon was the only applicant, I’d look’em in the eye and tell them to hit the road.
Prison Reformer said, “The motives for my argument come from broader principles, and also from years of working with people during and after their incarceration.”
It appears that your experience has twisted your judgement and you somehow think that after a felon has done their time, their past offense should not come into play after they are released from prison. Go on and try to tell me that’s not the core of your argument.
Prison Reformer, please fill in the blank with verifiable statistics:
Percentage of working age population in the USA that are convicted felons? _______
Percentage of released felons that commit additional felonies and end up back in prison? _______
Prison Reformer said, “Experience can be a strong teacher….”
So what do you have to say to those companies and people that have hired felons (like the company that hired Felicia Menge Kelley mentioned in this blog) and those felons have re-offended, is your “experience” somehow more valid to society than theirs?
Felons earned their Scarlet Letter with the choices they made, it’s their responsibility to start over (and likely start at the very bottom of the heap) and prove to society that they are not going to re-offend. It’s not the responsibility of society to ignore a felon’s past and accept them as a honorable member of society.
Rats! Another bad closing tag!
Using what appears to be the core of your arguments, an elementary school should somehow be obligated to hire a con…“ should be Using what appears to be the core of your arguments, an elementary school should somehow be obligated to hire a con…”
I flip-flopped the b and the / again in the closing tag. Arrgh!
Jack, can you fix another bad ending tag for me. I’ll try to proof read better.
Zoltar you’re doing what Jack did, aggregating from individual cases – or even if it were from patterns – and then applying that to an entire category of people. That’s problematic, and often inherently unethical. Beyond that, you’re expanding my words to say things they don’t say. I’m not obligating a school to hire a child molester (current or former), I’m not obligating a bank to hire an embezzler (current or former). You and Jack may chose categorical thinking, and you may justify that by whatever means relative to people that have committed (that is to say, been convicted of committing) crimes. I’m saying our system, and my sense of ethics, don’t pit reasonable caution against the possibility of human growth, change, and redemption; I’ve got room for both. Will mistakes be made? They are all the time, on all sides, often with awful consequences. That doesn’t make me retreat into flawed logical or unethical behavior, quite the opposite. And I don’t think I’m any less safe out here than you are behind your wall….
Prison Reformer,
Hmmmmmmmmmmm………..
I wonder why you didn’t bother to answer my question with percentages?
Inquiring Minds Want To Know.
I’m not making totalizing claims. Recidivism is definitely way too high, so there is a chance – sometimes even a likelihood – that people will commit additional crimes; I’ve not contested that in this thread. But let’s flip this the other way – what percentage of people that get out don’t commit additional crimes? What percentage of older former inmates don’t commit additional crimes? What percentage of people who have served long sentences don’t commit additional crimes? Those numbers are significant, but you don’t seem interested. You’re coming across as an apologist for “throw away the key”. Perhaps that’s your position, I don’t know, but it’s contrary to the law and to the stated ethos of our system (I know, ethos-shmythos). But bring it back to ethics and the situation is simply far more complex than you and Jack are letting on. Sorry, that doesn’t make me an apologist.
And by the way, my experience has taught me that some people really are a continuing risk and should be kept out of circulation, and others are not a risk, and some will spend decades behind bars – even the rest of their lives – when they could be making productive contributions to society on the outside rather than rotting away in a cage. I just share that to spare you the need to manufacture my thoughts for me….
I couldn’t write this while I was on the road, so I’ll append it here.
You are concerned that being punished for a felony carries continuing disadvantages. Why don’t you see that being law abiding should carry a continuing advantage over those who were not law abiding? Would you similarly argue that those with past credit problems from the non-payment of debt should at some point be regarded as worthy of the same credit rating as someone who has paid every bill on time? Why does that seem fair, just or reasonable to you?
Prison Reformer said, “But let’s flip this the other way – what percentage of people that get out don’t commit additional crimes? What percentage of older former inmates don’t commit additional crimes? What percentage of people who have served long sentences don’t commit additional crimes?”
Go ahead and answer those questions; just answering the first one will mathematically answer one of my questions and I’d truly be interested to see the numbers for all of them.
Prison Reformer said, “You’re coming across as an apologist for “throw away the key”. Perhaps that’s your position.”
Nope, not my position. I stated my position quite clearly and it appears that you’ve didn’t pay close attention to it.
Felons earned their Scarlet Letter with the choices they made, it’s their responsibility to start over (and likely start at the very bottom of the heap) and prove to society that they are not going to re-offend. It’s not the responsibility of society to ignore a felon’s past and accept them as a honorable member of society.
If they prove themselves as an honorable member of society after their incarceration and don’t get thrown back in prison, that’s GREAT; the punishment worked.
By the way; I’ve had my own personal experiences in dealing directly with x-felons. Years ago I worked at a homeless shelter for families for a year and a half; there were a lot of x-felons that come through those doors and almost all of them came across as entitled and not willing to work hard to solve their monetary issues, one after another, after another committed crimes that got them thrown back in prison; it’s kind of a skewed view of the world in a shelter but it IS valid experience. In a different job before that I worked side-by-side with felons who were transitioning out of prison through work-release programs, most of those experiences weren’t bad. I made friends with two of those work-release felons, I gave them both a fair chance after they got out, one screwed me and a bunch of other people out of a pile of money and the other one reverted back to his old ways of abusing women; I turned both of them into the police, testified in court, and helped put their sorry asses back in prison where they belonged. In another job I hired one work release felon transitioning out of prison, worked with him for over a year; he turned out to be a productive and relatively honorable member of society.
My experiences and those that might be along the same lines aren’t irrelevant.
Until can show me how I’m morally or ethically wrong; I stand by my Scarlet Letter paragraph above.
I’ve stated my position.
Given equally qualified applicants, I would much rather hire the one with multiple felony convictions for Illegal storage of hazardous waste as an accountant than I would the applicant with only a single embezzlement conviction. The flip side of over-criminalization and over-incarceration is that the simple existence of a criminal record does not disqualify people from all consideration, I expect a landlord would face few problems in renting to an ex-con with one conviction for violating the Lacey Act by not immediately reporting the tortoiseshell ukulele they inherited, and those would be more likely caused by his being a ukulele player than an ex-con.
Like it or not, committing a crime says something about you, that you are the type of person who can commit that crime. If you embezzle money from one employer it would be foolish to trust you, and irresponsible to tempt you, by putting you in a position in which you can embezzle from another employer. I don’t think a landlord should refuse a tenant just because they have a criminal record of embezzlement (there is no significant trust relationship to be exploited) but is pure foolishness to dictate that a landlord cannot consider the criminal record of someone who has set his apartments on fire multiple times. If you absolutely insist on dictating how people deal with ex-cons instead of trusting them to use their own common sense and judgement, make it a more reasonable rule, like people can only consider the criminal record of an ex-con in hiring and renting decisions if there is a relationship between the decision and the crime the person was convicted of.
I agree with much of this, except that any intentional violation of a law is relevant to character. Some are more relevant than others.
If the only offense was violating New Jersey’s gun laws, in my book it does not count as an offense.
But if they prosecuted people for violating those gun laws, then they violated the highest law of the land, and should be treated no differently than a gangbanger or sex offender.
Does HUD indemnify the landlords who are barred from considering the criminal history of a prospective tenant for damage to the premises and/or injuries to persons exposed to the felon because the background cannot be used to deny the application?
Given the language in the HUD guidelines, a government agency is admitting its own pattern of over-incarceration by other government agencies. It establishes that the highest rates of incarceration world-wide are in the US and, by implication, that this is wrong and unjust. It then describes a situation where Blacks and Latinos are convicted disproportionately to Whites and others who are non-Black, non-Latino. In the phrasing, this seems to suggest either that 1) that those convicted were not convicted fairly and 2) that under better circumstances of justice more Whites should have been or perhaps now will be convicted. Thus the numbers will balance out.
Yet the HUD is a Federal agency, and is connected with the same system which has carried out all the unjustice policies, over-incarcerations, etc.
It seems to me that if the government itself admits this particular failure that it itself should rectify it. If it is saying, essentially, we have disproportionately incarcerated Black and Latinos, it is admitting liability. If this is so, on what basis does it have a right to insist that renters take up this slack, as it were? That they pay the price or take a risk?
The government, according to its own logic, should construct housing and take responsibility to rent to or provide housing to those it has incarcerated injustly.
How will this be financed, you ask? Good question. I suggest that if the Government simultaneously establishes a quota to arrest and convict more Whites and somehow also can condemn their property and holdings and then liquidate them, that these funds can be used toward the construction of ‘Justice-Involved Communities’.
You see, when you approach these things creatively the proper solutions just appear magically.
If the government correctly organizes itself we may no longer require ‘social justice warriors’ as specific government agencies will be established for this purpose.
I am seeing LOTS of possibilities. There is a bright future here. “Oh Happy Day, when government washed, it washed my sins away”.
Oh, fine. In my neighborhood where there are NO rental properties, my neighbor — needing to get away for a time from the house where her husband died (too young, untimely, and very sad) — now has her house up for rent. It’s too valuable an asset to sell, so I look forward to the new felons next door… Just great. With any luck at all, the rental price will be so high that we’ll only have to deal with felons that can afford it — like meth cookers, etc. Going to be a great year.
Obama’s is clearly trying to get more Democratic voters. It will probably flop in that regard although they now can vote in Virginia. However, requiring a landlord to rent to them is idiotic. The cunning ones will steal everything they can get their hands on and become a menace in their neighborhoods.
Why does he think that most felons are Democrats?