Los Angeles is getting closer to prohibiting certain employers from asking about criminal histories in their hiring process. The city’s move would expand on a state law that bans such questions on applications for local- and state-government jobs by extending it to segments of the private sector. It would also bring much-needed relief to the thousands of former inmates who live in the county, many of whom have trouble finding work. In 2012, more than 14,000 Los Angeles residents were released from state prisons, accounting for 30.5 percent of the state’s total releases. Just over half of those released will return to prison within three years, according to estimates from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
“I can tell you that we’re on the tail end of implementing a ban-the-box policy here in Los Angeles,” Angelina Valencia, city councilman Curren Price’s communications director, wrote in an email. In June 2014, Price introduced a motion to remove any questions about an individual’s criminal record from job applications for any city agency, private employer within city limits, and those who have contracts with the city. Valencia expects the city attorney to release the ordinance by August or September.
[For more of this story, written by Juleyka Lantigua-Williams and Christopher I. Haugh, go to http://www.theatlantic.com/pol...-ban-the-box/492215/]
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