You could always find a reasonable case to screen felons, but the first step to reintegrating people into the society is trusting them. It does involve risk.
> Hiring a murder convict as a beat cop sounds unacceptable.
I could go either way on this. Certainly you don't want someone who has control problems as a cop. But, someone who got convicted of gang stuff very young and then got his shit together could be a really effective beat cop. He knows the people and the neighborhood while serving as an example of doing good.
The problem is that a cop has to give legal testimony. And that would get challenged if he has a prior. Perhaps when cops all have to wear video so we don't have to rely on human testimony that will change.
Because a felony is damn easy to get and almost impossible to get rid of.
Pissed on a wall or mooned somebody when drunk in front of a cop? Felony AND sex offender--just for good measure.
Had sex with your 17-year-old girlfriend when you were 18? Felony although some jurisdictions make exceptions and try to reduce this to misdemeanor depending upon age difference.
Picked up for drunk and disorderly and had a knife on you that exceeds specifications? Felony. Side note: there is a reason so many people like MagLite flashlights--they are similar in size to a billy club or truncheon but are legal.
Picked up with a small amount of marijuana while your friend was in possession of a much larger amount in the car. Felony.
Every single male I know has done something sufficiently stupid when he was young that could have been a felony.
In addition, if a cop picks you up, they can probably find a felony somewhere in the law that will stick unless you are a teetotaller.
The real problem is that non-violent felonies need to go away after a while. I seem to remember some research showing that if a felon manages to stay out of trouble for 5 years he is less likely to get in trouble than even the general population.
So, to answer your question, felons who stay out of trouble for more than 5 years are actually a better pool to hire from than the general population.
Indeed, they have no economical reason to extend this trust and shoulder the risk, however small it might be. But this dynamic creates a problem for the society, therefore it needs to be worked around. Sealing criminal records is one way of doing it (not sure how effective it is though, given that jail time still leaves a gap in your CV).
Society has a good reason to want felons to be accepted in normal life, so it's up to society to create conditions where felons aren't discriminated against (i.e. they're out, they've paid their dues, let them live again).
If you want to make a survivable wage after prison, you pretty much have to become a drug dealer. There are very few jobs open to someone who has been to jail.
Perhaps we should not only give prisoners the opportunity to work in prison, but pay them a real wage and offer them continued employment when they get out. It would be far easier to reintegrate if you already have a job you're familiar with and several months' rent in the bank.
In Israel, prison jobs pay minimum wage. So, businesses do not suffer from competition with slave labor as in the US, and prisoners learn the value of labor.
The federal prison system runs prisoners through a 6 month halfway-house that helps them find a job and a place to live. In fact, if you don't have these, they will hold you past your release date until you secure them.
