Back in 2012, Teresa Hodge was sitting at her computer, filling out an application for a work-at-home job, when she encountered a question that sent a jolt of fear through her body. She paused, took a deep breath, and typed, “Yes.”

The screen went blank.

Then a message she’d been dreading appeared on the screen: “We’re sorry, but your response to one of the questions indicates that you are not qualified for this job. Thank you for your time.”

Teresa was saddened, but not surprised or confused. She knew why the process had so abruptly ended. She was one of the millions of US job applicants who are automatically rejected for employment each year when they answer “yes” to the question “Have you ever been convicted of a crime?”

Although the US accounts for just 5 percent of the world’s population, it houses 25 percent of its prison population. As of 2020, the American criminal justice system holds almost 2.3 million people in 1,833 state prisons, 110 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,134 local jails, and 218 immigration detention facilities, as well as military prisons and other facilities. Once their sentences have been served, many of these former prisoners find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to find good jobs.

Eight out of ten employers now run criminal background checks on job candidates, and if someone has an arrest or conviction record, it typically triggers an automatic rejection. Small wonder, then, that of the six hundred thousand–plus people who leave prison every year, more than half are still unemployed twelve months later, and 70 percent eventually end up back in prison, according to Hodge.

Read the full article about hiring inequity and "alien" thinking by Cyril Bouquet, Jean-Louis Barsoux, and Michael Wade at Stanford Social Innovation Review.