In December 2015, New Orleans took ten great steps forward in the direction of progress when it joined a burgeoning list of US cities banning the criminal history box from applications for city jobs, a box requiring former inmates to disclose any prior felony convictions. The law provided hope to desperate residents in a city where 50 percent of adult Black males are unemployed and one in seven are in prison or on parole or probation. The move opened doors of opportunity for many of these men, removing a roadblock that once held them back from providing financially for their families, often turning many of them back to a life of crime.
When announcing the new policy, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said, “Changing the culture of violence requires everybody to change what they’re doing, not just the bad guys that are committing the crimes … Right now in America, especially in New Orleans, once you have a felony conviction, irrespective of the severity of it, that gets to be an economic death sentence. And so what you’re doing then is only giving them one alternative, which is to go back out and commit a crime. We are trying to change that trajectory.”
This shift in trajectory will now spread throughout the entire state of Louisiana. On Monday, June 6, 2016, Gov. John Bel Edwards signed “ban the box” legislation into law. The new statewide law, which will take effect August 1, will block state employers from inquiring about job applicants’ criminal histories prior to interviews. Employers will need to make decisions based upon skills and employment history. Criminal history could still come into play, but only after an initial interview is granted.
This includes Louisiana’s 30,000-plus “unclassified” politically-appointed employee positions.
Louisiana will join 23 states that have banned the box. However, the shift is most important in the state that reportedly locks up more people per capita than any other state.
