"court records are public forever" and "records of crimes expunged after X years" are incompatible.

Instead, we should make it illegal to discriminate based on criminal conviction history. Just like it is currently illegal to discriminate based on race or religion. That data should not be illegal to know, but illegal to use to make most decisions relating to that person.

Even if made illegal, how does enforcement occur? The United States, at least, is notorious for HR being extremely opaque regarding hiring decisions.

Then there's cases like Japan, where not only companies, but also landlords, will make people answer a question like: "have you ever been part of an anti-social organization or committed a crime?" If you don't answer truthfully, that is a legal reason to reject you. If you answer truthfully, then you will never get a job (or housing) again.

Of course, there is a whole world outside of the United States and Japan. But these are the two countries I have experience dealing with.

>Instead, we should make it illegal to discriminate based on criminal conviction history

Absolutely not. I'm not saying every crime should disqualify you from every job but convictions are really a government officialized account of your behavior. Knowing a person has trouble controlling their impulses leading to aggrevated assault or something very much tells you they won't be good for certain roles. As a business you are liable for what your employees do it's in both your interests and your customers interests not to create dangerous situations.

> "court records are public forever" and "records of crimes expunged after X years" are incompatible.

Exactly. One option is for the person themselves to be able to ask for a LIMITED copy of their criminal history, which is otherwise kept private, but no one else.

This way it remains private, the HR cannot force the applicant to provide a detailed copy of their criminal history and discriminate based on it, they can only get a generic document from the court via Mr Doe that says, "Mr Doe is currently eligible to be employed as a financial advisor" or "Mr Doe is currently ineligible to be employed as a school teacher".

Ideally it should also be encrypted by the company's public key and then digitally signed by the court. This way, if it gets leaked, there's no way to prove its authenticity to a third party without at least outing the company as the source.

This is an extremely thorny question. Not allowing some kind of blank slate makes rehabilitation extremely difficult, and it is almost certainly a very expensive net social negative to exclude someone from society permanently, all the way up to their death at (say) 70, for something they did at 18. There is already a legal requirement to ignore "spent" convictions in some circumstances.

However, there's also jobs which legally require enhanced vetting checks.

Everything should remain absolutely private until after conviction.

And only released if it's in the public interest. I'd be very very strict here.

I'm a bit weird here though. I basically think the criminal justice system is very harsh.

Except when it comes to driving. With driving, at least in America, our laws are a joke. You can have multiple at fault accidents and keep your license.

DUI, keep your license.

Run into someone because watching Football is more important than operating a giant vehicle, whatever you might get a ticket.

I'd be quick to strip licenses over accidents and if you drive without a license and hit someone it's mandatory jail time. No exceptions.

By far the most dangerous thing in most American cities is driving. One clown on fan duel while he should be focusing on driving can instantly ruin dozens of lives.

But we treat driving as this sacred right. Why are car immobilizers even a thing?

No, you can not safely operate a vehicle. Go buy a bike.

Problem is it's very hard to prove what factors were used in a decision. Person A has a minor criminal record, person B does not? You can just say "B was more qualified" and as long as there's some halfway credible basis for that nothing can really be done. Only if one can demonstrate a clear pattern of behavior might a claim of discrimination go anywhere.

If a conviction is something minor enough that might be expungable, it should be private until that time comes. If the convicted person hasn't met the conditions for expungement, make it part of the public record, otherwise delete all history of it.

Curious, why should conviction history not be a factor? I could see the argument that previous convictions could indicate a lack of commitment to no longer committing crimes.

If you embezzled money at your last company, I shouldn't be able to decline to hire you on my finance team on that basis?

You'd need so many exceptions to such a law it would be leakier than a sieve. It sounds like a fine idea at ten thousand feet but it immediately breaks down when you get into the nitty gritty of what crimes and what what jobs we're talking about.

> Instead, we should make it illegal to discriminate based on criminal conviction history.

Good luck proving it when it happens. We haven't even managed to stop discrimination based on race and religion, and that problem has only gotten worse as HR departments started using AI which conveniently acts as a shield to protect them.

Discrimination could be very hard to prove in practice.