Topics and Issues

Background checks (71) Ban-the-Box (12)

Prof. Jennifer Doleac is an Associate Professor of Economics at Texas A&M University, Director of the Justice Tech Lab, a Research Fellow at IZA, and a Research Affiliate at the Institute for Research on Poverty, the University of Chicago Crime Lab, and the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities, published a survey of academic work that highlight the unintended consequences of ban-the-box laws in a Twitter posting in 2018.  She followed up that survey with written congressional testimony in 2019, Empirical evidence on the effects of Ban the Box policies: The state of the literature in 2019.

This testimony was in conjunction with a March 2019 joint hearing of two subcommittees on the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and the Subcommittee on Government Operations.  These two subcommittees held a hearing on “The Fair Chance to Compete for Jobs Act (H.R. 1076).”  The bill, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) (Cmte. Rpt. 116-380), would “prohibit Federal agencies and Federal contractors from requesting that an applicant for employment disclose criminal history record information.”  A similar bill was introduced in the U.S. Senate.  That bill, S. 387, was introduced by U.S. Sen. Corey Booker (D-NJ) (Cmte. Rpt. 116-33).  The house hearing included a discussion on the pros and cons and the unintended consequences of ban-the-box laws. The hearing information is available online as is the transcript (Ser. No. 116-10).