Hiring Strategies for Convicted Felons in the Public Sector

Executive Summary

The term felon arouses many emotions. Often thought of as the bogeyman (Irwin, 1985; Maruna, 2001), felons earn their status in many ways. Crimes leading to felony convictions vary by jurisdiction. Index crimes contained in the Uniform Crime Reports maintained by the FBI are often seen as a benchmark for defining felony crime categories. Robbery, aggravated assault, simple assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft, personal larceny, and household larceny are crimes that are associated with felony convictions (Levitt, 1998). Other crimes such as murder, rape, and crimes of fraud are also felonies. The elements of these offenses vary by jurisdiction, even though the nature of the offense remains the same. Felonies are generally defined as crimes that can carry a term of imprisonment of more than 1 year up to the death penalty (Adler, Mueller, & Laufer, 1994). The seriousness of felony offenses leads to many detriments for the felon, victims, societies, and cultures. For the felon, the application of stigmatizing labels may lead to a status as the mythical bogeyman, which has negative legal, political, and cultural attributes. These stigmatizing labels have far reaching effects on felons that can alter the course of their lives. In this paper, we try to focus on the hiring strategies for convicted felon in Public sector.

Hiring Strategies for Convicted Felons in the Public Sector

Introduction

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (2004), there were 1,145,000 convicted felons in the United States in 2004. Of these, 1,079,000 were convicted in state courts, with the remaining 66,518 receiving federal felony convictions. Associated with this number are legal denials of certain constitutional and legally protected rights, such as the right to vote and the right to own or possess a firearm (Chiricos, Barrick, Bales, & Bontrager, 2007). Other social impediments accompany the felony status, such as problems obtaining and holding gainful employment (Matsueda, Gartner, Piliavin, & Polakowski, 1992) and acquiring suitable housing (Link & Phelan, 2001).

While researchers have recognized these legally imposed roadblocks, the social and cultural demagoguery that is associated with a felony conviction is largely misunderstood. Adding to the stigma of felony convictions are detestable crimes that are viewed with disdain by cultural members. Crimes such as rape (Kauth, 2000) and public corruption (Kappeler, Sluder, & Alpert, 1998) carry with them connotations of shame that are difficult, if not impossible, for offenders to overcome. At the heart of such crimes are violations of trust. This is especially true of public officials accused of corrupt acts.

When trust is broken, bonds that bind a person to a particular culture lead to emotional applications of labels that categorize a person as a cultural deviant. Recognizing the legal and political effects of a felony conviction, cultural effects of a felony conviction are more harmful to a felon in terms of group and self identity. Based largely on subjective, emotional perceptions, felons base their self concept on how they see themselves as if through the eyes of their contemporaries ...