Open Letter: Governor Holcomb, Don't Sign SB 312 Without an Executive Order to 'Ban the Box' for Public Employees
Tuesday, April 4, 2017
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| From 'Ensuring People with Convictions Have a Fair Chance to Work', National Employment Law Project. Used with permission. |
*UPDATE - Governor Holcomb will sign SB 312, but announced on April 25th that he will also sign an executive order to 'ban the box' for State employees. See the Institute's press release on the announcement, and call Governor Holcomb at 317-232-4567 or write to thank him for committing to ban the box for Indiana's public jobs!
April 4, 2017
Dear Governor
Holcomb:
Despite
bipartisan concerns, the Indiana General Assembly passed SB 312, a bill given
the nickname “ban the Ban the Box”, which preempts local ‘fair chance’ hiring ordinances that help localities employ people with prior criminal history. As passed, the bill does not create
hiring options for communities throughout Indiana which face high incarceration
rates due to the opioid crisis, or for minorities and other disproportionately
affected populations. Therefore, we ask that you use your authority as Governor
to veto this bill unless additional measures are taken to provide meaningful
employment protections that will reduce recidivism and strengthen the
workforce within communities.
While the passed
legislation provides negligent hiring protections for private employers, it fails
to provide tools for communities with high incarceration rates, including those
impacted by the current opioid crisis. National media have recently highlighted the impact of the opioid crisis on
incarceration rates in Indiana’s small towns. Counties with less than 100,000
residents have seen incarceration rates spike over the past decade, even as
rates fell in medium and larger counties.[1]
A conservative estimate of U.S. Department of Justice data shows that Indiana
has at least 1.12 million individual offenders in the state criminal history
file, or more than one in every six Hoosiers.[2]
Because SB 312 prevents localities from enacting fair chance hiring ordinances,
as residents return to their communities in coming years, many will continue to
encounter difficulties obtaining employment.
And while
Indiana’s unemployment rate has steadily decreased since the recession ended,
the state still has a long-term unemployment rate of 16.6% as a share of overall
unemployment, many of whom are those with prior records. In addition, across
the Midwest, the rate of long-term unemployment for African Americans is 10
points higher at 32% than for whites at 22%.[3]
Because African-Americans comprise 14% of the U.S. population but 40% of the
U.S. incarcerated population, SB 312 will have a disproportionately negative
impact on Hoosier minorities, and will reinforce existing discriminatory hiring
rates in the state.[4]
We commend you, Governor Holcomb, for pardoning Keith Cooper earlier this year. But for too many Hoosiers like him, conviction and arrest records can keep them from employment even if they have the skills for the job and their history has no bearing on the duties at hand. In order to balance the negative impact that SB 312 will have on these citizens and their communities, the state must take positive steps to ensure people with records have paths to meaningful employment.
We ask you to
veto SB 312 unless it is paired with an order for state agencies and political
subdivision employers to ‘ban the box’ of criminal records on applications for
public sector jobs, and to encourage partnerships with private employers who
utilize fair chance hiring practices. Twenty-five states have taken statewide
measures to ‘ban the box’ for government employees, and eight states have done
so by executive action (including Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, New York, and Virginia, which have done so in the past two
years). We would be happy to share resources and work with your office to support an
executive order that ensures pathways for qualified people with records to
public sector employment, and that encourages partnerships with employers statewide who adopt fair chance hiring.
Ensuring fair
chance hiring throughout Indiana isn’t only necessary to move our workforce and
economy ‘to the next level’, it’s the just thing to do for Hoosiers and their
communities.
Sincerely,
Signed:
American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana
Amy Nelson, Executive Director, Fair Housing Center of
Central Indiana
Indiana Coalition for Human Services
Ed Gerardot, Executive Director, Indiana Community Action
Association
Jessica Fraser, Director, Indiana Institute for Working
Families
Barbara Bolling-Williams, President, Indiana State Conference NAACP
Indianapolis Jewish Community Relations Council
Barbara Bolling-Williams, President, Indiana State Conference NAACP
Indianapolis Jewish Community Relations Council
Tony Mason, President and CEO, the Indianapolis Urban
League
The League of Women Voters of Indiana
Christine Kerl, Steering Committee Chair, Marion County Re-entry Coalition
Christine Kerl, Steering Committee Chair, Marion County Re-entry Coalition
Rhiannon Edwards, Executive Director, Public Advocates in
Community Re-Entry Indianapolis
Charles Neal, Director of Peer Development, RecycleForce
[1] Keller,
Josh, and Adam Pearce. "This small Indiana county sends more people to
prison than San Francisco and Durham, NC, combined. Why?" The New York
TImes, September 2, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/02/upshot/new-geography-of-prisons.html.
[2]
U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice
Statistics Survey of State Criminal History Information Systems, 2012. Figure
reduced by 30% to deal with duplicate multi-state files. https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/bjs/grants/244563.pdf
[3] Economic
Policy Institute analysis of Current Population Survey data.
