Jurisdictions across the United States have adopted “ban the box” (BTB) policies preventing employers from asking about job applicants’ criminal records until late in the hiring process. Their goal is to improve employment outcomes for those with criminal records, with a secondary goal of reducing racial disparities in employment. However, removing criminal history information could increase statistical discrimination against demographic groups that include more ex-offenders. We use variation in the timing of BTB policies to test BTB’s effects on employment. We find that BTB policies decrease the probability of employment by 3.4 percentage points (5.1%) for young, low-skilled black men.

中文翻译：

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“禁令”的意外后果：隐藏犯罪历史时的统计歧视和就业结果

美国各地的司法管辖区都采取了“禁箱令”（BTB）政策，以防止雇主在招聘过程的后期才询问求职者的犯罪记录。他们的目标是改善有犯罪记录的人的就业结果，其次要目标是减少就业中的种族差异。但是，删除犯罪记录信息可能会增加对包括更多前犯在内的人口群体的统计歧视。我们使用BTB政策时机的变化来测试BTB对就业的影响。我们发现，针对年轻，低技能的黑人，BTB政策将就业可能性降低了3.4个百分点（5.1％）。