Prospective Employees and their Criminal Records: Challenges for a Relevant Matching Approach

Abstract In Chap. 5 of his book Ethics and Situational Crime Prevention , Thomas Søbirk Petersen addresses the questions of whether and when employers should have access to the criminal records of prospective employees. Given the well-established link between ex-offenders being able to secure employment and their desistance from further crimes, Petersen argues that it is vital to limit how much employers can come to discover about the criminal pasts of people whom they might hire. Petersen urges a “relevant matching” approach to employer access to criminal records. Several challenges to implementing such an approach are discussed. These include doubts about how often we will have empirical verification of relevant matches, how serious past crimes must be before they are subject to disclosure, whether individuals’ criminal records should ever lapse, and whether recidivist minor offenders should have their records disclosed. Then there are the problems raised by low conviction rates for many crimes and biased policing, both of which produce skewed pictures of who has committed crimes.