Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T11:05:39.323Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Before and After Ban the Box: Who Complies with Anti-Discrimination Law?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2021

Lesley E. Schneider Open the ORCID record for Lesley E. Schneider [Opens in a new window] ,
Mike Vuolo ,
Sarah E. Lageson Open the ORCID record for Sarah E. Lageson [Opens in a new window]  and
Christopher Uggen
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Ban the Box (BTB) laws are an anti-discrimination policy intended to promote employment for persons with criminal records. However, research on law and organizations shows that firms often fail to comply with legal directives or engage in symbolic compliance that fails to alter day-to-day business practices. We consider whether BTB contributed to attitudinal or behavioral shifts among hiring managers and changes in job applications. We analyze a unique set of in-depth interviews (N = 30) and entry-level job applications (N = 305) collected from the same workplaces in 2008 and 2016, assessing the impact of state BTB legislation. We find: (1) that one in five organizations were noncompliant, with noncompliance twice as likely among employers who discriminated against applicants with criminal records pre-BTB and that widespread lack of knowledge and lack of enforcement of BTB appears to affect noncompliance; (2) organizations maintained considerable continuity in hiring practices and attitudes between 2008 and 2016, regardless of personnel changes and statewide implementation of BTB; and (3) post-BTB, strong warnings about criminal background checks at later stages of the hiring process emerged as an alternative source of gatekeeping. These findings contribute to the law and organizations literature by highlighting the importance of enforcement and limits of law for combating discrimination.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 47 , Issue 3 , August 2022 , pp. 749 - 782
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Bar Foundation

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

This research was supported by grants from the JEHT Foundation and the National Institute of Justice. Earlier versions of this article were presented at the 2016 American Society of Criminology Annual Meeting and the 2017 American Sociological Association Annual Meeting. We are grateful for support from the Council on Crime and Justice, for manuscript comments from Jeylan Mortimer, Joshua Page, Joe Soss, Robert Stewart, and Veronica Horowitz, and to Chelsea Carlson and Chloe Hendrix for unparalleled research assistance. We also thank the three anonymous reviewers, whose sound critiques and suggestions greatly improved this article, and the late Devah Pager, who provided guidance on the data instruments.

References

REFERENCES

Agan, Amanda, and Sonja, Starr. 2017. “The Effect of Criminal Records on Access to Employment.” American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings 107, no. 5: 560–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Agan, Amanda, and Sonja, Starr. 2018. “Ban the Box, Criminal Records, and Racial Discrimination: A Field Experiment.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 133, no. 1: 191–235.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Apel, Robert, and Gary, Sweeten. 2010. “The Impact of Incarceration on Employment during the Transition to Adulthood.” Social Problems 57, no. 3: 448–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Augustine, Dallas. 2019. “Working around the Law: Navigating Legal Barriers to Employment during Reentry.” Law & Social Inquiry 44: 726–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Avery, Beth, and Han, Lu. 2020. Ban the Box: U.S. Cities, Counties, and States Adopt Fair Hiring Policies to Advance Employment Opportunities for People with Past Convictions. New York: National Employment Law Project.Google Scholar
Bartley, Tim, and Curtis, Child. 2014. “Shaming the Corporation: The Social Production of Targets and the Anti-Sweatshop Movement.” American Sociological Review 79, no. 4: 653–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baum, Joel A.C., and Oliver, Christine. 1992. “Institutional Embeddedness and the Dynamics of Organizational Populations.” American Sociological Review 57: 540–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Becker, Gary S. 1957. The Economics of Discrimination. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Benard, Stephen, and Correll, Shelley J. 2010. “Normative Discrimination and the Motherhood Penalty.” Gender & Society 24, no. 5: 616–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brame, Robert, Turner, Michael G., Raymond, Paternoster, and Bushway, Shawn D.. 2012. “Cumulative Prevalence of Arrest from Ages 8 to 23 in a National Sample.” Pediatrics 129, no. 1: 21–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bureau of Justice Statistics. 2020. Prisoners in 2018. NCJ Doc. no. 253516. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics.Google Scholar
Bushway, Shawn, Stoll, Michael A., and Weiman, David F.. 2007. Barriers to Reentry? The Labor Market for Released Prisoners in Post-industrial America. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Corda, Alessandro, and Lageson, Sarah E.. 2020. “Disordered Punishment: Workaround Technologies of Criminal Records Disclosure and the Rise of a New Penal Entrepreneurialism.” British Journal of Criminology 60, no. 2: 245–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Correll, Shelley J., Stephen, Benard, and In, Paik. 2007. “Getting a Job: Is There a Motherhood Penalty?” American Journal of Sociology 112, no. 5: 1297–1338.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craigie, Terry-Ann. 2019. “Ban the Box, Convictions, and Public Employment.” Economic Inquiry 58, no. 1: 425–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
D’Alessio, Stewart J., Lisa, Stolzenberg, and Flexon, Jamie L.. 2015. “The Effect of Hawaii’s Ban the Box Law on Repeat Offending.” American Journal of Criminal Justice 40, no. 2: 336–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Denver, Megan, Pickett, Justin T., and Bushway, Shawn D.. 2017. “The Language of Stigmatization and the Mark of Violence: Experimental Evidence on the Social Construction and Use of Criminal Record Stigma.” Criminology 55, no. 3: 664–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DiMaggio, Paul J., and Powell, Walter W.. 1983. “The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields.” American Sociological Review 48, no. 2: 147–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dobbin, Frank, Lauren, Edelman, Meyer, John W., Richard Scott, W., and Ann, Swidler. 1988. “The Expansion of Due Process in Organizations.” In Institutional Patterns and Organizations: Culture and Environment, edited by Lynne, G. Zucker, 71–100. Cambridge, UK: Ballinger.Google Scholar
Dobbin, Frank, Soohan, Kim, and Alexandra, Kalev. 2011. “You Can’t Always Get What You Need: Organizational Determinants of Diversity Programs.” American Sociological Review 76, no. 3: 386–411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dobbin, Frank, and Sutton, John R.. 1998. “The Strength of a Weak State: The Rights Revolution and the Rise of Human Resources Management Divisions.” American Journal of Sociology 104, no. 2: 441–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dobbin, Frank, Sutton, John R., Meyer, John W., and Richard, Scott. 1993. “Equal Opportunity Law and the Construction of Internal Labor Markets.” American Journal of Sociology 99, no. 2: 396–427.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doleac, Jennifer L., and Hansen, Benjamin. 2020. “The Unintended Consequences of ‘Ban the Box’: Statistical Discrimination and Employment Outcomes When Criminal Histories Are Hidden.” Journal of Labor Economics 38, no. 2: 321–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edelman, Lauren B. 1990. “Legal Environments and Organizational Governance: The Expansion of Due Process in the American Workplace.” American Journal of Sociology 95, no. 6: 1401–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edelman, Lauren B. 1992. “Legal Ambiguity and Symbolic Structures: Organizational Mediation of Civil Rights Law.” American Journal of Sociology 97, no. 6: 1531–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edelman, Lauren B. 2016. Working Law: Courts, Corporations, and Symbolic Civil Rights. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Edelman, Lauren B., Krieger, Peggy H., Eliason, Scott R., Albiston, Catherine R., and Virginia, Mellema. 2011. “When Organizations Rule: Judicial Deference to Institutionalized Employment Structures.” American Journal of Sociology 117, no. 3: 888–954.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edelman, Lauren B., and Suchman, Mark C.. 1997. “The Legal Environments of Organizations.” Annual Review of Sociology 23, no. 1: 479–515.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edelman, Lauren B., and Talesh, Shauhin A.. 2011. “To Comply Or Not to Comply—That Isn’t The Question: How Organizations Construct the Meaning of Compliance.” In Explaining Compliance: Business Responses to Regulation, edited by Parker, Christine and Nielsen, Vibeke Lehmann, 103–22. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Edelman, Lauren B., Christopher, Uggen, and Erlanger, Howard S.. 1999. “The Endogeneity of Legal Regulation: Grievance Procedures as Rational Myth.” American Journal of Sociology 105, no. 2: 406–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Esterberg, Kristin G. 2002. Qualitative Methods in Social Research. Boston: McGraw Hill.Google Scholar
Gaddis, S. Michael. 2015. “Discrimination in the Credential Society: An Audit Study of Race and College Selectivity in the Labor Market.” Social Forces 93, no. 4: 1451–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giordano, Peggy C., Cernkovich, Stephen A., and Rudolph, Jennifer L.. 2002. “Gender, Crime, and Desistance: Toward a Theory of Cognitive Transformation.” American Journal of Sociology 107, no. 4: 990–1064.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glaser, Barney G., and Strauss, Anselm L.. 1967. The Discovery of Grounded Theory. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine Publishing.Google Scholar
Glass, Christy, and Éva, Fodor. 2011. “Public Maternalism Goes to Market: Recruitment, Hiring, and Promotion in Postsocialist Hungary.” Gender & Society 25, no. 1: 5–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodman, Philip. 2020. “‘Work Your Story’: Selective Voluntary Disclosure, Stigma Management, and Narratives of Seeking Employment after Prison.” Law & Social Inquiry 45, no. 4: 1113–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harding, David J. 2003. “Jean Valjean’s Dilemma: The Management of Ex-Convict Identity in the Search for Employment.” Deviant Behavior 24: 571–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henry, Jessica S., and Jacobs, James B.. 2007. “Ban the Box to Promote Ex-Offender Employment.” Criminology and Public Policy 6, no. 4: 755–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holzer, Harry J., Steven, Raphael, and Stoll, Michael A.. 2006. “Perceived Criminality, Criminal Background Checks, and the Racial Hiring Practices of Employers.” Journal of Law and Economics 49, no. 2: 451–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kalev, Alexandra, Frank, Dobbin, and Erin, Kelly. 2006. “Best Practices or Best Guesses? Assessing the Efficacy of Corporate Affirmative Action and Diversity Policies.” American Sociological Review 71, no. 4: 589–617.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelly, Erin. 2010. “Failure to Update: An Institutional Perspective on Noncompliance with the Family and Medical Leave Act.” Law & Society Review 44, no. 1: 33–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelly, Erin, and Frank, Dobbin. 1998. “How Affirmative Action Became Diversity Management: Employer Response to Antidiscrimination Law, 1961 to 1996.” American Behavioral Scientist 41, no. 7: 960–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelly, Erin, and Frank, Dobbin. 1999. “Civil Rights Law at Work: Sex Discrimination and the Rise of Maternity Leave Policies.” American Journal of Sociology 105, no. 2: 455–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirk, David S., and Wakefield, Sara. 2018. “Collateral Consequences of Punishment: A Critical Review and Path Forward.” Annual Review of Criminology 1: 171–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lageson, Sarah E. 2020. Digital Punishment: Privacy, Stigma, and the Harms of Data-Driven Criminal Justice. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lageson, Sarah E., Mike, Vuolo, and Christopher, Uggen. 2015. “Legal Ambiguity in Managerial Assessments of Criminal Records.” Law & Social Inquiry 40, no. 1: 175–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LaPlant, Eric G., and Vuolo, Mike. 2021. “The Significance of Race: Overcoming Obstacles in the Adoption of Ban the Box Laws.” Sociological Quarterly 62, no. 3: 570–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laub, John H., and Sampson, Robert J.. 1993. “Turning Points in the Life Course: Why Change Matters to the Study of Crime.” Criminology 31, no. 3: 301–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lemert, Edwin. 1993. “Visions of Social Control: Probation Considered.” Crime & Delinquency 39: 447–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynch, Mona. 1998. “Waste Managers? The New Penology, Crime Fighting, and Parole Agent Identity.” Law & Society Review 32, no. 4: 839–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Massoglia, Michael, and William, Alex Pridemore. 2015. “Incarceration and Health.” Annual Review of Sociology 41, no. 1: 291–310.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McCleary, Richard. 1978. Dangerous Men: The Sociology of Parole. Beverley Hills, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Meyer, John W., and Rowan, Brian. 1977. “Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony.” American Journal of Sociology 83, no. 2: 340–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Reuben J. 2021. Halfway Home: Race, Punishment and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration. New York: Little Brown and Company.Google Scholar
Minnesota Department of Human Rights. 2014. Technical Guidance 364.021. Minneapolis: Minnesota Department of Human Rights.Google Scholar
Moss, Philip, and Chris, Tilly. 2001. Stories Employers Tell: Race, Skill, and Hiring in America. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Pager, Devah. 2003. “The Mark of a Criminal Record.” American Journal of Sociology 108, no. 5: 937–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pager, Devah. 2007. Marked: Race, Crime, and Finding Work in an Era of Mass Incarceration. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pager, Devah, Bart, Bonikowski, and Bruce, Western. 2009. “Discrimination in a Low-Wage Labor Market: A Field Experiment.” American Sociological Review 74, no, 5: 777–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pager, Devah, and Lincoln, Quillian. 2005. “Walking the Talk? What Employers Say versus What They Do.” American Sociological Review 70, no. 3: 355–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pager, Devah, Bruce, Western, and Naomi, Sugie. 2009. “Sequencing Disadvantage: Barriers to Employment Facing Young Black and White Men with Criminal Records.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 623, no. 1: 195–213.Google ScholarPubMed
Pedriana, Nicholas, and Robin, Stryker. 2004. “The Strength of a Weak Agency: Enforcement of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Expansion of State Capacity, 1965–1971.” American Journal of Sociology 110, no. 3: 709–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quadlin, Natasha. 2018. “The Mark of a Women’s Record: Gender and Academic Performance in Hiring.” American Sociological Review 83, no. 2: 331–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raphael, Steven. 2021. “The Intended and Unintended Consequences of Ban the Box.” Annual Review of Criminology 4: 191–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ridgeway, Cecilia L. 2014. “Why Status Matters for Inequality.” American Sociological Review 79, no. 1: 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rivera, Lauren A. 2011. “Ivies, Extracurriculars, and Exclusion: Elite Employers’ Use of Educational Credentials.” Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 29, no. 1: 71–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rivera, Lauren A. 2012. “Hiring as Cultural Matching: The Case of Elite Professional Service Firms.” American Sociological Review 77, no. 6: 999–1022.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rivera, Lauren A. 2015. “Go with Your Gut: Emotion and Evaluation in Job Interviews.” American Journal of Sociology 120, no. 5: 1339–89.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rivera, Lauren A., and Tilcsik, András. 2016. “Class Advantage, Commitment Penalty: The Gendered Effect of Social Class Signals in an Elite Labor Market.” American Sociological Review 81, no. 6: 1097–1131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose, Evan K. 2021. “Does Banning the Box Help Ex-Offenders Get Jobs? Evaluating the Effects of a Prominent Example.” Journal of Labor Economics 39, no. 1: 79–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rucks-Ahidiana, Zawadi, Harding, David J., and Harris, Heather M.. 2021. “Race and the Geography of Opportunity in the Post-Prison Labor Market.” Social Problems 68, no. 2: 438–89.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sentencing Project. 2021. Trends in U.S. Corrections. Washington, DC: Sentencing Project.Google Scholar
Shannon, Sarah K. S., Christopher, Uggen, Jason, Schnittker, Melissa, Thompson, Sara, Wakefield, and Michael, Massoglia. 2017. “The Growth, Scope, and Spatial Distribution of People with Felony Records in the United States, 1948–2010.” Demography 54, no. 5: 1795–1818.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Short, Jodi L., and Toffel, Michael W.. 2010. “Making Self-Regulation More Than Merely Symbolic: The Critical Role of the Legal Environment.” Administrative Science Quarterly 55, no. 3: 361–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simpson, Sally S., and Koper, Christopher S.. 1992. “Deterring Corporate Crime.” Criminology 30, no. 3: 347–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skaggs, Sheryl. 2009. “Legal-political Pressures and African American Access to Managerial Jobs.” American Sociological Review 74: 225–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skolnick, Jerome. 1966. Justice without Trial: Law Enforcement in Democratic Society. New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Smith, Sandra Susan, and Broege, Nora C. R.. 2020. “Searching for Work with a Criminal Record.” Social Problems 67, no. 2: 208–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stewart, Robert, and Christopher, Uggen. 2020. “Criminal Records and College Admissions: A Modified Experimental Audit.” Criminology 58: 156–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sugie, Naomi F. 2018. “Work as Foraging: A Smartphone Study of Job Search and Employment after Prison.” American Journal of Sociology 123: 1453–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sugie, Naomi F., and Turney, Kristin. 2017. “Beyond Incarceration: Criminal Justice Contact and Mental Health.” American Sociological Review 82, no. 4: 719–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sugie, Naomi F., and Lens, Michael C.. 2017. “Daytime Locations in Spatial Mismatch: Job Accessibility and Employment at Reentry from Prison.” Demography 54, no. 2: 775–800.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sugie, Naomi F., Zatz, Noah D., and Dallas, Augustine. 2020. “Employer Aversion to Criminal Records: An Experimental Study of Mechanisms.” Criminology 58: 5–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sutton, John R., and Dobbin, Frank. 1996. “The Two Faces of Governance: Responses to Legal Uncertainty in U.S. Firms, 1955 to 1985.” American Sociological Review 61, no. 5: 794–811.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tilcsik, András. 2011. “Pride and Prejudice: Employment Discrimination against Openly Gay Men in the United States.” American Journal of Sociology 117, no. 2: 586–626.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Uggen, Christopher, and Jeff, Manza. 2002. “Democratic Contraction? Political Consequences of Felon Disenfranchisement in the United States.” American Sociological Review 67, no. 6: 777–803.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uggen, Christopher, Mike, Vuolo, Lageson, Sarah E., Ebony, Ruhland, and Whitham, Hilary K.. 2014. “The Edge of Stigma: An Experimental Audit of the Effects of Low-Level Criminal Records on Employment.” Criminology 52, no. 4: 627–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vuolo, Mike, Lageson, Sarah E., and Christopher, Uggen. 2017. “Criminal Record Questions in the Era of ‘Ban the Box’: Criminal Record Questions.” Criminology & Public Policy 16, no. 1: 139–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Western, Bruce. 2018. Homeward: Life in the Year After Prison. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Western, Bruce, and Becky, Pettit. 2004. “Mass Imprisonment and the Life Course: Race and Class Inequality in U.S. Incarceration.” American Sociological Review 69, no. 2: 151–69.Google Scholar
Western, Bruce, Braga, Anthony A., Jaclyn, Davis, and Catherine, Sirois. 2015. “Stress and Hardship after Prison.” American Journal of Sociology 120, no. 5: 1512–47.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yavorsky, Jill. 2019. “Uneven Patterns of Inequality: An Audit Analysis of Hiring-Related Practices by Gendered and Classed Contexts.” Social Forces 98, no. 2: 461–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar