[randomacct8162]

I was on computers a lot as a kid and sort of taught myself programming (very poorly) in my early years.

When I caught this charge, I had just turned 18. It really ruined my life.

Currently, I work in tech. For a very long time I was barely making ends meet, working in a fast food restaurant for minimum wage while trying to interview to get a developer job.

I went through 8 interview processes, and received offers from all but one. Each one of them was rescinded when HR learned that I had a felony, as a matter of company policy.

It was really heartbreaking and a lot of times, it made me want to give up on life and just stop trying. I kept interviewing and going to events/networking, and eventually found a very low-paying job at a local place and sort of slowly worked my way back up from there.

If anyone here has some degree of power at a company and wants to make a difference in the world, convince your company to hire felons with non-violent/non-finance related offenses.

[Ekaros]

I never understood the whole felon thing, if that is allowed discrimination outside certain roles how can those people ever be expected back to society? Ofc, they are going to do more crime if it is their only realistic option for reasonable income.

[randomacct8162]

  > "if that is allowed discrimination outside certain roles how can those people ever be expected back to society? Ofc, they are going to do more crime if it is their only realistic option for reasonable income."

And you've found the answer to why the American judicial/prison-complex is a revolving door system.

"Welcome to the Hotel California. You can check-out any time you like, But you can never leave!"

[buran77]

It's a method to exercise control over a large slice of the population and rob them of the means to challenge their position. I don't think too may see it necessarily as a fair measure that must be imposed on those people for the protection of them or others.

On the other hand you have egregious cases where such a measure would completely make sense but is ignored because of larger interests. One of them is how EU public institutions screen all their employees and filter out felons. And then a public institution like the European Central Bank names Christine Lagarde president, just 3 years after she received a criminal conviction of negligence in allowing the misuse of public funds.

A freshly minted criminal can be named president of an institution in more or less the same general area as where she committed her crime. But a someone with a minor drug charge can't take a dev job... Both are a stain on modern society.

[laurent92]

But, are felons discriminated from most jobs in Europe? As an employer I’ve never checked the backgrounds, and I would be actually happy of giving someone a path upwards.

[oh_sigh]

Why "outside certain roles"?

If the argument is that serving your time in jail rehabilitates you, then you shouldn't be limited in what roles you can take after you've served your time.

I assume the "certain roles" you are talking about is something like banking with someone with a history of felony fraud. I guess the argument is that maybe prison isn't 100% rehabilitative. But if that's the case, why should I, as a non-banker, hire a felon who, say assaulted a stranger with a baseball bat. Isn't there a similar chance that prison wasn't 100% rehabilitative?

[lotsofpulp]

It is not in any single employer’s interest to take on the risks of hiring a felon, as long as the supply of labor remains plentiful.

[20after4]

There are a lot of people with a felony record who pose zero additional risk to their employer. Of course it depends on the person and it depends on the job. It certainly doesn't make sense to have a strict policy against all felons regardless of individual circumstances.

[lotsofpulp]

It depends on labor supply and demand curves. If it did not make sense, there would be an arbitrage opportunity for an employer by employing felons, but I have not heard of that happening on a large scale, at least at a white collar firm.

I find it ironic, though, to want to seek shelter in BRK to avoid a too tech heavy SPY, when BRK itself has maintained relevancy only by investing disproportionately in AAPL. It would seem prudent to cut out the BRK middleman and just directly invest in AAPL if one wants to emulate BRK’s success.

[throwaway0a5e]

That's the point. It gives the state a cudgel with which to keep people in line.

[lupire]

It seems fair for felons to work minimum wage last resort jobs, because non-felons surely deserve the same or better. But why are minimum wage last resort jobs so bad in this country?

[ROTMetro]

Hello friend, meet my life. Life, meet Ekaros.

[mgkimsal]

Had to go search for it, but YC funded a company - https://www.70millionjobs.com - that focuses on felon-friendly companies hiring.

[randomacct8162]

I won't sling mud, but the jobs are the same you can already get as a felon (construction, kitchen, hospitality, factory, etc) and I had a negative experience with my interaction there

Thank you for looking though. I think it's important to offer felons the chance to get a decent job in a proper career field too.

There's one organization doing this called "Underdog Devs":

https://www.underdogdevs.org

https://twitter.com/underdogdevs

[mgkimsal]

I did see 'tech' jobs there, but... perhaps they're just 'general recruiter' posts that are mixed in? I search for 'php' and found a bunch of job links come back...

[ROTMetro]

So I just signed up for this site. It has Home Depot who won't hire you if you are on paper (supervised release) and other companies that will bring you on 'temp to hire' when they have need, but will seldom convert a felon to permanent. Shows a lack of understanding or communication with the people they are trying to 'help'. I got better support from the other guys my first 15 minutes in the half way house than this site gives. And that is in general how society is toward felons. A lot of half assed stuff to feel like, no look at all these services, they have a chance. But in reality not so much.

[ROTMetro]

Sorry this previous post is pretty agressive, my frustration is definitely coming through there and they do not deserve that. I am sure they are well meaning. I wish I could delete it.

[ROTMetro]

FElon friendly normally ends up meaning they know you have no other options and treat you about as good as you would imagine a company with complete knowledge that if you loose your job your PO could send you back to prison. Hello mandatory overtime, horrible pay, every shit task no one wants. It's way better to try and convince somewhere that isn't felon friendly to try and hire you.