On November 6, 2017, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey signed an executive order to “ban the box” on job applications for state agencies. This brings the state’s hiring policies in line with those of the federal government, which finalized fair chance regulations in 2016, as well as several of its own cities. In 2015, Tucson became the first city in the state to prohibit application-level inquiries into the criminal history of applicants for public-sector jobs, with several other Arizona municipalities passing similar ordinances in following years.
Under the terms of Executive Order 2017-07, all Arizona government agencies are required to implement hiring procedures which comply with the state’s “Second Chance Box Policies.” During the initial stage of the application process, agencies will be barred from inquiring about an applicant’s criminal history and from viewing a criminal record as disqualifying an applicant for an interview, except in regards to positions for which state or federal law prohibits a person from holding the job due to prior criminal conduct.
Once an applicant has submitted an application and received an initial interview, the agency may then inquire into the applicant’s criminal record and/or conduct a pre-employment background check. Agencies are not barred from considering a conviction of a particular crime to be disqualifying from employment in a particular job. The executive order also specifies that the order does not confer any legal rights or remedies upon individuals, and cannot be used to support a legal challenge to a state agency’s hiring decisions.
While other applicants with potentially disqualifying factors on paper may have a chance to impress in person, “a criminal conviction reduces the likelihood of receiving a call back for a job interview by nearly 50%,” according to the Executive Order. The state’s policy is intended to assist those who have served their time by giving them the opportunity to make an impression absent the immediate stigma of their criminal record, and allowing them to “explain their record, discuss any inaccuracies and enable State Agencies to consider all relevant factors in hiring decisions.” With employment – or lack thereof – playing a large role in recidivism rates, the state hopes its expansion of hiring opportunities will make a positive impact not only on the 1.5 million Arizona adults with arrests or convictions on their records, but on the state as a whole.
Although private employers are not impacted by this executive order, Governor Ducey told the Arizona Daily Star that the state is trying to “lead the way in terms of examples from state government.” Private employers operating in the state of Arizona are encouraged, not required, to implement similar Second Chance policies within their own businesses. The Arizona Department of Administration and Arizona Office of Economic Opportunity are required to make recommendations on a methodology to measure the success of the Second Chance Box Policy by July 1, 2018, so employers will have access to data which may inform their own hiring policies.
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