Best and worst crimes for employment?

[DGuller]

Las Vegas too, I think.  I remember drinking a bottle of beer while walking down the Strip.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Juvenile records are typically and for almost all purposes sealed in the United States, so unless someone was tried and convicted as an adult for a juvenile crime (only happens in rare cases like teenagers who commit murder or rape), no employer would have access to that information aside from maybe law enforcement (even that I dunno.)

[OttoVonBismarck]

Honestly I found Martim's dismissive reply on DWI to be the most troubling.  Though I'm sure he'd counter further that eggplants are too OSSUM at drinking and/or driving to ever be dangerous, we all know that's bullshit, and not a week goes by around here that some idiotic drunk doesn't get in his car and kill himself or someone else.

I neglected to mention earlier that I interviewed a guy once who lied on his initial app about not having any felonies, but when he got into the office he did disclose that he had some when he was filling out the paper app... he wrote "will discuss at interview" on it, which is obviously a very bad sign.  So when I questioned him about he proceeded to tell me he had several DWI convictions ('several' already makes the guy questionable), but then he mentioned that his last conviction also resulted in a manslaughter conviction as well.  I was like "ummmm I'm going to need a little more information on that one" and he proceeded to tell me that he had gotten drunk and got behind the wheel with his daughter, drove into a telephone pole, and killed her.

The guy had been a network engineer at some nuclear plant down near Savannah, and his alcoholism destroyed his career and his family (his wife divorced him because of all of this, not surprisingly).  So when he met me he had been living in a halfway house--don't recall why he ended up in Kentucky.  I felt so bad that I told him "I'll see what I can do for you" but I knew I'd never be cleared to work with someone convicted of manslaughter so I didn't even bother to try.  I waited about a week and then called him to tell him I couldn't work with him, and he wasn't at all surprised to hear it, I don't think.

If an alcoholic truly gets sober they can be a good employee, and I'd probably feel the same way about that guy you mention. But to me, while I'd feel sorry for the guy I don't really have a problem with someone like that not being able to get a job. His daughter's never going to get a job either. Someone like that society should just give them a gun, a bottle of scotch, and tell them to "be a gentleman and do what is expected of you." I honestly don't know why he wouldn't just kill himself.

[Caliga]

The weird thing about him is that he had a very jovial demeanor... I wondered if he was medicated actually.

[dps]

A couple other things I guess I should clarify, though I thought that they'd be common sense:

First, I've been talking about recent offensives, since Mihali is concerned about helping his clients in the here-and-now, not 40 years down the road (well, I suppose on some level, he's looking toward their long-term prospects, but they have to get through the short-term first).  So if I'm interviewing some 40-year old guy who had an assault conviction back when he was a 20 year old college student, and has no record since then, I'm not really going to worry about it.  The exceptions are theft, and the sex crimes.  Theft, for obvious reasons, and the sex crimes because knowingly hiring someone with a history of those is just too big a liability risk, the sexual harrassment laws being what they are.

Second, for the most part these are my personal observations.  The one exception I did mention was that the retail stores I've worked at have been very anti-drug, so I didn't have much discretion there.

Third, retail stores are going to be much more concerned about criminal records than fast food places.  When I was with BK, one of the other managers actually seemed to prefer to hire people with felony convictions.  Granted, he was an idiot, but in general the other managers there were also less concerned about someone having a record than I was used to in retail.

Fourth, in practice, a lot of this is moot.  The places I've worked where I had the authority to make hiring decisions asked about felony convictions on the applications, not misdemeanors.  Since Mihali specified that these are misdemeanors, I normally wouldn't know about them unless the applicant brought them up during the interview.

[garbon]

Holy Thought Police Batman!!

Yeah Barrister Boy is The Man(tm) no question.

Yeah his response was not very heartening.

[Barrister]

Holy Thought Police Batman!!

Yeah Barrister Boy is The Man(tm) no question.

Yeah his response was not very heartening.

Certain behaviour (like consumption of liquor in public) is very strongly associated with other anti-social behaviour (in this case disturbing the public).  As a result society has seen that it makes more sense to ban drinking in public altogether, even at the risk that it might harm the odd individual who really was just going to have a glass of wine with his picnic supper.

[katmai]

Holy Thought Police Batman!!

Yeah Barrister Boy is The Man(tm) no question.

Yeah his response was not very heartening.

Beeb's favorite song...Hip to be square.

[Barrister]

Holy Thought Police Batman!!

Yeah Barrister Boy is The Man(tm) no question.

Yeah his response was not very heartening.

Beeb's favorite song...Hip to be square.

Huey Lewis is the man. 

[garbon]

Holy Thought Police Batman!!

Yeah Barrister Boy is The Man(tm) no question.

Yeah his response was not very heartening.

Certain behaviour (like consumption of liquor in public) is very strongly associated with other anti-social behaviour (in this case disturbing the public).  As a result society has seen that it makes more sense to ban drinking in public altogether, even at the risk that it might harm the odd individual who really was just going to have a glass of wine with his picnic supper.

Sorry but I don't like this notion that certain things should be criminalized just because they might lead to criminal behavior.

Also, you've already noted that there is police discretion involved in laying such charges so there obviously is some noticeable distinction between an individual enjoying a glass of wine and someone chugging down malt liquor.  Feels rather arbitrary that if an individual takes a glass of wine out of a restaurant while having their cigarette that the act of walking 5-10 feet suddenly made their behavior criminal.

[MadImmortalMan]

Drinking is legal everywhere in Nevada. Unless the ignition is started.

[Barrister]

Sorry but I don't like this notion that certain things should be criminalized just because they might lead to criminal behavior.

Also, you've already noted that there is police discretion involved in laying such charges so there obviously is some noticeable distinction between an individual enjoying a glass of wine and someone chugging down malt liquor.  Feels rather arbitrary that if an individual takes a glass of wine out of a restaurant while having their cigarette that the act of walking 5-10 feet suddenly made their behavior criminal.

Well first of all it isn't "criminal" - its a low level regulatory offence.

Is it arbitrary?  Sure - but for the law to function you need to have well-defined limits to what is and is not against the law.  You really can't come up with a clear, well-defined and enforceable limit that has certain kinds of public consumption legal, while others are not, so almost every jurisdiction has simply said "no drinking at all while in public".

The reasoning on prohibiting open liquor in a vehicle works exactly the same.  Technically, a person could sip on a single beer while driving down the highway and be no more a risk than anyone else.  The problem is that one beer very easily turns into 6 for some people, so its easier just to have a blanket ban on consuming liquor in public.

[DGuller]

Sorry but I don't like this notion that certain things should be criminalized just because they might lead to criminal behavior.

Also, you've already noted that there is police discretion involved in laying such charges so there obviously is some noticeable distinction between an individual enjoying a glass of wine and someone chugging down malt liquor.  Feels rather arbitrary that if an individual takes a glass of wine out of a restaurant while having their cigarette that the act of walking 5-10 feet suddenly made their behavior criminal.

To be devil's advocate, how is that different from DUIs?  We don't criminalize it because driving drunk is bad in itself, we criminalize it because it's highly correlated with crashing into someone.

[CountDeMoney]

I was like "ummmm I'm going to need a little more information on that one" and he proceeded to tell me that he had gotten drunk and got behind the wheel with his daughter, drove into a telephone pole, and killed her.

The guy had been a network engineer at some nuclear plant down near Savannah, and his alcoholism destroyed his career and his family (his wife divorced him because of all of this, not surprisingly).  So when he met me he had been living in a halfway house--don't recall why he ended up in Kentucky.  I felt so bad that I told him "I'll see what I can do for you" but I knew I'd never be cleared to work with someone convicted of manslaughter so I didn't even bother to try.  I waited about a week and then called him to tell him I couldn't work with him, and he wasn't at all surprised to hear it, I don't think.

Daaaamn.
I dunno.  There's nothing the court system could ever do to him that he won't have to deal with for the rest of his life.
Depending on his entire situation and how he was doing in his program, I may have tried to roll the dice on him, but I'm a softie like that sometimes.  Sometimes even the biggest losers deserve another at bat.

[Caliga]

Yeah, but murder and all variations thereof were on the "Legal will not approve this person to be a consultant for us under any circumstances, so don't bother even trying" list.