Here is an example of what you don’t know can hurt you: If you are serious about your employment search or career advancement – do your best to have ALL the answers. Pardon Services Canada can assist by performing a criminal record check and, should you have a criminal record, helping you to obtain a Canadian pardon (record suspension) that will seal your federal record so that is no longer visible to anyone performing a background check.
Increasingly, companies are using criminal record checks in their hiring process before even talking to the applicant. The criminal record check industry has provided a readily available, popular, and inexpensive tool for pre-screening hopeful applicants. This use, now widespread, eliminates almost all job candidates with criminal records. These people are routinely being denied any opportunity to establish their job qualifications. Such a “blanket” approach is clearly flawed if not simply wrong and seems not only unreasonable but also potentially illegal under civil rights laws.
Criminal background checks serve to determine the safety and security risk of candidates for employment or promotion. However, to assume that the existence of a criminal record accurately predicts such risk is illogical. Employers are using these checks as a way of determining character rather than qualification. The best qualified or even well-qualified individuals are being swept aside irrationally. These blanket exclusions provide no opportunity for employers to consider critical information, such as the nature and age of an offence plus its relationship to the job.
Another emerging aspect is the potential for covert discrimination – using criminal records to screen applicants serves as a facially neutral selection process that invites consideration and review. As such, the National Employment Law Project’s March 2011 report urges employers to reconsider their current hiring policies. An individualized assessment should take into account the nature and gravity of the offense(s), the time that has passed since the conviction and/or completion of the sentence, and the nature of the job held or sought. This approach would ensure that people with criminal records are not eliminated for youthful indiscretions, minor run-ins with the law, or more serious offenses from long ago.
Supporting this approach is the fact that a criminal record is difficult to interpret, making it a misleading tool to determine risk on the job. The BC Civil Liberties Association has raised concerns about employers using the Police Records Information Management Environment (PRIME) database for pre-employment checks. In the past, this database was considered a highly confidential tool for law enforcement. One of the problems inherent in using this database now for employment screening is that some information is being recorded as “negative contact,” a concept far too broad in scope for employers to base life-defining decisions upon.
In Canada, the recourse against the wave of companies using background check lies within the realm of Pardon Services Canada. Any Canadian can apply for a record suspension if they have met the conditions and sentencing of the offence. Through a record suspension, Canadians have the ability to leave their past behind them and continue towards a new job, career advancement, volunteer positions, and a wealth of opportunities previously beyond their reach because of a criminal record.