HRMG 3003 Ex-Felons Denied Employment

Ex-Felons Denied Employment 1

Ex-Felons Denied Employment

Final Project Paper

HRMG 3001-3/MGMT 3003-3

Instructor:

Walden University

By William Linville


Abstract

The topic this author has chosen to research is that of the Patriot Act and Anti-

Terrorist Acts which is being applied as a discrimination tactic by some employers

against the hiring of ex-offenders who have ex-felony cases more than 10 years old and

who were not convicted of drug crimes or terrorist acts within the United States or other

countries. It has been brought to my attention over the past two years that many

employers deny ex-felons employment opportunities due to their past involvement within

the Department of Corrections. And supposedly these denials have been reported as part

of the rights of the employer due to the Patriot Act and theAnti-Terrorist Act enacted in

2001.


The purpose of the paper is to prevent further discrimination of these individuals

by employers and to make awareness of this situation to those who are in power to

change stated laws so as to not reflect on individuals who are American Citizens and do

not deserve this type of stereotyping as terrorist. Within the confines of this paper the

reality check of what the Anti-Terrorist Act and Patriot Act is actually about and its

purposes as well as why it was enacted.

The Anti-Terrorism Act

The Antiterrorism Act of 1996 was a response to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center

and the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. “This Act was the loss of the American

First Amendment Rights of freedom of speech, assembly, and petition and simply placed one in violation

of the Act by guilt of association.” (Cole, David and Dempsey, James, 2002) There were no longer any

barriers to FBI or other federal investigations upon the American public including surveillance and

methods that catch income and outgoing telephone calls. “It also called for open door policies with

Immigration and Naturalization services to deport Muslim citizens all based on secret evidence and nothing

else was needed for deportation of the Muslim people.” (Cole, David and Dempsey, James, 2002)

The Patriot Act Purpose of Enactment

“The Department of Justice's first priority is to prevent future terrorist attacks.

Since its passage following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Patriot Act has played a

key part - and often the leading role - in a number of successful operations to protect

innocent Americans from the deadly plans of terrorists dedicated to destroying America

and our way of life. While the results have been important, in passing the Patriot Act,


Congress provided for only modest, incremental changes in the law. Congress simply

took existing legal principles and retrofitted them to preserve the lives and liberty of the

American people from the challenges posed by a global terrorist network.” (Department

of Justice, 2012) This statement is quite proficient in that most certainly it does help to

quill the assault of terrorist such as those involved in the Oklahoma City bombing of the

Murrah building and the attacks on the Trade Center in New York, however the question

that remains here is how does it actually effect American populations and their civil

liberty rights as well as the ability to gain employment to provide for themselves and

their families?

Perhaps sitting in your living room and watching television trials and juries

handing down guilty votes with sentences to imprisonment for various crimes and

numerous years of incarceration is just that a “television show.” However, reality is that

this occurs in our communities each day in every state in America. The sentences are

often excessive for non-violent offenders and more excessive for violent offenders as a

rule dependent upon the crime and prior convictions. We rely heavily upon our state

courts to give righteous retribution and give those people who commit crimes the proper

punishments.

Indeed within our American society prison inmates are one of the greatest

costs we face. However, how long must the punishment for these offenses go on after

their payment to society for their deeds? And must their families and children continue

suffer poverty as well due to lack of employment? Are we Americans who have paid

taxes to support these imprisoned inmates now to support them on welfare and


unemployment when they are now free citizens and able to support themselves and their

families? I ask again how long must punishment continue?

The National Security Letters (NSL) authorized in Title 5 of the Patriot Act is an

administrative subpoena used by a number of government agencies, according to Philip

Giraldi (2011) “the NSL is used to obtain documents and information relating to any

individual or to organizations, to include employment, health, financial, and credit

records. There is no requirement for probable cause and there is no judicial oversight of

the process. The recipient of the NSL cannot reveal that he has received the letter to

anyone and can be prosecuted if he violates that restriction. At FBI, the letters can be

issued by any Special Agent in Charge of any field office, which means that the authority

to approve a NSL is essentially local, is not reviewed at a higher level, and does not have

to be linked to any actual terrorism case. As of 2005, the NSLs had been used to obtain

more than one million personal records, including medical histories and credit reports. A

Justice Department investigation determined that most had nothing to do with terrorism.”

Anti-Terrorism Act

The Act was requested for enactment by President George Bush and enacted by

the many others in Congress who wanted to increase governmental powers over

Americans thereby the 9/11 attacks were a most valid excuse to pass the Patriot Act

which was already written and just needed an opportunity to be passed by the frightful

American public. The Act gives the American government the right to spy on its citizens

and retrieve any information on its citizens that it chooses to do so including the emails,

wiretapping phone calls and medical records etc. anything the government desires to


know about a citizen. In essence American citizens or anyone else who lives in America

has absolutely no privacy.

“The American Civil Liberties Union, say that the Act has undone previous

checks on civil liberty abuses of the past and unnecessarily endangers privacy and

discourages free speech.” (Search Data Management 2012)

How These Acts Effect Employment for Ex-Felons

As previously stated it has been brought to this authors’ attention that due to the

Patriot Act and Anti-Terrorism Act effects ex-felons within the state of Oklahoma are

now being denied employment by a large number of businesses including the State

Department of Substance abuse and Mental Health services, as well as many

manufacturing companies and hiring in agencies. This author’s involvement began when

advised by a reliable resource Mr. L., that he had applied for several positions of

employment throughout the state for over eight months and had been told that although

he met the qualifications and exceeded qualifications in most respect the “one thing that

kept him from being hired was the fact that he had a 30 year old felony conviction.”

Of course, I did not just take Mr. L’s perspective on the situation and yet this

seemingly discriminatory act greatly interested this author and through much in-depth

research it was found that Mr. L was a most reliable source as many of these companies

were personally contacted by me and interviewed as to their policies concerning hiring

ex-felons in the State of Oklahoma. Although State of Oklahoma laws specifically forbid

the discriminatory practice of not hiring ex-felons and many businesses specifically state

within their policies a time frame of 5-10 years after incarceration including some truck


driving training schools before hiring ex-felons the source herein was not able to work

anywhere in the state of Oklahoma at a job he was more than qualified for.

This author further contacted a person who has a very high position within the

State of Oklahoma Mental Health and Substance Abuse agency as well as had

involvement with the Oklahoma Department of Corrections and was specifically

informed after in-depth questioning that the “bottom line is that no one is really interested

in hiring felons due to the Anti-Terrorist Act, so the best you can advise Mr. L is to find a

job in another state.”

I found this actually an intriguing statement especially from a State of Oklahoma

Department head and thereby continued research into this matter further with examining

the written Anti-Terrorism Act and its predecessor the Patriot Act. I also took my

curiosity further wondering how other states viewed these two acts and how they affected

employment by ex-felons within those states. I therefore had Mr. L., apply for several

positions in manufacturing, warehouse work, management, and three truck driving

schools in the States of Missouri, Texas, Kentucky and Arkansas. All positions were

denied and all referenced the fact that Mr. L was an ex-felon was the cause of inaction on

the parts of the parties.

Although it has not been mentioned at this point, I might add that each of the

agencies contacted and applied positions for were those who claimed to be Equal

Opportunity Employers which are governed by the Federal Equal Employment


Opportunity (EEO) Laws which prohibit job discrimination as stated in Section II under

Discrimination Practices are as follows:

1. “hiring and firing;

2. compensation, assignment, or classification of employees;

3. transfer, promotion, layoff, or recall;

4. job advertisements;

5. recruitment;

6. testing;

7. use of company facilities;

8. training and apprenticeship programs;

9. fringe benefits;

10. pay, retirement plans, and disability leave; or

11. other terms and conditions of employment.

Discriminatory practices under these laws also include:

1. harassment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin,

disability, genetic information, or age;

2. retaliation against an individual for filing a charge of discrimination,

participating in an investigation, or opposing discriminatory practices;

3. employment decisions based on stereotypes or assumptions about the

abilities, traits, or performance of individuals of a certain sex, race, age,


religion, or ethnic group, or individuals with disabilities, or based on

myths or assumptions about an individual's genetic information; and

4. denying employment opportunities to a person because of marriage to, or

association with, an individual of a particular race, religion, national

origin, or an individual with a disability. Title VII also prohibits

discrimination because of participation in schools or places of worship

associated with a particular racial, ethnic, or religious group.

Employers are required to post notices to all employees advising them of their

rights under the laws EEOC enforces and “their right to be free from retaliation.” Such

notices must be accessible, as needed, to persons with visual or other disabilities that

affect reading.” (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2012)

The Laws also include age, sex, religion discrimination etc. however, in

examination of the EEO laws no place does it designate specifically discrimination

against ex-felons. Nor does it specifically state anything a person can do about these

employers who refuse to hire ex-felons all of which this author believed was quite

negligent due to the large prison populations in the United States and common sense that

many of these populations have been released over the years which are employable. With

these specific thoughts in mind I contacted several recently released inmates from both

the women and men facilities in the State of Oklahoma and found that only about 10% of

50 persons had been actually hired in a position, even though the position were menial

labor positions and paid minimum wage. None of the fifty were related to violent, drug,


assault, or terrorist crimes yet were found unworthy of jobs in their communities due to

prior incarceration.

Title 4 and Title 8 of the Patriot Act deal with defining terrorism. “The definition

was broadened to include many criminal acts hitherto regarded as non-terrorism, to

include mass destruction, assassination, kidnapping, intimidation, coercion, and

racketeering. It also includes activities “dangerous to human life.” The definition of

terrorist support activity was also made extremely broad and elastic, meaning that even a

letter to the editor defending a terrorist group or the inadvertent contribution to a charity

that was somehow linked to a group that the State Department had defined as terrorist

could lead to criminal prosecution. Under the new law, any alien, including legal

residents, who is arrested on terrorist related charges can be detained indefinitely under

orders from the Attorney General. The evidence used to determine that the accused had

possible links to terrorist organizations can be withheld at the discretion of the Justice

Department and cannot be challenged, which means that it can be based on suspicion or

uncorroborated information. There is no guarantee of any kind of due process for those

who are arrested.” (Giraldi, Philip, 2011)

In conclusion during 2010 according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (2010)

“the number of persons under supervision of adult correctional authorities reached 7.1

million at yearend. About 7 in 10 persons under the supervision of adult correctional

systems were supervised in the community (4,887,900) on probation or parole at yearend

2010, while about 3 in 10 were incarcerated (2,266,800) in local jails or in the custody of

state or federal prisons.”


Employers continue to deny employment opportunities to those who are under

Department of Corrections jurisdiction (i.e., probationers) as well as those who have been

released as free American citizens again into society as the Equal Employment

Opportunity laws are cast to the side under the veil of the Patriot Act and Anti-Terrorism

Act. Our counties, states and the United States as a whole are going under due to

financial difficulties and yet we continue to pay taxes and provide available welfare for

recipients who are employable but cannot find an employer to hire them. What is wrong

with this picture?

WE cannot object due to being in duress from our own government who sees

objection as a tool of terrorism to this country! This is the insanity we have come to

because of our fears and our loss of power over our government and legislation. We have

become lax and dependent upon the government for our welfare where and when does it

stop. Who has given us the right to judge others. The foundation of this country was built

by prisoners sent here from England and other countries. Seems to this author it America

turned out fairly well, now if we can get our government back in check our America will

be what is has always represented “Freedom and new life for all.”


References

Cole, David and Dempsey, James X. (2002) Terrorism and the Constitution: Sacrificing

Civil Liberties in the Name of National Security. Counterpunch

http://www.counterpunch.org/2002/10/19/anti-terrorism/

Department of Justice (2012) The USA Patriot Act: Preserving Life and Liberty

http://www.justice.gov/archive/ll/highlights.htm

HR Bill Anti-Terrorist Act (2001) What the Patriot Act Does for You

http://epic.org/privacy/terrorism/ata2001_text.pdf

Giraldi, Philip (2001) What the Patriot Act Does For You

http://original.antiwar.com/giraldi/2011/03/30/what-the-patriot-act-does-for-you/

Search Data Management (2012) Patriot Act

http://searchdatamanagement.techtarget.com/definition/Patriot-Act

U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEO) (2012) Federal Laws

Prohibiting Job Discrimination Questions and Answers

http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/qanda.html

http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/qanda.html

http://searchdatamanagement.techtarget.com/definition/Patriot-Act

http://original.antiwar.com/giraldi/2011/03/30/what-the-patriot-act-does-for-you/

http://epic.org/privacy/terrorism/ata2001_text.pdf

http://www.justice.gov/archive/ll/highlights.htm

http://www.counterpunch.org/2002/10/19/anti-terrorism/

Documents

HRMG 3003 Ex-Felons Denied Employment