Helping Felons and Ex-felons with getting a job

"We the undersigned" feel as a whole that convicted felons deserve a second chance in life to be productive in society and provide for oneself and family. We feel that companies shouldn"t be allowed to determines one work eligibility by background check. Now we do believe that felonies with direct relation to certain jobs is ok like say a pedophile being banned from employment around kids. Many felons are convicted and once they serve time society asks that they find employment and become reintegrated into society.  Sounds good, right?  Sounds good on court dockets and for media spots but when it all boils down to it many organizations do not want to hire convicted felons.  There's a place on every organization's application within the United States that asks would be applicants if they are convicted felons, when that block is checked and an explanation is given their application is almost always passed over. There are so many laws and acts that are protecting persons from unfair employment practice, those commonly known are those protecting the handicapped, race, gender, etc. When devising these acts it seems that the human race felt compassion for all but felons. It is ridiculous to treat these people this way, things happen but it shouldn't follow them for the rest of their lives! I believe this country is doing an injustice to convicted felons. It is discouraging to be told to reintegrate yourself into society by ending a life of crime (if so committed) and find credible employment when in doing so you aren't hired for many positions or even considered because your are a convicted felon.  Many of these people convicted as felons have families, and its hard to reintegrate yourself into society when you have been made a social outcast.  It is nearly impossible for a convicted felon to find decent employment, as ironic as it seems many fast-food chains do not want to hire felons as well. I am starting this petition to demonstrate to congress that Americans do care for their fellow man and that issue is of growing concern in America. I would like to use this petition to ask Congress to visit this issue in hopes of devising an act that would make it discrimination to not hire a qualified person soley upon the basis of them being a felon.  Felons are people and in a democratic country such as the United States we should be sensitive to this problem within our borders.  We spend a lot of time and energy diverging into matters of other countries when our own citizens and government are hurting. Government and city government spending on federal prisions, work camps, work release centers and jails are high because the discrimination against felons provides a revolving door due to their inability to acquire and maintain credible employment because of their criminal record.
With that said, would you join me in signing this petition that will help me highlight this growing concern to congress?  This petition is being sent to congress not only on behalf of felons nationally but for their families who are living in poverty or a near poverty state.  This petition will serve as an introductory way to establish a bill to sign an act in to law to make it a discriminatory practice for employers not hire convicted felons based on that sole fact that they are felons.  Just as in other protected cases (race, gender, disability, etc) if investigated employers would have to prove that the reason for hiring another candidate over the felon provided the felon was otherwise qualified.

We the undersigned feel that the following

1.Jobs such as Construction,Oilfield,Truck Driving,Maintenance,etc should be in no way affected by a criminal record.
2.Jobs in direct relation to kids should be banned from those with charges/convictions such as pedophiles,rapist. Crimes dealing with the acts of kids weather physical are sexual assaults.
3.If a qualified felon is denied employment the employer must show reason as to why the other qualifying candidate was hired if asked to.
4.If an employer denies solely upon the persons record and found guilty in a court of law they are to face a min fine of $50,000 not to exceed $150,000


This here is information obtained from research conducted by Professor Devah Pager an Associate Professor of Sociology and Faculty Associate of the Office of Population Research at Princeton University.


Nearly 2 million individuals Are currently incarcerated,
roughly 95% will be released,***totaling 1.9 million being released*** with more than half a million being released each year. According to one estimate, there are currently over 12 million ex-felons in the United States, representing roughly 9% of the working-age population. &**Which comes to a total Of 1,080,000 of the workforce which means roughly 1.08 million familes survior because of a loved ones mistake*** those recently released, nearly two-thirds will be charged with new crimes and over 40% will return to prison within three years (Bureau of Justice Statistics 2000).Incarceration is associated with limited future employment opportunities and earnings potential (Freeman 1987; Western 2002), which themselves are among the strongest predictors of recidivism meaning ***a tendency to relapse into a previous condition or mode of behavior ; especially : relapse into criminal behavior*** as taking from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/recidivism
Roughly 75% of employers asked explicit questions on their application forms about the applicant%u2019s criminal history. Generally this was a standard question, %u201CHave you ever been convicted of a crime? If yes, please explain. A much smaller proportion of employers actually perform an official background check. Roughly 27% of employers indicated that they would perform a background check on all applicants.According to a national survey by Holzer (1996), 30%%u201340% of employers perform official background checks on applicants for noncollege jobs. A criminal record thereby reduces the likelihood of a callback by 50%. In 50% of cases, employers were unwilling to consider equally qualified applicants on the basis of their criminal record. Of course, this trend is not true among all employers, in all situations. There were, in fact, some employers who seemed to prefer workers who had been recently released from prison. One owner told a white tester in the criminal record condition that he %u201Cliked hiring people who had just come out of prison because they tend to be more motivated, and are more likely to be hard workers [not wanting to return to prison].%u201D Another employer for a cleaning company attempted to dissuade the white noncriminal tester from applying because the job involved %u201Ca great deal of dirty work.%u201D The tester with the criminal record, on the other hand, was offered the job on the spot. A criminal record is thus not an obstacle in all cases, but on average, as we see above, it reduces employment opportunities substantially.**Henceforth mainly min.wage jobs that barley bring in enough 2 support ones familey**