AS BACKGROUND CHECKS PROLIFERATE, EX-CONS FACE A LOCK ON JOBS

While Peter Demain was serving a six-year sentence for possession of 21
pounds of marijuana, he did such a good job working in the prison kitchen
that he quickly rose to head baker. After his release, the Durango, Colo.,
resident filled out 25 job applications at bagel shops, coffee houses,
grocery stores and bakeries. All turned him down. Some even asked him to
leave the premises immediately after learning of his conviction.

It's never been easy for someone with a criminal history to find work, but
it is becoming increasingly difficult. More businesses are using
criminal-background checks to guard against negligent-hiring lawsuits,
theft of company assets and even terrorism. About 80% of big companies in
the U.S. now do such checks, up from 56% in 1996, according to a January
survey of personnel executives.

Two weeks ago, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the nation's largest corporate
employer with more than 1.2 million workers, said it would conduct
criminal-background checks on all applicants in its U.S. stores, beginning
in September. Wal-Mart's former policy was to order background checks only
for certain personnel, including loss-prevention and pharmacy employees.

Yet as they rely on background checks to screen workers, companies risk
imposing unfair barriers to rehabilitated criminals. For society, the
implications are huge: If former offenders can't find legitimate jobs, they
may be driven back to crime.

"Forty-six million people in this country have been convicted of something
sometime in their lives and our economy would collapse if none of them
could get jobs," says Lewis Maltby, president of the National WorkRights
Institute,a nonprofit human-rights organization founded by former staff of
the American Civil Liberties Union. That figure includes everybody in the
FBI criminal records database, which includes people convicted of a
relatively minor misdemeanor.

Minorities, in particular, could be hurt, as they are jailed in
disproportionately higher numbers than whites. Black males are incarcerated
at five times the rate of Anglo males and Hispanics at more than twice the
rate for white men.

Blacks with criminal records also pay a bigger penalty in the job market.
According to a study of applicants for low-level jobs conducted by Devah
Pager, a Northwestern University sociologist, having a prison record cut by
two thirds a black man's chances of getting called back by an employer,
while it cut a white man's chances by half.

The explosion in background checks is occurring in part because
technological advances have made them faster and cheaper. Businesses
commonly pay $25 to $100 per search, and the price is dropping. Several
months ago, SecurTest, a Florida-based applicant-screening company, began
offering background checks using its own proprietary system that culls
public criminal records. The service, which costs about $10 per applicant,
focuses mainly on felony-type convictions.

Bottom line: It's now affordable for businesses to do checks for the very
sorts of entry-level jobs in which rehabilitated criminals are encouraged
to seek employment.

Wal-Mart came under fire last month for two separate incidents in South
Carolina in which its employees were accused of sexually assaulting young
female shoppers. Both of the accused employees had prior criminal
convictions for sexually related offenses. Several weeks after the episodes
at Wal-Mart came to light in news accounts, two members of South Carolina's
legislature proposed a bill requiring all retailers that sell toys or
children's clothing to conduct background checks on potential employees. A
spokesman for Wal-Mart says the Bentonville, Ark., company was unaware of
the criminal records of the two employees in question.

How businesses use background checks may be just as important as whether
they do. Prisoner advocates are most bothered by "zero-tolerance" policies
that bar companies from hiring anyone with a criminal record of any sort.

"The question that should be asked is is there a legitimate connection
between the crime and employment conditions?" says Gil Kline, spokesman for
Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C., research and advocacy group for
criminal-justice policy.

Wal-Mart says it will use background checks on a case-by-case basis, and
that people with a criminal record could still be offered a job. It will
all depend on the nature of the crime, how long ago it occurred, and the
type of job being filled, the company says.

That's the right way to use background checks, some experts say. But with
plenty of jobless workers to choose from in today's economy, they fear that
many companies will be tempted to reject anyone with a criminal record,
despite a federal law that prohibits a criminal history from being an
absolute bar to hiring.

Such scrutiny has tempted some applicants to lie. When Jeffrey Calwise
first got out of prison for unarmed robbery, he disclosed his criminal
history on work applications. But after numerous rejections, he decided to
fib. The Detroit resident got a factory job making $6.50 an hour, but was
later fired after the company performed a background check and discovered
his criminal record.

Then, Mr. Calwise decided to begin writing "will discuss at interview" on
applications that asked about whether he'd been convicted of a crime. That
didn't work, either: He got some interviews, but his explanation didn't get
him any jobs.

"I'm fairly intelligent, so it has to be my background," said Mr. Calwise,
a 40-year-old who is currently in a drug-treatment program and serving
probation at a halfway house for a conviction on drug possession.

The U.S. Fair Credit Reporting Act requires employers to give job-seekers a
copy of their background report if they are rejected due to a criminal
offense. The law also permits applicants to challenge the reports. But
companies can always cite different reasons for rejecting someone. Another
loophole: Employers aren't required to give a person a copy of the report
if they conduct the search themselves, such as by mining publicly available
court records.

Even law-abiding job-seekers can find themselves unemployable if a
background check is flawed. Glitches in criminal database searches can
inadvertently supply an employer with erroneous information on an applicant.

Ron Peterson, who used to work as an insulation technician in California,
has applied for more than 50 jobs since being laid off by MCI a year ago
but hasn't ever been called in for an interview. After watching a news show
on background checks, he decided to buy one on himself. One report claimed
a Ronald Peterson with the same birth date but a different middle initial
had pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in Arizona. Mr. Peterson wonders if
that's a factor in his forlorn job search.

"I wouldn't hire me from what these reports said," Mr. Peterson said. In
the meantime, he has tried to set the record straight. He contacted the
municipal court where the guilty plea was entered, and sent a copy of his
fingerprints. That was May and he has yet to hear back.

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FULL DISCLOSURE

Large companies in the U.S. that check all job applicants' backgrounds for
criminal records include:

. Wal-Mart*

. General Motors

. Ford Motor

. General Electric

. Citigroup

. International Business Machines

. American International Group

* Beginning September 2004

Source: the companies