The Research Case for Hiring People with Criminal History Records: California in Focus

This virtual RAND event will cover the latest research on employment background checks and recidivism risk, with a focus on California. Some of these findings call into question common practices and beliefs that drive the background check process by employers, and point to new approaches for managing risk while hiring more people with records.

The event will bring together employers, hiring managers, policymakers, reform advocates, and people who have experienced criminal background checks while seeking employment. RAND will also will seek input from attendees on how to most effectively communicate research findings to employers and other audiences who can drive positive change.

Agenda

9 a.m. PT / 12 p.m. ET
Introductory Remarks and Overview of Agenda
-Anita Chandra, Vice President, Social and Economic Well Being Division, RAND
-Joy Moini, Senior Policy Analyst, RAND

9:10 a.m. PT / 12:10 p.m. ET
Background Checks: Perspectives from Job Seekers
-Ken Oliver, Vice President, Checkr.org and Executive Director, Checkr Foundation
-Shelley Winner, Microsoft Surface Specialist
Two people who sought and found employment after incarceration discuss the difficult dynamics of navigating the job market and their advocacy for improving the process.

9:45 a.m. PT / 12:45 p.m. ET
Keynote Address: Background Checks in California: Current Policy Landscape and Future Directions
-Director Kevin Kish, California Civil Rights Department
A policymaking leader provides an update on the current regulatory environment in California and considerations for future policy.

10:15 a.m. PT / 1:15 p.m. ET
Presentation: The Research Case for Hiring People with Criminal History Records
-Shawn Bushway, RAND Senior Policy Researcher
When considering candidates who have a criminal history record, employers often weigh factors that may not yield fact-based decisions. Dr. Bushway offers key findings that can make hiring decisions more accurate and equitable.

10:45 a.m. PT / 1:45 p.m. ET
Panel Discussion: Reactions to the Research Evidence on Risks in Hiring People with Past Criminal Justice Involvement
Moderator:
-Dr. Malcolm Williams, Director, Pardee RAND Graduate School, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Program

Panelists:
-Rod Fliegel, Littler Mendelson, Co-Chair, Background Checks Practice Group
-Joshua Kim, Root and Rebound, National Director of Litigation for Economic Opportunity
-Ken Kuwamura, Manager, Talent Acquisition, Union Pacific
The research on employment background checks affects employers, their labor/employment counsel, and advocates seeking equitable treatment of people with criminal history records. Three practitioners examine how the research will affect their decisionmaking.

12 p.m. PT / 3 p.m. ET
Audience Poll and Break
-Greg Baumann, Manager, RAND Research Communications Group
Your reactions to RAND’s research findings on employment background checks will be integrated into our future efforts to educate employers, policymakers, and advocates.

12:15 p.m. PT / 3:15 p.m. ET
Presentation: Moving Beyond the Matrix – A New Approach to Assessing Candidates
-Shawn Bushway, RAND Senior Policy Researcher

12:45 p.m. PT / 3:45 p.m. ET
Summary and Discussion of Audience Poll Results
-Greg Baumann, Manager, RAND Research Communications Group
Your reactions will inform RAND’s future work to communicate our background check research. How can we create communications products that will help you educate your peers?

12:55 p.m. PT / 3:55 p.m. ET
Concluding Remarks
-Shawn Bushway

Featured Speakers

Kevin Kish
Director, California Department of Human Rights
Keynote Speaker

Kevin Kish is a civil rights attorney whose career has been dedicated to public service and advancing justice for disadvantaged communities. He was appointed by Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. as director of the Civil Right’s Department (CRD) in February 2015 and confirmed by the California Senate in January 2016. He was reappointed to the position by Governor Gavin Newsom in February 2020. CRD is the largest state civil rights agency in the nation and is the institutional centerpiece of California’s commitment to protecting its residents from unlawful discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations and from hate violence and human trafficking.

Prior to his appointment, Kish served as director of the Employment Rights Project at Bet Tzedek Legal Services, one of the nation’s premier public interest law firms. During his nine years at Bet Tzedek, Kish led the firm’s employment litigation, policy, and outreach initiatives. His cases focused on combating violations of minimum labor standards in low-wage industries and human trafficking for forced labor, and included individual and class-action lawsuits on behalf of workers in the garment, warehouse, carwash, trucking, restaurant, and janitorial industries, among others. He led trial and appellate teams in employment and trafficking suits. Among other important civil rights achievements, in 2009 Kish prevailed in the first civil case to reach a jury verdict under the California Trafficking Victims Protection Act.

Kish has been recognized for a creative approach to advocacy that complements legal strategies with innovative collaborations involving non-profit organizations, law schools, public agencies, industry leaders, and organizing campaigns. He has frequently been named to top-lawyer lists including California Lawyer’s “Super Lawyers” and the Daily Journal’s “Top 75 Labor and Employment Lawyers.” In 2016, Kish was a recipient of the California Lawyer’s Clay “Attorney of the Year” Award.

Kish developed and taught an employment-law clinic at Loyola Law School. A graduate of Swarthmore College and Yale Law School, he began his legal career as a Skadden Fellow and as a law clerk for Judge Myron Thompson of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama.

Dr. Shawn Bushway
RAND Senior Policy Researcher

Shawn D. Bushway is a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. He is on leave from the University at Albany (SUNY), where he received the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship. He has spent most of his career in the field of criminology, where he has been recognized as a Distinguished Scholar for the Division of Corrections and Sentencing, and a Fellow of the American Society of Criminology. He is also a member of the National Academy of Science’s Committee on Law and Justice. His work has been cited over 15,000 times and a network analysis of co-authors place him at the center of the field. He has done research on the causal relationship between work and crime, the use of discretion by actors in the criminal justice system, and the process of desistance. Occasionally, the areas intersect, such as his collection of studies on the appropriate role of criminal history records in employment decisions.

On the basis of his research, Bushway has provided testimony to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Maryland Public Service Commission, and served as founding member of the New York State Permanent Commission on Sentencing Reform. He was one of the founders of what has become the NBER summer workshop on Economics of Crime, the largest annual conference in the growing subfield of economics and crime. He has a Ph.D. in public policy and economics from the Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University, which recently recognized him as a Distinguished Alumnus

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