Lehrer talks ‘ban the box’ on WBAL
R Street President Eli Lehrer was on WBAL Radio in Baltimore, Md., to discuss his recent Huffington Post piece on proposals to “ban the box” — that is eliminate queries on employment forms that asks if a person has a criminal record. He argues both that banning employers from asking about criminal records would have unintended consequences that could disproportionately harm applicants for lower-skilled jobs, while what’s really needed is a shift that would allow those convicted of relatively minor criminal charges in the past to expunge that from their record through good behavior.
“People do change over time and it makes a lot of sense to eventually say this can be forgiven,” Lehrer said. “On the other hand if it’s a recent event, it can be very legitimate for an employer to say, yes I really don’t want anybody that has a recent conviction.”
Listen to the full interview here.
