Initially I worked in food service and on phpfreelancer. I spun that into consistent consulting work until a client offered a full time position (less than 15 people, no background checks).

As the years rolled by, I kept moving around. Eventually I tried at a large company(around 8 years ago) and nothing showed on the background check.

I do NOT recommend being upfront, unless there are no formal procedures in place and being honest actually helps. We are talking about your ability to feed and shelter yourself, so give up on the “honesty” thing. I have -never- been able to provide for myself after having been “honest”. [edit: after reading felonintexas let me update this. If someone point blank asks, tell them. Don’t volunteer this information. There is nothing to be gained]

Also, you are now an edge case. That means most advice doesn’t apply. This is both exciting and horribly anxiety driving at the same time. You will have to become comfortable blazing your own path and doing things others say is not possible.

Seriously, good luck. It is possible. It is amazing what you can do that everyone else thinks can’t be done.

No better advice has ever been given on HN, from minor things to major stuff. Never volunteer any information about yourself to anyone in the office beyond what is required to complete your job. Never say too much about previous roles and keep it very general.

I used to work in finance. Volunteering personal information about myself led to a close friendship with the CFO of the bank I worked for. I did good work, but so did many other people. The CFO and I got along so well only because we connected as people — mostly based on our personal lives and shared interests. My relationship with that person rocketed my career forward.

I don’t mean to take away from your experience. It sucks. But volunteering personal information can be beneficial.

Your risk tolerance should factor into the decision. The story above happened very early on in my career, shortly out of college. Taking those risks, to me, at the time, was totally worth it.

While I don't have IT experience, I can tell you as someone that both worked as an electrician and a FiOs technician that I also assumed that honesty reflects well on people and would be careful not to discourage it. I started at Verizon at like age 20 with that attitude and had no record and seldom anything to hide.

I learned fast that the policy of managers in both companies was, "Encourage narratives that honesty will always result in a better outcome to all employees... And for those stupid enough to believe it, punish them severely because only when they're honest do we know with certainty they're guilty."

First time I was questioned by management at Verizon, I made sure I was ambiguous in a way that made them think I was guilty. They said I was fired immediately and I said, "I'm fired? For what? I wasn't even in the truck. I told you what happened and I told you I was up a pole. The bucket truck was 2 blocks away when I saw it all."

Their faces turned white as they realized that I can tell everyone it's a lie and they can't just dismiss me as disgruntled for getting fired.

Why did you do that?

Another thing to consider is that the outcome (which is the one I wanted) resulted in me having them by the balls. I could repeat it to them as retribution in front of other employees with records to back it up and even in front of higher management to demonstrate how grossly incompetent they are.

In this case, it's a matter of social expectations driven by the timing of that honesty:

* If someone is a completely unfiltered person and says the information audaciously and openly, the interviewer may simply see they have nothing to hide.

* On the other hand, if the person looks anxious (which could literally be nothing more than PTSD), then awkwardly blurts out the information, they may be interpreted as having more to hide, making that honesty appear worse than it is. Ironically, that was probably the optics that got my felony in the first place.

A friend told me that the 2 important rules to surviving corporate environments is the following in no specific order.

1. Never lie to someone, and own what you did. Wordsmithing is a gray area but never lie, the reputation of not being truthful can follow you for decades.

2. Never volunteer information that isn't specifically asked for. This isn't a free pass to not provide critical info when your working on stuff like a project, but keep in mind that HR always can dig up info when they want to fire you or not offer you a job. Be honest and to the point, but don't volunteer info that can put you in a bad spot.

TLDR: if they don't ask, don't tell. But if they ask, be honest

so what are you going to do, tell them no? you won't get the job. tell the truth? you won't get the job. sue them? good luck. you'll need it and that does not get you the job and the settlement, if you were to win is years away, so there is no remedy. you start out combative, it's over.

there is frequently just no way to win since the ones paying are the ones not following the rules.

Guidance for New York City which is a locality with such a law:

> Job applications cannot have questions about criminal records and cannot ask you to authorize a background check. Employers cannot ask you questions about your criminal record. If you are asked about your record, your answer cannot be used against you. Employers cannot run a background check on you until after a conditional offer of employment.

> Once an employer offers you a job, they can ask about and consider your criminal record ...an employer can decide to not hire you for one of two reasons: 1. because a direct relationship exists between your conviction and the job you want; or 2. because your conviction history creates an unreasonable risk to people or property. The employer must send you its reasoning in writing, along with the background check it used.

https://www.nyc.gov/site/cchr/media/fair-chance-employees.pa...

Let's be real: This is basically impossible to enforce. This is exactly the same a gender and national heritiage (ethnicity) discrimination. It happens all the time -- there are so many mentions of it on this board. And very, very rarely is anything done about it. There are so many "weak sauce" excuses that companies can give to explain why they will not hire a candidate.

That said: I like your advice: Lie, then report when you are unfairly rejected. This is the way.

It all depends on the framing of the situation. For myself, I frame it as a few of the following, context-depending on how it's asked:

* (on a webform) "not applicable" in writing * (do you have a felony?) I do, but it has absolutely nothing to do with my role (because it really doesn't). * (will the background check yield anything we should know?) you'll see something, but it has nothing to do with the job.

If they keep pressing, and seem simply hesitant, I refer them to a webpage that articulates the story for them. It's behind me, I've grown from it to where it doesn't define me, and I'm proud that it's behind me.

If they get weird for the rest of the interview, I simply say "thank you for your time, but I don't believe this will be a good fit, please let me know if you change your mind", and I walk out of there to avoid wasting another minute with their bigotry.

Once I hit the 7-year mark, that background check won't yank any database association to my legal fiction unless they wish to dig. At that point, I can simply say "nothing will show on my background check" and it's completely honest.

The reason this continues to be a problem in the USA is because people aren't confident in what they've come through. The stigma exists because employees fold over and continue letting employers feel they have the right to discriminate over what happened, irrespective of how that person changed from their experience. I see my opposing any condescension as an effort to resist a social structure that creates a second-class citizen.

Don't tell when its not asked

If it’s just some mom and pop shop then I fully agree. Just tell them enough to fully and honestly answer their questions without opening additional causes for concern.

My Fraternity's cook, when I was in college, was a former fellon. He worked for us for a few years before he told me about his background.

I don't remember the details, but we had a conversation where he mentioned he had experience in IT. Eventually he very briefly mentioned some high level details about his criminal record when the conversation drifted around "so if you were making big bucks, why are you now cooking for us?"

I personally appreciate that he warned me about the consequences of the super-illegal (but "grey morality") thing he did. But, I must agree, it's best to keep things like a record quiet as long as possible.

I don't know if other fraternity brothers knew about his background. It seems like the kind of thing that would be kept quiet until someone started veering into the super-illegal (but "grey morality") area that got our cook in trouble.

I'm curious to know what he did given your description.

I can think of examples of the reverse: quasi-illegal, but quite immoral.

Was part of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Chanology, got caught, went to jail. Yeah, super-illegal. But was it immoral?

If you don't know anything about the shady stuff that Scientology did, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QsCrFANMzc is a great video to start with.

If you think about it, we have tons of laws that don't fit into the mold of "hurting specific people" - which would definitely be "black morality" to me - but are more of either "preserving the system as it is" or even "we said it's illegal and so it is". I'm not saying none of those should exist, but I definitely would be willing to look onto some of it as a morally "gray area".

Most people like to think they are good, even when presented with hard evidence that they’re not.

I'm of the position it all drugs even medical drugs should be free to consume by anybody I should be able to walk in to CVS and get heart medication if I want or cocaine if I want if CVS is willing to sell it to me it's not for the government to decide nor government licensed agents AKA doctors to decide what I consume into my own body

My body my choice

The citizens of communities ravaged by addiction all suffer, whether they individually consume the drug or not.

The idea that drug use is a victimless crime is patently false and all it takes is a few moments of thought to realize it.

No, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with adults smoking a joint after work or on the weekends if that’s what they choose to do, but it quickly devolves from there.

What about alcohol use then? Smoking? Buying high risk stocks, options and NFTs? Investing in high-risk startups? Working for a high-risk startups? Spending 100 hours per week on work and neglecting one's family? Any of these could potentially lead to very sad consequences for not only the individual involved but for the people close to them. But once you step on this road, it can lead you to a very weird places if you're not careful. Or you may throw the consistency out of the window and just say "but this is different!" - but then I'd welcome you to explain how exactly it's different.

> but it quickly devolves from there.

This is a so called "gateway" theory, and there are many indications it is false. For example: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB6010.html

I suspect that with further legalization and de-stigmatization of marijuana use, the link would become even weaker, because most users won't devolve anywhere - as most people who drink a can of beer on a weekend do not become raging alcoholics - and the cases where a person is driven to drug use by some problems not produced (though also not solved but frequently worsened) by drugs would be recognized as such instead of blaming the evil weed for everything. (NB: not a user myself, never did, never planning to)

Sorry no... This is 3rd party Liability and that can not be the basis for a free society, as at that point everything becomes regulated

Want to go back to Alcohol Prohibition as well?

Further The Father is also free to choose a job where he makes less money that would impact the "little girl" in negative ways, or may choose to tell off his boss and get fired, will you now regulate speech "for the children"

>>The idea that drug use is a victimless crime is patently false and all it takes is a few moments of thought to realize it.

Victimless crime is defined for First Party victimization, to most people 3rd party liability is not a thing, Ford is not responsible if someone kills someones else in a F150, A Gun Manufacturer is not responsible when someone kills someone with a gun... The victims of those crimes are victim of the PERSON that victimized them, the driver or murder

Drug abuse can lead to other crimes, such as theft, and the victims of those crimes are victims of the drug user.

However you can not have a free society if you start shifting the liability upstream, at that point you get in a Pre Crime laws (which is what Drug laws are) and you end up with a whole negative effect and tyranny

That's generally disproven, and demonstrates ignorance on your part.

It doesn't matter what the addiction is: Cigarettes, alcohol, gambling, video games, TV, sex, work, money, religion: No government regulation can force a person to live a "good" life, and these kinds of addictions, legal or not, can have nasty negative consequences.

It just so happens that certain substances are illegal due to politics, bias, and ignorance. There's good reasons that these substances should be controlled, but how we (assuming you are in the US or country with similar laws) control them isn't working. (Banning them just creates dangerous black markets.)

When it comes to dangerous narcotics like opioids, cocaine, ect, the biggest obstacle to reform is misinformation like "a joint after work or on the weekends ... but it quickly devolves from there". That's not how addiction works; and continuing to believe and repeat misinformation like that perpetuates the problem. (IE, the misinformation makes it politically difficult in the US to to offer forms of treatment that are proven to work.)

Addictive substances are well established as a hazard not just to the individual, but to society. So I think government has an interest in avoiding/preventing/restricting addiction.

I wouldn't trust a single human to be objective about the morality of their actions

I wasn't thinking in that direction, but that totally makes sense.

Thanks.

First, the commenter could have been paraphrasing a longer conversation that led to that question.

Second, the "I used to be somebody" conversation is more common than you think. Asking "If you were somebody, what happened?" is usually the question that is being invited to be asked if someone brings up this topic.

I hafta say, it seems like you’re the one with the ego.

Edit: if I had to guess, the cook probably said something like “I made a lot more money before I worked here.” And was then asked why.

He was talking about making good money in IT, so I asked why he didn't continue working in IT. (At least that's how I remember a conversation from over 20 years ago.)

He was originally talking about playing computer games on early computers, so I thought I'd get a story about why he left tech. (IE, laid off and had to change careers, couldn't keep up with changes, didn't like the stress.) I was quite surprised that he was a felon.

He really didn't tell me much about what he did, either. I don't want to repeat much here, other than to say he got greedy.

At a high level I don't think there's anything wrong with what he did. There's plenty of legal activities that are "grey" morally: Oil companies, tobacco companies, investments (stock, 401ks,) where ordinary people don't realize the nasty things the companies they own do...

I re-binged "Last Week Tonight" a month ago. There is an episode on the prison system in the USA and the obstacles people face upon release. I remember one case where the person wrote on his job application as employed by the "State of <insert state>" while he was in prison. (it must be this episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pz3syET3DY).

I haven't been convicted of any crimes, so I don't have own experience. From people I know, they continued working in tech as contractors/freelancers, but for small fry (as big banks will be very thorough on your background (criminal/credit scoring) checks).

Doing small gigs for small companies where you don't handle personal/sensitive data can give you enough time to (as the parent suggests) have this 'forgotten'.

Would you consider moving to another country?

FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) is the public face of the USA's "Securities and Exchange Commission". They write the rulebook on who gets to work in the industry (stockbrokers, investment bankers, and the like).

I recently underwent an extensive background check with my longtime employer and the case still showed up. Of course I had allocuted to it in advance and it was not a problem.

On the other hand we definitely hired people without speeding tickets who were likely deep agents for foreign states.

Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14911467 - Aug 2017 (506 comments)

I link it here in case there might still be useful information or tips in those comments. If there are other related threads, we can list them here too.

Edit: also this (via jph's comment below):

Tell HN: I'm Afraid We're Shutting Down - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31598978 - June 2022 (353 comments)

After skimming through the threads, it looks like:

1. Bronson's business started out strong right before the pandemic and showed a lot of promise.

2. The pandemic nearly bankrupted it.

3. His business partially recovered after the pandemic, but he was unable to secure high enough wages during a period of high inflation and wage growth and so his employees kept leaving to find higher paid work elsewhere, which he sourly blamed on "The Great Resignation" and shut the whole thing down.

It was a bit of a sad story and arguably a loss of a great resource, but the positive flip side is that it suggests the economy was good enough for his workers to find better work independently rather than relying on a for-profit middleman who I would assume takes some kind of commission/fee out of the deal.

I did some terrible things when I was 19 that I won't go into details, but after working as a developer for a few years, served a six-year sentence from 2003-2009.

Upon release, I leveraged some old contacts to get a bit of contracting work. In time I found more contracting work, mostly working for smaller companies on a 1099 basis. (direct, not through a firm) In time a local contract turned into a job, and I've been with the company since. I'm the lead developer and own the entire stack, from the cloud to the front-end. I've made myself very valuable to them, and earn an income that's well over market (early on they offered me a percentage of profits as compensation)

I still continue to do contracting on a small basis (small companies tend to not bind you with onerous terms keeping you from doing so). Some of them I've even found on HN.

Anything involving a background check is a no-go. Most traditional employment situations, especially with "big" companies is a no-go. Sometimes you have to hustle a bit more, but honestly, I feel like owning your career with an entrepreneurial mindset is something everyone can benefit from.

Most of my clients have no idea about my past. A few have learned, but it didn't disqualify me. I was transparent when asked.

You got new coworkers? A lot of people start digging. I don't survive that digging.

Part of the problem is I went to prison for eight years. And I am just a computer nerd with no criminal background, I've never even had a parking ticket. I act like every other nerd in a dev environment. I love hardware, I'm very passionate about operating systems, making them run juust right.

Where it's a problem is when people look me up and are like, holy cow this is a hardened criminal! but I act... so... normal. and you wouldn't guess. it actually flips people out. it feels like I'm lying about a whole lot of things suddenly. I must be. I have to be. and it goes downhill from there. Whatever trust I earned gets taken away because people are judgmental and often not reasonable about that judgement.

I'm an ancient linkedin account, because I made it way back when linkedin first came out. it's an easy one to remember, lol.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/werewolf/

You should know that if you also have a non-throwaway account, HN will unify your accounts in their backend records.

Yes, you should assume that the moderators will know, and you should be fine with them knowing, because you’re not using the multiple accounts to escape moderation, but rather for greater anonymity in the comment thread.

The rules that I follow, which I think are implicit in “use good judgment”:

1. Don’t vote on the same thing from multiple accounts.

2. Don’t participate in the same comment thread with multiple accounts (or if you do, only separate parts of the thread). Don’t create a fake impression of consensus or have your accounts interact with each other.

Those are probably the two big ones I would imagine.

Whether the accounts are actually tied together on the backend, I don’t know. I would suspect that they are not automatically linked, but could probably be linked if the moderators are investigating you for bad behavior (like voting on the same thing with multiple accounts).

Not the first time I've used a throwaway, and they've never merged my comments into my main account (only use throwaways for these types of discussions - I assume abusing it, such as ban evasion, would be a different story)

How?

Please be precise about how I can demonstrate this to myself.

If you have evidence of the contrary, I would love to know.

Your experience in security operations is in demand, so that's a big plus for you. Seek work that you can do via external environments, meaning you don't need to be on-site, and don't need to have internal access. Ideally you can create an LLC so you can work for yourself.

A few examples... 1. Doing compliance-oriented security reviews via cloned systems (e.g. your customer provides you with a non-live copy). 2. Advising on process commitments (e.g. security SLAs, or UML/Visio/EA diagrams, or declarative configurations). 3. Effecting security-related project management task plans (e.g. pilots, proof of concepts, research adjuncts, resource estimations).

I was on a bad psychedelic trip, accompanied with some other issues at the time and ending up making threatening statements to a very high level official, but no battery occurred whatsoever. Thank goodness, or I would probably not be writing this message

Could/would you consider a sideways step to something less directly security based? For instance there might be data engineering roles that might suit.

Go west if you can. If you're on the east coast it's hell. The "liability" concerns are (IME) a pervasive east-coast racist myth from the 60s, but it's a real threat. The same justification was used to expand routine drug screening from forklift operators and truck drivers to keyboard jockeys. Equifax did drug testing of white-collar employees and did not hire criminals; so much for their liability and reputation following the worst data breach in history. It's all bullshit; both justifications are veiled cause to not hire blacks.

Mind your co-workers inclined to cyberstalk everyone around them and using your skeletons to raise PR hell to advance their own career. We've unfortunately thrown employees under the bus due to public outcry. Social "justice" in action! (What was the prison sentence for, if not justice...?)

Poster could say, “you don’t need to trust me, that’s the point of {insert product or service}”.

why are you not using cloned or dummy data?

Certainly if a weakness is found in the clone it's also present in prod, but that's what contracts are for. And we also review logs to make sure.

edit: a clone of prod w/ only test data in it, not prod data.

If you have the foresight to be able to recognize a malicious action from the logs, why not have the software block those actions from the start?

What percentage of the vulnerabilities discovered are independently discovered by multiple pen testers?

Then you talk about "discovered and revealed vulnerabilities". But, your first sentence talks about "discovered vulnerabilities not revealed".

What you may be wanting is a honeypot, where a pentest client intentionally puts some vulnerabilities of various exploit difficulty into the clone environment to ensure pentesters are doing their job.

How so? Presumably most pen testers are working in good faith. But, if there is a malicious actor in their midst, that individual would not disclose any vulnerabilities they intend to exploit, no. What would be the point? That's just a really good way to get caught.

> Then you talk about "discovered and revealed vulnerabilities".

Yes, that's right. While it is theoretically possible for all your pen testers to be working together maliciously, if you are careful in your employment practices you can make this highly unlikely.

As such, if your data shows that 100% of all known vulnerabilities were independently discovered by multiple testers, then there is reasonable confidence that any malicious actor's failure to disclose a vulnerability will still be reported by someone else.

But if that figure is less than 100%, and especially if it is considerably less than 100%, then there is much more doubt cast on another pen tester in your organization's ability to find the same vulnerability. Here you have a problem.

1. You get to test the flaws in an environment where nobody will raise an eyebrow. If you go straight for the production system, it is likely your early attempts will visibly show up in the logs.

2. You get paid to carry out malicious deeds. That's a double win.

It would be kind of silly not to.

The second two sentences read like excellent reasons why you should take the job (even if they are just a repeat what I already said in different words).

I must have missed something.

You get well paid and it's legal.

The reality is that you don't get paid well if the data is worthless. You only get paid well when the data is worth orders of magnitude more than what you're being offered. If you are inclined to break that law, that's a pretty nice carrot dangling there.

If you are so inclined, why wouldn't you take the job and report the not so crafty exploits to bring in the sweet, sweet paycheque and use the really juicy exploit to also go after the even sweeter data? It's a total win-win situation...

...unless you get caught, but if you are so inclined that's not exactly on your radar.

[1] Okay, regulation, but the need for such regulation is still in question.

I'd warrant nearly all of them, though it may take a while.

If you have ever submitted or worked with a bug bounty program you will run into dozens of duplicates.

I've personally performed and overseen assessments in which the company had already done a complete blackbox pentest and wanted a second whitebox review to make sure the first company knew their stuff and validate they found the same bugs. Also did a few of the honeypot assessments in which companies put purposely vulnerable code in to make sure 'we are doing our job', I hate those most.

Depending on the testers speciality of course, the reports often found the same or similar issues.

Source: 15 years as a pentester, offensive security engineer, and now security architect.

Why guess when the other commenter has the actual data...?

His eventual response was 0, by the way.

Zero because we patch them as soon as we are notified. Generally at the end of the test / before the retest, but if they found something serious they would notify immediately,

I had to focus on jobs with small companies that did no checks. There were so many times I declined jobs when I saw the background check just to avoid the shame. It's a waiting game until it falls off the threshold of places caring.

Eventually I got a job as a federal contractor working with semi sensitive metadata. I didn't need a clearance but had to get a public trust. Was still grilled by DIA trying to determine if i could be compromised. I am so glad I don't have to check the box anymore and have stayed out of trouble. 2 months of jail, 3 years of probation and another 10 years of shame. Good riddance. Today I make 170k as one of the main senior engineers. Good luck!

Ps some states have laws against asking if you're a felon. Cali and Colo might be 2. Look into remote jobs in those states after researching that.

If you've been convicted of anything in the last 10-15 years, every script-kiddie docket scraper will attribute the conviction to you.

This is only useful to people willing/able to compartmentalize their past under a deadname. Then applicants can mislead the employer into running background checks on a synthetic identity that comes back clean.

Two approaches:

The more confusing you make the results of your background check, the less apparent relevance the criminal conviction for Jimmy Deere will have for Jane Doe. The hiring manager isn't the county clerk or a private investigator. He doesn't have time to unfuck your fuckary.

So when changing your name, pick one from the local obituaries or the name of a former resident of your home. Even better is if you share a name with another known criminal. Your background check will "erroneously" include information about a random dude named Jimmy with a criminal conviction, suggest you are currently incarcerated for manslaughter and DUI, and that you died last year at age 89, but you also died a decade ago at 72. With any luck, he'll distrust the results enough to hire you.

The other course I've seen is the squeaky-clean route. Adopt the name of an overseas CEO who works in the same industry you do. Then act like an expert in that field without ever explicitly claiming to be that person. It sounds insane. It fucking works. Any negative data will be glossed over by all the positive sentiment associated with your "victim." (Just don't attend the same trade shows!)

The yarn-graphing I had to do to disambiguate one individual's skinwalked identities had my colleagues calling me Pepe Silvia for months. The guy was using disparate sets of foreign-and-domestically-issued papers to establish toy companies all over the place and at one point "adopted" the identity and address of his onetime AirBNB host, who himself was a retired industry executive. It was the wildest case I've ever worked.

Synthetic identity fraud: fun for everyone!

Subsequently, they did IT contract work behind the scenes with small contractors, kept in touch with his professional network, was super helpful to the rest of us, and after serious concerns and much debate, got back into his prior career with a new employer.

I don't even know how, because normally a felony would be a no-hire, but he pulled it off, likely because he was so helpful and giving to his professional network throughout this mess.

I've made companies a lot of money in my lifetime. I worked at places like exodus communications, netapp, netcom, @home. Some old names people prolly recognize. I specialize in storage, you want ceph? Ceph and I get along great. My last cluster was over 2 PB and it started out just 150TB.

It's simple in the end, I work for companies, solve their problems, make us all money. Should be simple right?

There's a good chance he's on HN and may pop into this thread.

its a messed up story. he was devastated. and so angry he drove to the cop station after I was sentenced and flew over the counter and attacked the very first PD officer he saw. She, and a few other officers, beat the living dogshit out of him. made him look like a racoon. broke her wrist in the process-- and so that's felony assault on a police officer WITH GBI. They stuck him one floor above mine. I felt bad, now worse. Dude was a nerd, had no criminal history. he did that for me? I didn't deserve it.

in any event, we divorced while I was in prison. he got permission to see me there towards the end. took a lot of paperwork, but he did it. so we could have closure in person. got the warden to sign off. had to say a million times over that no, he was not brainwashed. no, I didn't shoot him because I love him. it was nothing like that.

only reason I got off parole was I had no restitution. and the only reason there was no restitution was because my husband remained adament that I wasn't all there. an advanced medical directive was in effect, he was actually my legal caretaker at that point. it was a lot of paperwork, notarized even. annnd it counted for nothing. there were no medical bills to pay-- his insurance covered it, there was nothing but the court costs. He had a clean entry and exit, thank god. else it would have been murder huh. went through his chest, he spent a week in the hospital. made a full recovery.

officials reached out to him one last time and asked, and he said something like "you fucks took my husband. eat shit and die." He said similar when it came to getting a statement from him. Unfortunately someone was shot, and I did shoot him, so ... there was no question on if I had committed the crime or not, even without a statement. the powder was on my hands.

I completed a 9 year sentence, all 85% of it.

today it would never happen. the judge had no ability not to send me to prison, or even run the charges concurrent. he straight up said he did not want to do it, but his hands were tied. there were three, assault with a firearm, great bodily injury, and domestic violence. because a gun had been involved. minimum mandatory sentencing. no concurrent, must be consecutive. They gave me the low, a 3/3/3, so 9 years. They wanted to send me to a drug program, but it wasn't in the cards. Not guilty by reason of insanity is a horrible idea in california, it is basically a life sentence that you will spend at least a decade, or two, proving you're sane. and maybe never able to do it. think Terminator, Sarah Conner, in the psych ward. I was advised not to go down that route. and california had already gotten rid of the diminished capacity law-- you know the dude who used the twinkie defense? yeah he really messed it up for everyone doing that.

I did my time, I didn't let my time do me. I wrote and published a sci fi trilogy, which is really hard to do in prison, but all you have is time.

I like who I am now, and what I've turned into. I worked well at various companies, but ... I wish that was still the case.

I'm proud to be 14 years clean now. I'll never go back on that stuff.

Situations like yours are what people who get off on "tough on crime" policies and push for harsher punishments for "bad guys" never stop to think about. We need judges to be able to consider an individual's unique circumstances in order to get justice, and the same is true for HR departments. Blanket polices that simply send every resume to the bin when the applicant has been arrested and/or convicted with no regard to the situation are just stupid.

You never should have been behind bars, but having served your time, you should have left with a clean record and the opportunity to rebuild your life.

What a lot of people don't consider is just how much time it is. We've become kind of used to seeing such long sentences, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years. It's a lot of time, but there's something in herently bad about giving so much time-- people who are in the middle of committing violent crimes, if they think they're going to prison forever, they tend to escalate and go out in a hail of bullets.

that is not a good situation for anyone involved. not bystanders, not cops, not the criminal. it comes from pushing them to the point of no return. super harsh penalties will do that.

to be clear though, I accept full responsibility of what I did. I know what decisions lead up to the drugs. I know a dozen times that I could have chosen waaaaaay better, and I knew. I absolutely knew, even if I didn't, that I was fucking up. I knew, and it's why it won't happen again. I won't be that stupid next time.

In reality just like with policing we need better judges we need better officers we need better judges in the system the problem is how to get that nobody has solved that problem and it's easier to just write rules to make things worse for everybody instead of trying to fix the system with better people

https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/society/2022/re...

"In 2015, for example, an analysis by Swiss researchers looked at 14 studies that compared what happened when criminals were put behind bars to what happened when they were given some other sentence, such as probation or electronic monitoring, that allowed them to stay out of jail or prison. The researchers found that crime rates were just as high for people who’d spent time behind bars as for those who hadn’t."

No that is not what is boils down to, i dont even agree that prison should be viewed as a punishment at all

Prison should be for separating a person that is a danger to others until such time they are no longer a danger to others. Judges often have a bad record at picking who will be a danger and who will not thus by default for public safety the public demands people convicted of crimes be sent away for a long time to maximize the possible safety of the public at the expense of the individuals that get caught up in the system

We know that past a certain point harsher punishments in general are not a deterrent to people committing crimes so we need the public to grow a spine and reject the idea of excessive sentences since while it makes them feel safe, it's just putting them at further risk. Some facts are a hard sell to people though, especially when they're afraid.

We have a huge problem with mass incarceration in the US and the treatment of people we lock up and the conditions of those facilities need major reform, but I don't think we should abandon the idea of locking people up as a punishment entirely.

Public intoxication can dig yourself into a really deep hole, really quickly. Don't do it.

That’s one hell of a bad night.

Actually much less likely in my locale, but if I'm out of town...

I've worked for 2-4 companies since then, depending on how you count acquisitions. I've even been trusted to write code that has touched a lot of financial transactions for customers. I doubt I would have been able to stay employed if I didn't have some dedicated advocates, mostly at the CTO level.

At my last (very small) company, my background never even came up. No check at all.

I've also spent a few years scraping by as an indie mobile developer with up to 15 apps in the different stores. With just a bit of a corporate shield, nobody even needs to know who you are.

In the software/IT field, I've met and even worked with plenty of people with criminal records. Multiple DUIs. Two that were convicted of vehicular manslaughter or something similar. Plenty of drug offenses.

You may want to check out Underdog Devs. You're likely too experienced for their mentee program but at one time they had a good list of tech companies willing to hire people with criminal records.

I experienced this. Due to various undiagnosed mental health issues I ended up with a serious record in the UK - a total of 15 charges, all computer related.

Due to the clear lack of malicious intent I didn't serve any time, but did get shackled with: 12 months suspended for 12 months; 10 years on the sex offenders register; 7 years sexual harm prevention order; and 5 years of something else I can't remember.

Every computer I touch - whilst in the UK - should have "monitoring" software installed, which pretty much ruled out any office job, let alone tech.

So after 2 failed suicide attempts and a stay in hospital I decided to completely reinvent myself and start from scratch. Time to hit the big reset button. Legally I have to reveal my convictions ahead of signing a contract in the UK. I got frog-marched out of several buildings by security after the interviews were terminated immediately when I revealed my convictions. I was basically unemployable in the UK and decided to leave and never return. Even after the 10 years is up I am still required to declare "spent convictions" for 5/6 years. This would take me close to my 50th birthday until I no longer have to say anything - 15 years from conviction date.

It took 1 year to "create" a new identity, including complete change of name, severing any connection with friends, and faking an employment history.

I moved abroad with my new identity and hoped for the best... and so far have had an incredibly successful career (post-conviction), and the one thing which has driven me is being good enough that IF my employer learns of my past, they will weigh up what I offer them vs. what I have done in my past.

I remain forever optimistic because _I have to_ . There is no other option.

What did you actually do, and what did they get you for?

> 5 years of something else I can't remember.

Just speaking for myself, I feel like I'd remember something significant like that.

Quite ironic really.

Due to the unusual nature of my case the judge excluded from all the usual mandatory courses during probation.

Convictions included "making of, "possession of", "distribution of" (a few others I can't remember) CSAM. A single P2P file ticks all three boxes.

People always assume the above includes "looking at" however that was not the case. I was interested in metadata and had absolutely no desire to see things which cannot be unseen.

The purpose for acquiring the data was not sexual in nature.

But with no context people always think the worst.

How many did you have?

That much drama for a sentence the state doesn't consider worth serving stinks of CSAM.

Some people cannot live with actions they have done; others feel they cannot live with the limited options available in the future. I was the latter.

This thread is stale enough I'm going to risk injecting some religion into it.

I've spent most of my life belonging to (some variant of) a faith with redemption at it's core. And yet, our adherents tend to dominate the part of society that 1) dedicates massive resources to thwart redemption and 2) broadly support the eradication of redemption. My analysis has slowly been shifting from our actions are indistinguishable from evil to - according to our own plain and reasonable definition, we're evil.

> Some people cannot live with actions they have done; others feel they cannot live with the limited options available in the future. I was the latter.

I have glimpsed the former and can say it is no metaphor. As to the latter, I'll say I was born at the end of a more reasonable time.

The actions of my youth didn't risk individuals or society in any meaningful way - yet would have imprisoned me for life today. This is entirely because we have become an unreasonable people who have lost our way. We no longer assess risk well because we have given up our sense of proportion.

I don't know how to make any of this better. Just learning how to fathom and elucidate the issue is taking time. Perhaps I'll come across people who can do something with that.

https://jailstojobs.org/second-chance-employers-network/

https://www.centerforworkforceinclusion.org/our-work/formerl...

---

Not sure if you have linkedin or anything but I'd like to stay connected

They do training and placements aimed at getting formerly incarcerated people into tech roles. I don't know if they work with folks like you with experience already but I'd say it's worth a try.

I used to work at Slack, which founded this program.

If you were arrested for robbery when you were younger perhaps because you had a drug addiction then that person should have a right to serve their time and change their ways later in life without the state holding and distributing that to any potential employer, practically ensuring that individual is unemployable for a mistake they made in their youth.

The reason I think this is not a good assumption to assume that someone will be a bad employee simply because they did something criminal in their past. There are terrible employees out there who don't break the law. If we're so concerned about employers hiring bad employees then state should instead build a centralised database of bad employees and their reason for termination at previous places of work. I'd argue this would be more effective if we're concerned an employer might hire a bad employee.

Secondly, making it difficult for those who have committed crimes to get back into the workforce increases their risk of reoffending. Having a good job and a nice life to lose is a great reason to not commit crimes while having nothing to live for is a great excuse to do whatever feels right in the moment.

Best of luck op. If I was an employer I'd consider you if you had the skills and seemed like you could do the job. I have no idea why your past would be relevant to your ability to work outside of select roles.

> After the regulations, lacking the ability to discern criminal history, employers became much less likely to call back any apparently black applicant. They seemed to treat all black applicants now as if they might have a criminal past.

“show us your linkedin”

Easy. Do they spot a blank in your employment record? Tell them that you took time off to take care of a sick relative (mother is the best really). I have used it so many times. The Rosey and Richard Noseys shut right the fuck up every single time. If you really want to play with their emotions, tell them something awful about the end of life process. "Don't ask questions where you don't want to know the answers!"

Ostensibly this is for some kind of reporting and statistics, but I feel bad while answering it every time (about 100+ times last year) and wonder if checking the box that says "prefer not to say" automatically disqualifies me.

Oddly enough, I’m a white male and the most protected class “abuses” I’ve ever witnessed is when I’ve been told I wasn’t allowed to hire white males. I’ve actually been told I could not hire any one except a women before. My team was shorthanded for a year. I work in a niche that is probably 90%+ male and probably 70% white.

What’s also weird is, I usually hire through recruiters so when I tell them “only send me female resumes” the search just goes radio silent and I don’t even see what kind of talent I’m missing out on.

I’ve been a fairly high level hiring manager at multiple firms and those answers never mattered or were even visible to me; even at the VP level.

That said, sex is also an excellent proxy since men commit far more crime than women. I wonder if women are more likely to get hired when criminal background checks are forbidden?

A crime completely unrelated to my business may be very relevant to someone I already employ. I have a small business where people are working in relatively close quarters. I don’t want to put a rapist, stalker or some other kind of predator in there with the young woman I just hired. If there was ever a problem that would be on my conscience.

There are all sorts of others I don’t want to deal with either. This is a place where the people I bring in will be around my family, my employees and my customers. I have a responsibility to look out for each of them.

All that said, I wouldn’t hesitate to hire someone with a criminal background if the crime is irrelevant or I assess the risk is low. I don’t care if someone got busted with weed or that they got a DUI 10 years ago. I don’t care if it’s a one time crime related to a very specific set of circumstances that’s unlikely to ever repeat. Or a bar fight, drag racing or dozens of other dumb lapses in judgment that can result in serious charges. But I do care that I’m able to make an informed decision.

It used to be that you could pay your debt, and unless your crime was infamous, the "memory" of it would fade from society rather quickly. The internet and private databases have definitely hampered this facility and perhaps it should just be regulated with the same forthrightness we apply to credit decisions.

I have a relative who spent time in prison because she tried to kill her mother with an insulin injection who got out and got a job as a nurse working at a nursing home. She lied on her job application about felony convictions but only got found out when her mentally retarded sister showed up at the emergency room with an insulin overdose. It said in the paper she was stealing meds from the controlled substance locker and I believe it because she was stealing her grandson’s ADHD meds too.

I believe we should give felons a chance but the above case is one where not doing a background check looks like malpractice.

Nonetheless I agree with the point you seem to be making rhetorically, which is that the reason this is a failure is because one thing (criminal record) is being used as a proxy to measure another (job qualification).

And perhaps a larger point, given that things are the way they are, would be that our society cares only about punishment, not rehabilitation of individuals and not even (surprisingly) helping business.

I invite you to read this: https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/15/china-social-credit-sys...

I quote: "Contrary to common belief, the cities mainly target companies, not individuals. Nonetheless, legal representatives of a violating company are also included in the blacklists to prevent reoffending elsewhere or under a different company. Nationally, about 75 percent of entities targeted by the system end up on blacklists because of court orders they have ignored—the so-called judgment defaulters. The remaining companies are typically collared for severe marketplace violations—for instance, for food safety infringements, environmental damage, or wage arrears. But much of these cities’ day-to-day use of the SCS is banal thanks to the system’s fragmentation and inflation of results."

The gist of it is that it was a grading system for businesses, to distinguish the bad payers, often bankrupts people restarting business over and over. This is ofc not great because we would need a "start over" mindset like in the US, but stop reading buzzfeed-like news about this thing, it's a bit cringe.

We are oppressed maybe, but not THAT good at it. Most of the censorship in China is self inflicted and networked, from the bottom, think "shhh don't say that you'll be in trouble" or "I prefer not to answer that question, wink wink". No need for complicated expensive systems diverting taxpayer money away from the pockets of our dear leaders, when a simple 2-hour interview of one person at the police station can silence an entire social graph of hundreds of people for months :)

That is presuming they could afford that cost. The effective purposes of the system are to keep the lucrative private prison industry flush and to maintain what Karl Marx called an "army of surplus labor" to keep wages low.

Many government functions handle data that the private sector probably shouldn't, and you can't easily choose other govenment providers.

Companies like credit bureaus or banks or the telcos or airlines or hospitals are effectively arms of the state at this point. You don’t get to opt out of the oligarchy with consumer choice.

Then, to do a background check, you just input those job categories and an applicants ID info and get back a "no adverse events" result, or otherwise get back info on only crimes relevant to the categories specified. My understanding is that is basically how some EU countries do it.

I think companies would welcome this sort of standardization (including how many years it would take for different adverse events to fall off your record) as it would help insulate them from claims of bias.

This shouldn't be controversial at all and I think your take is 100% correct wrt exceptions (gov work, access to children etc). The very "Once a felon always a felon" thing going on in the united states is a secret life long sentence that completely defeats the idea of redemption.

The better, faster and easier solution is a path to quick expungement, this also has the added bonus of offering people an incentive to no re-offend.

IMO once you have completed all active punishment (ie you are no longer on parole or probation) your record should be sealed.

>>If we're so concerned about employers hiring bad employees then state should instead build a centralised database of bad employees and their reason for termination at previous places of work

That would actually be illegal under most state laws as most State's have Anti-Black List laws to prohibit such lists from being created.

Um, that "incentive" is called not going to jail. Or more generally, behaving like a moral citizen. Just like for everybody else, ex-convict or not.

Just because you've been convicted before doesn't mean morals don't apply to you and you need extra candy to behave well. These kinds of arguments are making the case weaker to hire fellons, not stronger.

He was out of prison for a similar thing.

Guess what? There was no background check for the hire nor any vetting of the company.

Guess who found him out?

If, as I understand is the case in the USA, employers are allowed to retrieve the potential criminal record of prospective employees after they have served their sentence, that's where one could argue the employer could be criminally liable for future wrongdoing by their employee.

You’d be surprised at how many jobs felons can’t have.

Most jobs that need licensing (e.g.,electrician, plumber, even bartender, and many more).

As well as security, jobs which relate to firearms and many more.

EDIT: for clarity, legally - there are many jobs felons are prohibited from being employed as. So employers have the burden to ensure they only hire legally eligible employees (not hire a felon when not allowed). As such, background checks are how they ensure this.

I say this because my experience of hiring and employing people really shifted my opinion in favor of maximum diligence unfortunately.

In many environments violence is a part of life and necessary for survival.

One hypothetical scenario of millions:

You live and grow up in a high-crime area. Someone attacks you, a family member, etc. You defend yourself to protect your own life or that of a loved one. A cellphone video records the end of the encounter where you appear to be the aggressor.

You get an assault charge.

You work your ass off, beat a variety of odds, and make something of yourself. Many years later you’re passed over for a position simply because you came from an environment the person doing the hiring can’t possibly fathom. A person who has clearly never been in the position of “it’s me/my wife/my child or them”.

Same for ex-military. Are you aware that the United States military is often considered to be the “only way out” for a substantial portion of the enlisted? That something like 90% of military roles are non-combat related?

I’m not a violent person either but this is an extremely naive, judgmental, and downright discriminatory position.

We can discuss whether or not it’s naive, but it’s served me quite well for decades thus far. The rest of your comment seems like a simple emotional appeal.

All hiring is discriminatory; there are more applicants than there are positions. Discrimination is not a bad thing, it’s just discrimination based on built-in traits (race, sex, national origin, etc) that is bad.

Discriminating in hiring based on the adult decisions of a human being is not only in-bounds, it is literally the whole of hiring. Some people studied software, some didn’t. Some dropped out of high school to start companies, some went to university.

This is one of the reasons I think religious discrimination shouldn’t be prohibited in hiring (choice of religion is not a built in trait, but a choice made as an adult). Same with work history - going to work for the armed forces is an unforced choice.

This sort of categorization and discrimination is a great and useful thing and we should do more of it. People are not interchangeable.

You could make the exact same argument against hiring from the ivys versus community colleges, yet I don’t see anyone arguing for blinding of university names on CVs, or hiding the fact of whether or not someone studied at university.

When hiring our job is to find the best possible candidate. It’s not wrong or bad to use all available data to do that. All else being equal, I’d much rather hire someone without a history of violence or history of work in violent industries.

Freedom of association is one of our most powerful tools for shaping the society in which we wish to live.

Most kids are introduced to being religious because their parents are, and in those scenarios the child doesn't get to make an informed decision about whether or not the religion is something they want to be a part of (I don't think I need to explain why this is).

Similarily, you can join the military at 16 in North America, before you're legally an adult. People are also involuntarily conscripted into the military in some countries (like South Korea and Switzerland).

If you want to argue that it "doesn't count" when you're a kid or something similar, then you'll have to also explain way a child can change to become less violent or "less religious" and why an adult, for some reason, cannot.

So yes, your opinion is naive. It's missing all of the complexities of human society.

The strongest predictor of religios belief, worldwide, is the religion of the parents. If you've believed one thing for the first 18 years of your life, literally all your life up to this point, then it's hard to suddenly snap out of this at 18 and most people don't.

Do you think that all Christians in the US, including almost all of its members of congress, are Christian because it has such a convincing story?

White collar crime/theft and the indirect killing of people through occupational risks (ex black lung from mining), class traitorism (ex being a cop) is a much greater kind of bad than someone who got in a fight or something.

Ever? A 50-year old who punched a bully when he was cornered at 20 years old, 30 years ago? Not saying that's great behavior, but perhaps understandable after having been cornered.

Or at 15? 10? 5? Somebody who at 3 years old kicked their older brother of 6 with a bunch of legos? Not going to hire that maniac? Do you yourself have a job?

Better re-think that one.

It's unfortunately the case with tough district/city people with criminal record. Once you live in violence for more than a couple weeks, and have to assume physical threat and retaliate, I'm pretty sure it changes you somewhat fundamentally, and unfortunately those people rarely have the proper support to adjust to civil duties.

It is party result of them being above the law. And partly result of training that does not teach the de-escalation at all, but focuses on taking control, being dominant at all cost.

"Police violence calls for measures beyond de-escalation training": https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/police-violence-c... — "The police department in Camden, N.J., for example, was disbanded and rebuilt with a new vision in 2013."

"What the data say about police brutality and racial bias — and which reforms might work": https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01846-z

"More Than Half of Police Killings Are Mislabeled, New Study Says": https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/30/us/police-killings-underc... — Researchers comparing information from death certificates with data from organizations that track police killings in the United States identified a startling discrepancy

"17,000 Killings by Police Have Gone Uncounted Since 1980": https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/how-many... — There have been twice as many deaths at the hands of cops than the federal government has reported, top medical journal finds

Search-fu is failing me, but ISTR there are studies with data indicating that when police are called for non-violent situations, there is a high chance (> 50%) of the aggressiveness of the cops making the situation violent, especially if disadvantaged populations (ethnic or gender minorities) are involved. This is especially true for property crimes (there was a rather visible case of someone murdered by a now former police officer — on camera no less — because he was accused of using a counterfeit $20 bill for a pack of cigarettes, perhaps you remember it?)

Remember, the police do not exist to prevent violence. Most of the time, they’re not even intended to fully and properly investigate violence perpetrated against others. No, they are there mostly to (poorly) investigate property crimes against the ownership class. That they occasionally manage to perform good investigations doesn't really help with the times that they make things worse, don't do anything, or make cases up from whole cloth (perhaps you’ve heard of the police misconduct in the Central Park 5 case, or do you just believe the cops all the time).

There's also the negative case of someone who has assaulted someone but was never caught, you can't safely eliminate that because there's no record of it.

Second, I rather not have colleagues who are making threatening gestures or threaten to kick someones ass. I'm slightly appalled by the normalization of this kind of behavior.

Assault act of causing someone to reasonably fear imminent harm, what most people think of Assault they actually mean what the law calls battery which is actually causing physical harm.

Further I am not sure why we are focusing on Assault or battery, the OP said that was not the charge they were convicted of, and a Felony by definition is any crime punishable by more than 1 year of imprisonment which given the "Tough on crime" provision starting in the 90 makes a HUGE number if non-violent offenses felonies, as something a simple a playing your music too loud could be in some circumstances classified as a felony (often charged as " Nuisances" which is many states is a low level felony)

Most people have "felon" associated with violent crime, or serious crime, but unfortunately in our over criminalized society most people commit as many as 3 felonies a day not even knowing it.

The OP is inconsistent with their information as they write that they were literally released on assault charges:

> I have been looking for work since I was released for an assault charge in November 2022.

I won't say that it's almost tautological, but it's pretty close.

If you can surpass conviction and probation, you are remarkably self-disciplined. Probation conditions are much more problematic than an actual job, and the penalty for failure is going back to jail.

A person who can pass that kind of environment is absolutely the kind of person you want working for you.

Who cares if they were convicted? That detail is shoehorned in here to make it sound like a good example when it isn't. Neo-nazis are not a protected class, and so the deli owner would be entirely within their rights to not hire someone on that basis, with or without a conviction on their criminal record.

And honestly how often do they get convicted of say, a hate crime, that might show up on a background check compared to the number of neo-nazis in the country with clean records, or who get acquitted, etc.?

If it is a matter of survival, I'd pick this route. You can easily make 6 figures or even 7 figures within a few years. You do not need to find a full-time job at a fancy company.

Long story short, nobody needs to know your past as long as you know how to fix computers and handle network systems.

start a private LLC and subcontract the work to yourself

Just being self-employed is usually enough. I've been SE for decades (no record) and my only background checks were by private agencies for developmentally disabled adults. These were existing clients who later put me on the payroll - and that's when they checked me out. But not when I was 1099.

(I've run my own 1-man software business since 2005. But I realize it isn't for everyone.)

I agree, start "working in public" and networking a bit on places like Twitter. Those things aren't really my cup-of-tea, but what I love is that the idea of pseudonymity is becoming more accepted. In the IT world, a lot of people don't care much about you except your ability to produce work.