{"id":4229,"date":"2015-03-18T16:23:10","date_gmt":"2015-03-18T21:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/wordpress\/?p=4229"},"modified":"2015-03-18T16:23:49","modified_gmt":"2015-03-18T21:23:49","slug":"pawlowski-asking-council-to-ban-the-box","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=4229","title":{"rendered":"PAWLOWSKI ASKING COUNCIL TO \u201cBAN THE BOX\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski is asking City Council to approve a resolution to \u201cBan the Box.\u201d\u00a0 At a morning news conference in City Council Chambers, Pawlowski made good on a promise made during his 2015 State of the City message to propose the resolution which will be introduced by City Council tonight.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBan the Box\u201d legislation allows the city to judge applicants on their qualifications first without the stigma of a criminal record.<\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nelp.org\/\">www.NELP.org<\/a>, conservative estimates indicate that roughly\u00a070 million adults (1 in 4) in the United States have some sort of a criminal record, and nearly 700,000 people return to their communities from incarceration each year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBan the Box\u201d is the phrase coined for fair chance policies which remove the box on an employment application asking about the criminal history information of an applicant.\u00a0 By removing the conviction history question from the application, employers are attempting to judge applicants on their merits.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf government doesn\u2019t take the lead in this area, how can we expect the private sector to step-up,\u201d said Pawlowski.\u00a0 \u201cInstead of focusing on an applicant\u2019s criminal history, city government will provide them with a chance to compete and hopefully secure a job in the public sector.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Banning the box from the application would not prohibit the city from running a background check, nor does it prevent employers from considering an applicant\u2019s criminal history when making an employment decision.<\/p>\n<p>Research indicates that once an employer has the chance to examine the qualifications of an applicant without the bias which can be associated with knowledge of a conviction history, the employer would be more willing to hire the applicant.\u00a0 Employment has been found to be a significant factor in reducing re-offending.<\/p>\n<p>Allowing people to work increases their tax contributions, boosts sales tax, and saves money by keeping people out of the criminal justice system.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBan the Box\u201d legislation has been adopted in 13 states and more than 70 jurisdictions and is an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission best practice.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Information Provided By:<\/p>\n<p>Diane K. Miller<br \/>\nOperations Manager<br \/>\nOffice of the Mayor<br \/>\n435 Hamilton Street<br \/>\nAllentown, PA 18101<br \/>\n<a href=\"mailto:Diane.Miller@allentownpa.gov\" target=\"_blank\">Diane.Miller@allentownpa.gov<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.AllentownPA.gov\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.AllentownPA.gov<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class='adkingprobanner sidebar banner3023'><a href='http:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/' target=\"_blank\" data-id='3023' data-ga='{\"campaign\":\"\",\"banner\":\"\",\"implemented\":\"universal\",\"imp_action\":\"Impression\",\"click_action\":\"Click\"}'><img src='https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/inpostblank.jpg' alt='' \/><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?post_type=adverts_posts&p=3023\" class=\"read-more\">Click here to read more... <\/a>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1814,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[69],"tags":[29,1490,801,676],"class_list":["post-4229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-the-valley","tag-allentown","tag-ban-the-box","tag-ed-pawlowski","tag-mayor"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/IMG_03465.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4229"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}