By Shawn D. Bushway

Misperceptions can keep employers from hiring people who have criminal records. A growing body of RAND Corporation research counters some prevailing myths about risks of reoffending and provides hiring managers, policymakers, and citizens facts that support better-informed hiring decisions.

Criminal history background checks can provide hiring managers with important information about a job candidate. That said, employers risk making uninformed decisions that exclude good workers if they do not know which factors in the background check actually help predict an individual’s risk of reoffending. The RAND Corporation’s Resetting the Record body of research presents evidence-based findings that could help employers make better, fact-driven decisions about hiring people with criminal records. Exploring the research cited in this brief and sharing it with hiring managers may help create a triple win: companies get the employees they need, people with records get jobs, and society benefits.

Facts on Hiring People Who Have Criminal Records

People with Convictions Form a Large Part of the Pool of Those Seeking Work

Employers, particularly in times of low unemployment, can have difficulty finding workers to fill jobs. People with criminal records form a surprisingly large part of the population seeking work—almost half the men in the labor pool. Employers who are leery of candidates with conviction histories might be reassured by research that has shown that employers routinely hire people with records who go on to be good employees. In fact, more than 25 percent of workers in the active workforce have at least one prior conviction. The evidence is overwhelming: People with conviction records can be (and are) successful employees.

Findings

• Forty-six percent of 35-year-old men looking for work in 2018 had a conviction for a nontraffic crime as an adult. That proportion varies only slightly by race and ethnicity.

• Among 33-year-old women, the percentage of those looking for work in 2018 who had a conviction for a nontraffic offense was between 2 percent and 16 percent for Black women and between 22 percent and 52 percent for White women.

• Many of the people already working in 2018 had at least one adult conviction for a nontraffic offense (about 25 percent for men).

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2024. 6p.