Criminal Records: No Thanks!

Published Sep 2, 2021, 1:09 PM

And you thought our crime and punishment suite was finished. Not yet it isn't! Not before we cover criminal records.

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Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and there's Jerry over there, and this is the podcast known as Stuff You Should Know Podcast podcast. We all three on our group teleconferencing thing here, had our cameras on for the first time. Yeah. It was great for about I don't know forty five seconds before I turned mine off. Yeah, and then it was like, well, I don't want to just be observed. I'm no goldfish. Then you turn yours off. I like Jerry's long here, though I know Jerry just looks like I just don't quite know how to put it, just like a wealthy, middle aged person who could buy and sell your sorry ass if she wanted to. So we're cussing now. I think so you said you said the D word, not too long and go. So I feel like I'm I'm allowed at least one. Uh well, we'll probably bleep that out for fun D word? Which D word? Uh d A m N. No, I didn't you did, and I don't remember when, but you said or no, the P word. I'm sorry you said the P word? What what's the P word? You know the P word. I can think of a few bad words. It was P I, S, S, E D. Period. That's not a cuss word. Yes it is. And you because you didn't mean it like drunk. You meant it like p od. Oh goodness, you don't even know what a cuss word is. And you're in your mid forties. This has become one of the most juvenile introductions we've we've come up with so far, and we've we've said some pretty juvenile stuff over the course of the years. Chuck, but I think it's trying shake it off. Okay, get serious and prepare to re record an episode. No no, and actually, so I hit you you you decided we were going to do this one, this EPISO st on criminal records, and um I hit you back and said, hey, we've actually done one. We did an episode back in two thousand twelve called why you Probably have a criminal record, And there's gonna be some overlap when we were talking about criminal records, but this is definitely different, and even more to the point, this is an important enough thing that people don't really think about or know about unless you're suffering from it, that it's worth like restating every ten years basically as long as it's a problem. Yeah, and this is this is a little more robust. But and I know we talked back then. You know, I I did not have a criminal record ten years ago. I'm happy to say I still don't have not been arrested in the last ten years. But that was something I don't remember. I'm sure we talked about it, but I don't remember the first time. Is that like, you know, this is sort of getting ahead. But you can have a criminal record if you just get arrested and they're like, oh, sorry, you didn't do anything after all, but you still have a criminal record. That's nicely right, man. As a result of that, that rule, um, something like one in three Americans have a criminal record. I saw one in three. I also saw one in four. And if it's one in four, that means that as many Americans have a criminal record as have a four year diploma. Yeah. That's that was pretty mind boggling. And it's kind of like, okay, well, so like I have a criminal record. I was arrested once. Um, it's part of my checkered past and I don't like to talk about it, but you know, it's not really stood in my way. Well, I was kind of I got a little bit of the birth lottery in a lot of ways, and I was able to navigate and make my way through life having a criminal record without it actually proving a problem. That is not necessarily the case for a lot of people, including people who have only been arrested but haven't um in, weren't even convicted of a crime. They just happened to be of a different race or a different sexual orientation or something like that. But we're having a criminal record can prove to be a real problem for you if you're especially if the deck is already stacked against you, almost as if employers are looking for a reason not to hire you. They can legally not hire you because you have a criminal record. There's a lot of problems with it, and we'll get into all of that, but um, I feel like we need to just generally explain the whole thing first, to the whole process of what they are and how they're dealt with. Right, unless you live under a rock, you know what a criminal record is, right, That's right. A criminal record, like you said, is it's it's very simple. It's it's literally just government uh like information that the government in the United States keeps about you. That says it's data, and it says I mean, I guess we can go like what's on the literal criminal record, Like, once you get arrested, you've they've got your name, they've got your data, birth if you have any known aliases, which I wish I did, but I don't. I'm not nearly cool enough to have aliases, Johnny tight lips. Uh. Physical description of me, Yeah, that's funny. Physical description a little known fact that usually includes looks on a scale of one to ten. Yeah, mine just says Harry Loaf And they're like, is that his name? Description? That should be an alias of yours h A R l O A p h A. While I don't think your alias should also describe you though. That's probably about aliens. Yeah, you wanted to be forgettable and make you more forgettable. That's true. That's like rule number one of aliases, right. Uh, current address, the type of crime you committed, allegedly, outstanding arrestaurrants, dates and arrest of your conviction, fingerprint data, and oh that mug shot. I know, it's weird to feel like I wanted a mug shot at one point in my life. But it's a weird thing in this country because mug shots are kind of one of two things. It's either really embarrassing or it's kind of like this weird badge of honor. I'm not sure it happened how that happened, but yeah, but I mean that's how you that's how you might view it from from society, right, Yeah, well, I mean, but from from society in general, it's a stigma. And there's the entire businesses basically like patent trolls, but with mug shots that just accumulate these things because they're a matter of public record and publish them online and you have to pay them to take them down, which is a problem. But it does go to show like, yeah, there's a there's a it's it's like, um, it is. It's a social stigma to have a mug shot of you. And even beyond the social stigma, it can be really problematic and prevent you from a lot of getting a lot of normal things in life. Well, and you know, I was kind of kidding when I said I don't know how that happened in America, but I do know how that happened, And that's the Internet when they started just publishing, like, oh, look at Nick Nolty and look how awful this person and looks on their worst night. So that's how it became, you know, a cultural sort of and badge of honor was probably the wrong thing to say, but you know, something to be shared, Well, it's kind of like owning it, you know, where if everybody everybody's gonna judge you, you might as well own it and be like, yeah, I've got a mug shot. What are you gonna do about it? Square? You got a mug shot? Well, that makes you square if you don't. Yeah. My favorite ones are when the celebrity is super smiley, they like, I defy you to I'm not gonna look like Nick Nalty here. Yes, those are funny enough, We're fine. But the ones where the person like really actually committed a terrible crime and they're still smiling, those are enraged. Well, those are disturbing. Yeah, but poor Nicknolty. You know. Riff tracks the the fine people um who who basically made the second iteration of Mry Science Theater three thousand and now carried on and make perhaps an even better version of that as Riff tracks. Yeah, stuff, you should know listeners. Yeah, I think so. Them are um friends of the show. They they perennially, especially Mike Nelson, picks on Nicknolty every chance they get, kind of painting a sketch of him as a really unsavory and grizzled and in terrible person. But it's it's hilarious, but also it's like, what what did Nicknolty ever do? And I genuinely don't know. Yeah, I'm not sure what that much shots even from inside from probably drugs, but I know the one you're talking about. He's wearing like a Hawaiian shirt that's like ruffled and rum old and like the collar sticking up on one side. It's not a Einstein here. Yeah, it's not a good picture for sure, But here's the good news. In the United States. And by the way, this doesn't include traffic violation. So if you've talked about, you know, having speeding tickets still on your record quote unquote, that's it's not your criminal record. That's something different, which we'll get to. It depends though, if it was a really big like it was a crime committed with your car, like you I vehicular homicide. It's wrong, right those would be on there. But yeah, speeding ticket or something I think even like a suspended license due to points or something like that, that that's on a different database. But ye wouldn't be your criminal record, right. But if you do have a criminal record, you can and you've heard this on on TV shows plenty of times, I want to have that expunged. You can have your record expunged sometimes. Um, this means all it means is it's not active anymore. It's not like they just they take your file and they burn it with a torchlighter and they say, have a great life. The government still has all that data, like that record is still there, but it's just and it varies from state to state, like how you go about it. But that that just means that your record is now sealed. Uh, and you have you know, if you want to do this, you go you the best place to start is where you got pinched to begin with, and they will help you from that point forward. You may have to hire an attorney, but um you may not well so um yeah, even and if you don't hire any training, if you do it yourself. There's a lot of court fees and court costs associated with it's a really long, hard, difficult, um process, which you know makes sense in in a lot of cases, but in other cases you're like, this is unjust. You know, we need to make this easier. But the I I actually saw, and I think the reason is because different states called different things expunging or ceiling. But I saw in a lot of cases those are two different things. And in the case of expunction and then a terrible word, um, they they actually do destroy the case. Yeah, like it's gone, Like it's like it didn't happen, like the crime happened. But as far as you're concerned that that your case file is destroyed, so you're not in the database anymore, and that point, no, it's gone. But and then ceiling is more like what you described, where they actually keep the records. They might destroy the things like the evidence that they gathered from me, like DNA evidence and um, all that stuff might be destroyed, but the record, your criminal record associated with the case itself, that will remain. But it's just really hard to get to and usually you need a court order and a judge will have to weigh the benefits or the pros and the cons of unsealing it. For whatever it is. And usually it's like, I mean, anybody who's watching enough law in order knows this. If they have you on a crime and they suspect that you've committed this crime before, they'll go to the judge and ask to unseal that criminal record to just kind of find out, oh, this guy's a repeat offender or whatever. Yeah, And as far as whether or not they will either expunge or seal to begin with, they're going to consider, obviously sort of the no brainer stuff like what it was you did, whether you were convicted, how long it's been, what you have, what you've been like since then. Uh, he looks on a scale of one to ten, the Harry Loaf, no, thank you, No expungement. Uh, expunkment, expungement, expunction. I'm serious, Like you can't help but kind of like drag up a little bit of flim from the back of your your throat when you say that word. All right, I think we should take a break because I'm thoroughly grossed out right now. I'm gonna go check my privilege and then we'll talk about juve juvenile criminal records right after this. Well, now we're on the road, driving in your truck. Want to learn a thing or two from Josh Camp Chuck. It's stuff you should know, all right, and things jo stop. Alright, So you're talking about juvie records that are coming up. Now we're we're coming up on criminal records for kids and they which I think, by the way, I think we should do a whole episode. I kind of thought Crime and Punishment our series was over. Now there's this, and I think I think we should do one on the juvenile I think we should do one on Juby. It'll be over, Chuck, when we do an episode that's actually about the dustvs. Key book. When we do that, that will be that will be the final seal on that. OK. I need to get started now. We will seal the Crime and Punishment suite with that one. But we were talking about juvenile criminal records, UM, not Juby itself, but you were saying you want to do an episode on that. I think so for sure, I'm down with that. But the pretty much at least in the United States, and I assume in plenty of other countries as well that share um similar sentiments about crime and punishment and justice. UM that if you're a kid, the crimes you commit, especially non violent crimes, especially if you've only committed say like one crime. UM, that's typically treated differently than if an adult commits a crime. And one of the major ways that it's treated differently, well, one of the first ways is treated differently is it's tried in a different court, the juvenile court. UM. And one of the things that UH seems to be pretty much agreed upon across the board is um, you shouldn't you shouldn't have this criminal record follow you around for the rest of your life because of some mistake you made as a kid. UM And as a result. I don't know if it's automatic, but I think it's at least so common you could almost call it automatic that the juvenile's records will be sealed when they turn eighteen, so that after long as they've kept their nose clean, right, there's a lot of the Yeah, there's a lot of qualifiers with that, and that's a big one that you you need to it needs to have been number one, a small enough crime or a non violent crime so that you know it makes sense to to basically protect you from society's judgment rather than protect society from you, which is I don't know if we really said. One of the big reasons criminal records exist or are searchable, say like in the case of a job search or a landlord or something like that, UM is to basically is basically saying like you're not really trustworthy. You gave up the base trust that everyone has walking around when you committed a crime. We need to let other people know that you're not trustworthy in that sense, so you know your criminal records can be accessed like that. This is the opposite of that. This is saying like, you're screwed up once as a kid, and we don't want to to just ruin the rest of your life because of that, So we're gonna just make it like you're not even like you never even had a criminal record. It's not going to be searchable, that's not going to pop up, and you can legally say when your record is sealed or expunged in particular, that you don't have a criminal history from that point on, right, And we should point out that this all means that you are a juvenile who has tried as a juvenile in the United States, as someone under eighteen, you can still be tried as in a alt if and this is obviously something they do when it's much more serious crimes, definitely serious serious felonies, sometimes the more serious misdemeanors. But in this case, it's just this as far as your criminal record goes in expungement and ceiling and everything. Uh, this is just the same as you are an adult, as is with the case with registering as a sex offender. If you are a minor who is a convicted sex offender, you have to be on that sex offender registry just like uh an adult would be, and that is on your criminal record, and uh you you know, maybe at some point we should do one on the sex I know we've talked about it a couple of times, but we should probably do a full episode on the sex offender Registry. I mean, it's just it needs to be discussed because it makes a lot of sense in a lot of ways, and then there's a lot of problems with it that ruined people's lives. It's it needs Yeah, we definitely need to do one on that, agreed. Yeah, because that's one where are uh that database is open to the public. You can you can go online and you can search your neighborhood or search specific people or addresses, and um, you know it's so parents and in the public at large can track the whereabouts are registered sex offenders. Like you said many many times, that is a great thing to happen. But I know in a recent episode we talked about the fact that I think if you get arrested for public your nation, you have to register. Is that right? Yeah? Another big one that can be really really life ruining is um, consensual sex with a minor when you're like one year over the line, like if if the line is seventeen and you're seventeen and she's sixteen, or vice versa, that can Yeah, you can end up on the sex register, UM, sex offender registry for life. Um. And that's a like again, it's like needed and necessary. The sex crimes are just treated differently, and I think rightfully so I think most people agreed these are special kinds of things. One of the reasons why they're treated differently is because sex offenders have been shown to have the highest recitativism rates of any criminal. Um. I think you're through an extra d in there. Recitativism. I know I nailed it, is that right. It's a bone head word, admittedly, but I think I nailed recidivism. No recitativism. Man, I'm pretty sure I this is deletrious to my self confidence. You made that joke before, the same reasoning, don't joke. There's only one. There's only one. D Well, we you have to make that joke every time you say that word. It just comes as a bone frequently in that movie is so good. But the but the point is is that sex offenders have a reoccurrence they commit crime. Um, they're more likely to recommit sexual offenses than the average criminal is occur. It's you got me on that one. It's true. And also I've noticed I've been saying like shut up lately, and I am sorry. I don't know where it's coming in. But no, no, you don't mean it. That is, I'm not supposed to say the S word, I know, and you know I won't do it anyway, So what no, I know, it's a it's a few point. Uh So, as far as storing these things, you know, in the old days, it was exactly like you probably think it was, which is, these things were kept at local police stations and that was kind of the end of it. Maybe they would share things between counties, which meant um, probably somebody driving over and looking in their file cabinet and then saying thanks a lot, and then shutting that, putting the file back and shutting that foul cabinet and leaving again. But these days, of course, this is all going to be done on databases. But it's still really kind of I don't want to say willy nilly, because I feel like that's uh a little too critical, but there's it's definitely not some national really codified thing where this happens than this, than this. The you know, that first database is at the state and local level, and then if you're convicted, you you may have that uploaded into a larger state repository or you may not. And then that state repository may be linked to the National Crime Information Centers, Interstate Identification Index or the Triple I, but maybe not. You like, it's it's hard to tell unless you really do all this investigating about your own criminal record where it lies. Yeah, it's there is a federal database, like you're saying, that does exist, but it's just not compulsory among the states or among the localities to submit it to that. And some people are like, this is ridiculous. Is the dumbest thing ever, Like every crime committed, every maybe arrest, every made, certainly every conviction ever made in any locality in any state on on the federal level, should all go into the Interstate Identification Index UM, which is by the way open or available for searching only to law enforcement and like the courts, Like it's not no one else, no private background check company could get their hands on it, that kind of thing. So it's just on state, yes, Like if you're a state, if you're a cop and like you know, um, Atlanta, you could go onto the II and UM and search it. But you know, like if if I were an employer and I hired a company to conduct a background check, they couldn't gain access to that. No, no no, no, I meant on the state level, like if you're convicted on the state level, regular citizen can search public records. Like that's viewable by anyone, right now, that's correct, That is true, um, when there's really no distinction between the criminal record you would have in that state repository and that criminal same criminal record that state repository uploads to the Interstate Identification and so yeah, you could you could conceivably have that same criminal record checked. It's just that particular data. It makes you wonder what they got in there that isn't that isn't elsewhere, or they just don't want to give out the password to any schmo, you know, I don't. I don't know. But the the whole thing starts in the responsibility for keeping the record begins at the local level, and that local law enforcement agency or if a state trooper arrested you, the state, or if the FBI arrested you, the FEDS whoever arrested you, or whatever court convicted you, I should say, and or because you can have multiple criminal records from different you know, from the the cops and from the court. Um, they're they're responsible for maintaining, creating and maintaining that. And then they're also the ones that uploaded or don't upload, depending on the state laws. Right uh. And you know we mentioned the traffic stuff earlier that is on the National driver Register if you have that d u I or a suspended license. I think failure to help someone at the scene of an accident is a pretty serious offense, any kind of fatal accident, or even lying a perjury about driving um or operating a motor vehicle. All of that stuff can be on the National Driver Register, and that can be accessed by an employer if your job, like if you want to go drive for UPS or something, and they're they're sure, you're going to probably look into that stuff. Yeah, but but that kind of again, that kind of stuff is not going to come up on a criminal background check, and the average employer for a non driving job is not going to bother to to look into the National Driver database from what I could tell right, Um, but an employer might ask you that it's actually very frequent. I think something I saw like eighties something percent of employers ask for or do background searches on potential applicants, and something like seventy three per cent of employers in the United States have like a stated background check policy. Um, so it happens a lot, um, and employers are are perspective. Employers are one of the few groups that you can say, yes, you may access my criminal background records, Like I couldn't give you permission, Chuck, and you go off and access my criminal record or vice versa. I've asked no, and I've given you permission. But when you went to the Sheriff's office. They were like, beat it loaf. I was like, how did they know my alias? Right? Yeah, that is true. Uh, but you also, as an employer have to have permission for them to go through a firm or a credit agency or something. They can't just do that on their own. You can say, um, no, don't go look at my criminal record, but you're probably not going to get that job. If you are getting interviewed and you do have a criminal record and arrest for something, Uh, it's you know, it's best to own up to that in the moment and don't try and fool them because they can probably find out and uh, you know, you probably have a good excuse or a good reason. Um, if you're trying to put your life back together and it was something when you were younger, or maybe a really minor offense, just best to be honest about all that stuff because it will probably come out in the end one way or another. Right, Um, yeah, especially if they if they end up doing the background check. I think there's like two boxes like have you ever been arrested? Which is way different from have you ever been convicted? Which is you know, what I've always seen is have you ever been convicted of a crime. But apparently on some job applications they ask if you've ever been arrested. So if you say no and you have complete but then you give them the authority to do your background check and it comes back and you lied on your application, they're just gonna turn you down. I saw even if you say yes and they they come back with a UM, you know, with and find out that you have a criminal record. UM. I think something like fifty percent of employers said like that would be it, like they would just move on to the next candidate. But that's really high. But that also means that fifty percent of employers would not say that that disqualifies you. So if you're truthful and honest, and especially especially if you have an explanation for what what you know, what the crime was, then you know, you're there's a really good chance that among that of employers, you're gonna move on and and like that will be sorted and you'll just continue on an application process or even possibly get the job. So I don't I didn't see anywhere that said you know, you should totally just lie on the application that they will never find out. Nothing like that like everything I saw is like what you said. You should just be upfront and honest about it and have a have an explanation at the ready to not just like yeah, I know anyway, you were asking me, you know what my greatest fault is, and I would say perfectionism and working too much and that arrest. Uh you mentioned earlier. You can be discriminated against because of the job because you're not you're no longer what's called being in a protected class. UM, you can be discriminated against. You can be refused that job, you can be refused public housing. UM. Many many things can say an agencies can say no, no, thank you because of your arrest record. I think if you have a felony drug use convention convention conviction of a convention I know, man underrest Thompson sit right in exactly. Uh, that means that they cannot in most cases discriminate against you because of that conviction. So they've made a little bit of headway. And we may have talked about that in our Drug Courts episode, but I can't remember, but we did. UM. So there are a couple of things that, like, UM, that we'll talk about. I guess that reformers are basically saying, like, we need to we need to do something about this. But one of the first kind of band aids that the federal government came up with to help people who have a criminal record get a job despite having a criminal record is something called fidelity bonding, which I didn't even know existed, did you. I had heard of that because of um, the film industry. Uh and I don't know that they called it fidelity bonding. But it's sort of like back when you know, Robert Downey Jr. Was having all his troubles years ago. Yeah, that was fidelity bonding. Yeah, they would these insurance these movie companies would have to put up these really big insurance bonds to ensure that. You know, they're spending a ton of money on this movie. You can't have Robert Downey Jr. And you know he's turned everything around, which is a testament to him and he really has and his wife's help. But uh, yeah, that that like he's got to show up to work and it's a real risk hiring him in the state or any you know, this this goes across the board. It's not just movie stars. But yeah, you can put up and pay for a fidelity bond to kind of cut their risks. Yeah, so I saw it here that you can, but it looks like it's pretty common, um that the federal government will actually issue them free of charge to the to the worker, where the federal government is basically saying, give this person a chance. Um if they if they steal all your whole stock room, uh, if they rob you, uh if if if you suffer a loss because you hired them, we will compensate you. That's what that that fidelity bonds dos, which I think is really cool. You know, it's like a good I don't know, there's just something I didn't know it existed, and it made me think the world's a slightly nicer place than I realized it was before I realized there was federal bonding. Yeah, or fidelity bonding or any kind of bonding coupling is what you're thinking of. Okay, So, um, there's a there's a kind of a push among um legal legal types to standardize um uh criminal records. And if you take all of the information on a criminal record together, UM, it's called criminal criminal history record information. That's like what all the details are. If you're a researcher. That's what you would refer to it as everybody else calls criminal records or wrap sheets or whatever. But um, there's a pusheet two people among certain people to say, hey, we need to standardize this. It needs to be compulsory to report crimes to the to the federal database that you know law enforcement can search. Um, we just need to make this a better, more robust thing. And there is another group, there's a whole other camp that says these are really ruining people's lives unjustly, and we need to take another look at this. And they don't necessarily disagree with the people who say this needs to be standardized and compulsory, but they do say we need there's it's being left to hang far too long, And I say we take our our last break and then come back and talk about the pros and the cons of criminal records. What about you? Let's do it. Well, now we're on the road, driving in your truck. Want to learn a thing or two from Josh Camp Chuck. It's stuff you should know, all right, Lening things with Chuck, all right? So, uh, you know, if you're a fine upstanding citizen out there and you've never been arrested, you might think, well, there's no downside at all to keeping these robust records. Um, anytime you think there's no downside to something, you should right there and just reflect on it a little further. Yeah. Absolutely, it doesn't matter what it is. There's a downside too, sugar cookies with icing. There's a downside to Teddy Bears. Somewhere, there's a downside. That's my new Mottel Chuck that just came up with a new model. Somewhere there's a downside. What's the Teddy Bear downside? I haven't researched him enough. Probably choking hazard from the eyeballs. All right, good point, Yeah, thank you. I just came up with that. I'll come up and say more things if you give me a few minutes. So some of the some of the pros of keeping good track of criminal records is you have a robust data set and it's not just like, look how many bad people there are in the world, because I think we've hopefully already gotten across that. That doesn't necessarily mean you're a bad person. But you can use this data for recidivism research. It's a really valuable source of data instead of having to go to all these different agencies. It is nice to be able to go to one place, a kind of a one stop shop to find out if, um, some of these programs are effective to keep people from recommitting crimes are going back into the criminal justice system. Yeah, that's a really important thing to know and to have like actual data on you know. Oh, absolutely another thing, and it's not just recidivism, but redemption. There are people that do research on on redemption. And it's not just like, I mean, that's sort of a broad word to call it, but that's really what what it is. These researchers, Alfred Bloomstein and uh Kim Hoori Nakamura have done a lot of research trying to find out basically, like if you're trying to get a job, what is where is the reasonable point in your life after you haven't done something like done something wrong again that it's null and void and that an employer shouldn't even have to ask you anymore. Basically like when are you fully rehabilitated as far as the law enforcement goes, Yeah, like what's the point where criminal stops being a criminal when they stopped committing time? How long after that, and they actually studied something like eighty eight thousand criminal records from New York State, Yeah, and then followed them for twenty five years. So this is a really robust study. And what they found was that there actually is a point, a quantifiable point, where somebody stops being a criminal UM. And they found that if you're UM, if if you committed a serious offense as your first offense, typically it was about eight years UM where you were no more likely to be arrested than the average citizen, which is a really huge Yes. Exactly, that's the key because every time you commit another crime, you're like still a criminal, still a criminal, right, But if you commit like say just one crime, that's the easiest way to do it. But ostensibly it would work for people who commit multiple crimes and then stop, which is something called dessistance. It's where criminal stops committing crimes UM at some point. If you care about rehabilitation and reintroduction in society, you have to say, Okay, you're no longer a criminal. And these these two researchers, Bloomstein and Nakamura, quantified it eight years for a serious offense with no other offenses in between, and then three years for a less serious crime. I didn't see what they were takes about three years before that. That person who was once a criminal is now statistically no more likely to be arrest of her crime than the average person who has never committed one before. And I think that's fantastic. The thing is, in this case, criminal records are a paradox. You need to um have criminal records to study them to figure out when a criminal record is no longer needed and it's in fact actually harmful to the person. It's not serving any benefits for society. Person is no longer a criminal. Now it's actively harming this person who's no longer a criminal by keeping them from getting jobs. Yes, and I think that's uh. I think the last part of that quantification for that study is the most important part, which is, after a certain time, they're just like everybody else. Yeah, like someone who's never been arrested before. They are no more likely to commit a crime than you aren't just because they did it one time eight years ago or three years ago. Yeah, And that is not the way that society, at least as far as as in practice goes, is set up. It's now the way it is now generally, although the minds are changing, as we'll see. Um, the if once you're criminal, you're criminal, that's it. You're criminal for life. And these research like this is saying like that's just not true and this is really unjust after a certain period of chime. Yeah, obviously the cons we've kind of dabbled in that through most of this episode. You know, we have a mass incarceration problem in this country, and we're not saying like, oh, just don't police and let people do what they want. It's no big deal. But that's different than mass incarceration when one, like you said at the beginning, one and through adults has been arrested by the age of twenty three in this country. And not only that, but if you include jail along with prison, Um, the number of people behind bars in the US, and I think this is pretty accurate right now, is about two point two million. Yeah, that was that was the latest I could find. I think it was in an article from one So that's pretty pretty accurate. And it's just did you say it's quintupled since no, but that's a pretty staggering number. You should see a graph of it. It's just shoots up starting in like like starting around the nineteen eighties. Crazy enough. I can't quite put my finger on why that would have happened, but it just goes through the roof, right U. And of course this is no surprise, I suspect, even to people who don't want critical race theory taught in schools. But if you are of color, or if you are UM, l G B, t q UH, if you are transgender although I said tea in there, didn't I, if you UM have mental illness, you're way more at risk of being incarcerated than somebody who doesn't check those same boxes. And UM, in America, black men are six times more likely to be incarcerated than white men, and Hispanic men or two and a half times more likely to be incarcerated than white men. And so it kind of starts to become clear, especially when you realize that UM having a criminal record is a big driver of poverty. That this is that's disproportionately affecting communities of color and other minorities, UM, which makes it so much easier for society at large to just ignore this problem. Yeah, for sure, I mean the obstacles in your way. It's not just getting a job, it's building credit, it's getting housing, any kind of public assistance, education, um, getting back together with your family. UM. It's it really creates sort of a wall around you and the rest of the world, even if you were trying to get back into society and be a good citizen and you want that job. I think more than six of people who are formally incarcerated are unemployed a year after being released. And that's like an open invitation to recidivism. Trying to yeah, I mean not trying to excuse saying, oh, right, well, you should just go out and commit crimes. Then if you can't get a job, We're not saying that at all, but it's certainly a barrier if you can't get a job and you're trying to reintegrate into society and sixty of them a year later can't get those jobs. And then if you do get a job, those who do have the jobs, you're getting less pay annually. UM. And you know, I guess over the years you can build that back up, and it's good that they get that one job at least, But there's an imbalance here, uh, in this country as far as trying to genuinely rehabilitate people. And that doesn't just mean well, you got out of jail or you got out of prison, and we feel like you're a pretty good person now and you're on your own good luck like getting a job or getting housing or anything like that. Right. So there, UM, and even if you're the kind of person who's like I only vote on the economy, that's all I care about, there's actually something here for you too to be interested in in um, making criminal records less of a lifetime stigma. UM. They found that there was a Center for Economic Policy and Research study from two sixteen. They looked at two thousand fourteen, just to confuse things a little bit, and they said that, UM, the people who are shut out of legitimate work due to having a criminal records represents an overall reduction in the American workforce by point nine to one percent of the workforce, which is something like one point seven to one point nine million people. And they concluded that that means that the gross domestic product lost out that year, just in that year on between seventy eight and eight se than billion dollars just because these people have been shut out of work just because they had a criminal record in some cases for an arrest that they weren't even convicted for, and that that that that is a big problem, and it's also a problem for employers too, and that if you just go by criminal records, because you're legally allowed to, if you just say you've got a criminal record, we're not gonna hire you. Some some UM companies even advertise that like basically, if you have a criminal record, you need not apply. They're they're they're saying that that in some cases or that sets the company up to go hire a less qualified and possibly less competent candidate UM who doesn't have a criminal record. So the whole point, the whole push to all this is like, Okay, there's nobody, including me, who's saying we should do a way with criminal records. There are indeed very bad people out there in the world. They do exist, right, But there's also in this dragnet that we create to catch as many people as of those bad people as possible. Other people who aren't necessarily bad, or maybe even we're bad once and aren't bad anymore, get caught up in that. And that there are things we can do without doing away with the criminal record system. And one of the big ones seems to be like putting a finite time on that, like after you've kept your nose clean next number of years, Like maybe these things should just get sealed automatically. Um, That's that's a really big one. Another one is looking at employers and being like, we don't really know if you should be asking about this for some professions, Like some professions it doesn't really matter, Like if you're Starbucks, does it matter that that this person had an arrest? You know, exactly should they really be denied a job? And so there's some laws that are called banned the box laws that people have been thinking of. Yeah, those boxes is like you were kind of talking about earlier. When you fill out applications for jobs, there's always that little box says have you been convicted of a crime. It's also called fair chance legislation in some states, and it's basically what we've been talking about is, you know, maybe you should at least have a limit on what you can ask in that initial interview. Maybe you should have a time limit on how far back into somebody's past you can dig. Uh, maybe in the application process it's at least, um, there is a place spelled out where you may be allowed to ask that if it's the kind of job that you should ask that. Yeah, because there definitely are jobs like that, like were ones that work with vulnerable populations like the elderly or and they cut those out of this legislation. You know, you can't get a job working with kids or something like you said in a in a nursing home or something like that. But I mean, you know, there's like if you need to be a barber or something like that, like do you have to have a clean record, and you don't necessarily, And actually barber is one of the problem um professions because you need a license to be a barber, which we're going to do short stuff about that. Somebody wrote in wants to tell us, like we should look into that. Um. But in any any profession, almost any profession that requires a license, and there's a lot of them, and barber is one of them, that licensing board will almost always say if you have a criminal record, you're you're you don't qualify, So you can't get that job. Despite being born wanting to be a barber. Yeah, some one mistake, you're you're out. I can't do it by cutting heads. I mean, you know, that's different, different kind of cutting heads. In that case, you got anything else? I got nothing else? A good one, Chuck, I like this one. Will we do it in ten more years of unless there's been some real reform. Yeah, we got a chance to soapbox it a little bit. Um. Well, if you want to know more about criminal records and criminal record reform in particularly, to start reading about it on the internet. Um or turn to two other of your friends, because there's a really good chance that one of them is a criminal record and they might tell you that things have been kind of hard because of it. And you can trite a story. And since I said you can hear the story, it's time for listener mail. Uh. This is I'm gonna call this m r I follow up from a professional. It's always good to hear from the pros that say we did a decent job. It's never a great job, but I'll take decent. I'll take decent too, when we're explaining things like m R I. Uh, let me see here. Hey, guys, big fan, longtime listener listen on a daily basis. I'm an m R I radiographer or radio graphic technologists in your country, and I work with m r I s every day. I wanted to commend you on the accuracy. Overall, the m r I physics can be confusing, if not near impossible to understand, especially to someone who doesn't have experience in the field. I myself went to university for three years to become a radiographer. You gave a really good summary of the physics involved, so hats off. A couple of things to add. It's true that a lower power magnet can produce decent images comparable to a higher strength magnet it but you usually do so with a trade off of an extended scan time. What takes me ten minutes on my three Tesla machine might take twenty and at one point five, and as you rightly said, you have to stay completely still because if you don't, it'll be blurry and then you have to repeat the scans. I drive a three Tesla machine, which is the highest strength magnet widely available for clinical use. Seven Tesla MRI machines have been approved by the FDA for clinical use, and tin Tesla machines you're referring to our for research purposes only and have some interesting effects, such as being able to levitate a frog awesome or causing the mercury and dental feelings to leach out. Oh my god, man uh And then Russell here in Sydney, Australia goes on to say point out that I got a CT scan for the diverticuli search, not an m R I. So that makes sense. I was not an m R I. So have you had an m R I? Then I have. And again it was years ago. And I want to say it was my back, which is now fine, but I think it was a back deal. I'm glad your back is fine. It's been fine. I mean I knew it was. You complain, Yeah, but there was a big that your back is fine, that you have a nice beard. You know what. There was a brief time where I had some back issues, but it was pretty brief. It was a few months. I think. Gotcha, Well, is that it? That's it? It was from Did I say? That is from Russell in Sydney? Russell? You can use my name in Sydney. That's awesome. Thanks, Russell. You can use my name in Sydney. That's a great name. Very odd one, but good. Um. And I really feel like we need to put more cadavers into ten Tesla m r I's and watch the Mercury come out because that must be amazing. If you want to get into the video, yeah me too. If you want to get in touch with this, like Russell did, we love hearing from experts who say we did a so so job. You can send us an email to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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