Mayor Nutter agreed, and signed the "Ban the Box" legislation into effect this week.
And it's not only city employers that have to comply. Private agencies that do business in Philadelphia are also required to wear those legislative blinders, at least until after that first interview.
Fortunately, as a favor to the vast majority of the public who think that a person's propensity for violating the law is a legitimate public-safety issue, the regulation will not apply to criminal justice agencies like the police and prisons.
SO WHEN the prospective cadet is asked what he was doing between 1997 and 2007, he'll have to truthfully say: "Ten to 20, with time off for good behavior."
Other employers are not so fortunate.
The reasoning behind the law is to give ex-offenders an opportunity to remake their lives. A letter-writer in this paper was complaining the other day about how difficult it was to find employment once his criminal record was revealed.
But while I understand his plight (at least to some degree, since I don't know what crime he actually committed), my sympathies lie with the employer who has to waste valuable time and energy on a candidate who violated the law, when there are hundreds of equally qualified, law-abiding citizens out there who deserve consideration.
When you decide to break the law, you give up your right to be given the benefit of the doubt.
Once you have shown your propensity for lawlessness, you go to the back of the line behind people who would never consider living outside of the system. It doesn't mean that you have to wear a Scarlet "C" for convict. And you might very well have reformed, and even developed valuable skills that benefit an employer.
But between two people with the same qualifications, an employer has the right to choose from the get-go the one who never thought about lifting some merchandise, beating his wife, smoking some weed or forging a few checks.
