Mayor Garcetti recently sent a letter to the California Public Utilities Commission asking that they require fingerprinting background checks for anyone who applies to be Uber or Lyft drivers. On the surface, this may seem like a simple safety measure. But for people of color, fingerprinting is anything but simple — or safe.
By now it’s been well-documented that fingerprinting discriminates against people of color, who are far more likely to be arrested than their white peers. Requiring fingerprint-based background checks is not only misguided policy, it’s an economic catastrophe for the very people who need these jobs the most.
For me this issue is personal. Today I serve as the founder and executive director of A New Way of Life, a leadership and reentry program for formerly incarcerated women. But not so long ago I was a mother in South Los Angeles trying to make ends meet. Day in and day out, I saw the challenges my friends and neighbors faced when they tried to enter the workforce and provide for their families. While unemployment has been declining nationally, unemployment rates for African Americans are still double the average. Fingerprinting background checks are just one more unnecessary barrier to work, especially for African Americans.
The problem with fingerprinting background checks is that they cast too wide a net, and sweep up the innocent along with the guilty. One-third of all Americans have been arrested by the time they turn 23. Violent offenses account for only four percent of this total –the majority of arrests are for non-violent drug offenses and a range of “other offenses,” including disorderly conduct, drunkenness, vagrancy, and loitering.
The reason this is all so troubling is that enormous racial disparities exist at every stage of the criminal justice system, from arrest and conviction to sentencing.At least 70 police departments across the US arrest African-Americans at ten times the rate of whites. Many of these arrests — approximately one-third, even for the most serious felonies — never result in a conviction. The U.S. Attorney General has concluded that roughly half of the records in the FBI fingerprint database are missing final information about whether an arrest ever led to criminal charges, let alone a conviction
An individual should not fail a fingerprinting background check, and possibly lose out on a job, because he or she was arrested but never convicted of a crime. Nor should a person be denied a job after he or she has served their time and paid their dues to society.
An arrest should never condemn someone to a life of unemployment. As a concerned citizen who spends her life helping good people find work and build lives of purpose, I urge Mayor Garcetti not to make it any harder. Our elected officials should consider the cost of their proposal — and whether they’re willing to deprive Angelenos of color economic opportunities they need and deserve.
Susan Burton is founder and executive director of the A New Way of Life, a leadership and reentry program for formerly incarcerated women.
