“Ban the Box” (BTB) policies restrict employers from asking about applicants’ criminal histories on job applications and are often presented as a means of reducing unemployment among black men, who disproportionately have criminal records. However, withholding information about criminal records could risk encouraging racial discrimination: employers may make assumptions about criminality based on the applicant's race. To investigate BTB’s effects, we sent approximately 15,000 online job applications on behalf of fictitious young, male applicants to employers in New Jersey and New York City before and after the adoption of BTB policies. These applications varied whether the applicant had a distinctly black or distinctly white name and the felony conviction status of the applicant. We confirm that criminal records are a major barrier to employment: employers that asked about criminal records were 63% more likely to call applicants with no record. However, our results support the concern that BTB policies encourage racial discrimination: the black-white gap in callbacks grew dramatically at companies that removed the box after the policy went into effect. Before BTB, white applicants to employers with the box received 7% more callbacks than similar black applicants, but BTB increased this gap to 43%. We believe that the best interpretation of these results is that employers are relying on exaggerated impressions of real-world racial differences in felony conviction rates.

Using rich data linking federal cases from arrest through to sentencing, we find that initial case and defendant characteristics, including arrest offense and criminal history, can explain most of the large raw racial disparity in federal sentences, but significant gaps remain. Across the distribution, blacks receive sentences that are almost 10 percent longer than those of comparable whites arrested for the same crimes. Most of this disparity can be explained by prosecutors' initial charging decisions, particularly the filing of charges carrying mandatory minimum sentences. Ceteris paribus, the odds of black arrestees facing such a charge are 1.75 times higher than those of white arrestees.

Ban-the-Box" (BTB) policies restrict employers from asking about applicants' criminal histories on job applications and are often presented as a means of reducing unemployment among black men, who disproportionately have criminal records. However, withholding information about criminal records could risk encouraging statistical discrimination: employers may make assumptions about criminality based on the applicant's race (or other observable characteristics). To investigate BTB's effects, we sent approximately 15,000 fictitious online job applications to employers in New Jersey and New York City both before and after the adoption of BTB policies. These applications varied the race and felony conviction status of the applicants. We confirm that criminal records are a major barrier to employment: employers that ask about criminal records were 63% more likely to call back an applicant if he has no record. However, our results support the concern that BTB policies encourage statistical discrimination on the basis of race: we find that the race gap in callbacks grows dramatically at the BTB-affected companies after the policy goes into effect. Before BTB, white applicants to employers with the box received 7% more callbacks than similar black applicants, but BTB increases this gap to 45%.

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Laws permitting the expungement of criminal convictions are a key component of modern criminal justice reform efforts and have been the subject of a recent upsurge in legislative activity. This debate has been almost entirely devoid of evidence about the laws' effects, in part because the necessary data (such as sealed records themselves) have been unavailable. We were able to obtain access to de-identified data that overcome that problem, and we use it to carry out a comprehensive statewide study of expungement recipients and comparable nonrecipients in Michigan. We offer three key sets of empirical findings. First, among those legally eligible for expungement, just 6.5% obtain it within five years of eligibility. Drawing on patterns in our data as well as interviews with expungement lawyers, we point to reasons for this serious "uptake gap." Second, those who do obtain expungement have extremely low subsequent crime rates, comparing favorably to the general population-a finding that defuses a common publicsafety objection to expungement laws. Third, those who obtain expungement experience a sharp upturn in their wage and employment trajectories; on average, within one year, wages go up by over 22% versus the pre-expungement trajectory, an effect mostly driven by unemployed people finding jobs and minimally employed people finding steadier or higher-paying work.

This paper adds to the empirical evidence that criminal records are a barrier to employment. Using data from 2,655 online applications sent on behalf of fictitious male applicants, we show that employers are 60 percent more likely to call applicants that do not have a felony conviction. We further investigate whether this effect varies based on applicant race (black versus white), crime type (drug versus property crime), industry (restaurants versus retail), jurisdiction (New Jersey versus New York City), local crime rate, and local racial composition. Although magnitudes vary somewhat, in every subsample the conviction effect is large, significant, and negative.

It is an understatement to refer to risk assessment as a criminal justice trend. Rather, we are already in the risk assessment era. Quantitative tools for the prediction of crime risk have quickly come to pervade the administration of criminal justice in the United States. In sentencing, their use is largely new and remains fast-expanding: today at least twenty states use these tools in some or all sentencing decisions, and many more plus the federal government are considering reforms that would introduce them. The modem revision of the Model Penal Code, currently in draft form, endorses their use in sentencing. 1 Risk assessment instruments are also commonly used to guide policing, bail decisions, diversion programs, prison assignment and programming, probation and parole supervision, discretionary parole decisions, and reentry programs. And yet these instruments have largely escaped both legal and public scrutiny. We have not had a national conversation about their use and the risk factors that they include. This Issue reflects the view that that conversation is overdue. Risk assessment is meant to serve an important objective: protecting the public from crime while allowing better-tailored use of criminal justice resources (including incarceration). On the other hand, almost all the risk assessment instruments now in use base a defendant's risk assessment score in part on demographic and socioeconomic factors, not just on past and present criminal conduct. Whether it is appropriate to base defendants' risk assessment on such factors is a choice that involves serious value conflicts and raises serious constitutional questions. This past summer, Attorney General Holder weighed in, raising the issue's public profile. While endorsing the broader practice of using data to inform criminal justice policy and practice, the Attorney General expressed serious concern about the use of risk assessment instruments in sentencing. In a speech to the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, he stated: Although these measures were crafted with the best of intentions, I am concerned that they may inadvertently undermine our efforts to ensure individualized and equal justice. By basing sentencing decisions on static factors and immutable characteristics-like the defendant's education level, socioeconomic background, or neighborhood-they may exacerbate unwarranted and unjust disparities ... Criminal sentences must be based on the facts, the law, the actual crimes committed, the circumstances surrounding each individual case, and the defendant's history of criminal conduct. They should not be based on unchangeable factors that a person cannot control, or on the possibility of a future crime that has not taken place. 2 The Department of Justice also recently sent a letter asking the U.S. Sentencing Commission to examine the issue. 3 We can expect that the Co.mmission will do so soon. We have come to an important juncture, in which we can expect attention to the issue to increase among judges, policymakers, and the public. ...