Employing Ontarians with Criminal Records: - Policies to Correct Labour Market Misconceptions

Context 2.1 The Responsibilities of the Government of Ontario The responsibilities of the Ontario with respect to the employment prospects government with respect to individuals of this population has focused on the involved in the justice system are more development of their skills outside of prison. [...] The purpose is to prevent employers for misdemeanours) and may retract the from filtering out anyone with a criminal conditional offer only if there is a rational record, regardless of the nature of that relationship between the job and the content record, before giving the applicant a fair of the criminal record.22 19 John Howard Society of Ontario, “Help Wanted: Reducing Barriers for Ontario’s Y. [...] interactions with the criminal justice system to the results of The benefit to someone with a criminal their criminal record checks.30 record is that it would contextualize— to some degree, at least—the litany A fundamental problem with criminal of negativity that is the current records and how they are interpreted formulation of the record provided. [...] They record regime in this way would simply increase the amount of information require the cooperation of many available to the players in the market: jurisdictions, including federal and general information in the former policy provincial correctional systems, and and individual-specific information in the coordination of information the latter. [...] The fact that only 1 percent The other main policy measure of the of bonds result in a payout might US federal government to incentivize seem like a sign of a highly successful the hiring of people with criminal program, but it could equally be a records is the Work Opportunity sign that the government is taking Tax Credit (WOTC), which is a on an insufficient amount of risk.