Palm Beach County government will no longer ask job candidates to disclose their criminal history on their application.
The county is joining the national “ban-the-box” initiative, which seeks to prevent felons from being screened out for employment just because of their criminal record.
On Friday, the county stopped asking applicants if they had ever been convicted of a felony offense, said Wayne Condry, director of human resources.
“I don’t anticipate any issues whatsoever,” he said. “I’ve met people who have had criminal backgrounds who have been good employees. I’ve met people who never had a criminal offense in their life and have had issues in employment.”
That is great. Palm Beach seems to be a very progressive county. The ban the box initiative nation wide is a great start to the criminal justice reform of our broken system. I hope other counties in Florida can follow this example.