Thanks so much for your kind words! I appreciate it.

Love what you are doing. This is the kind of startup I love to see being pushed forward.With lower entry barriers for tech startups, one would expect to see more startups that fight for a better world, instead of startups who fight for selling your data faster, or detecting your face better to overlay a duckface on top of it.This is why seeing a startup like yours makes me hopeful.Wish you best of luck!

This is great. Not much else to say about it.

Another full stack dev here, I would also love to help with something meaningful. Feel free to PM me in the future, if I can be of assistance. Remote, from Canada, Pacific timezone.

Thank you for your insight. When the dust settles, we should talk.

That&#x27;s not how it&#x27;s framed in the US. Incarceration is purposefully made as horrible as possible (rape, beatings, inedible food, solitary confinement) to ensure full debt repayment prior to release.I agree, it&#x27;s disgusting, but that&#x27;s the status quo.

how is doing time &quot;repaying a debt to society&quot;? Seems to me incarceration is a proving ground to show you&#x27;re no longer dangerous, _then_ one can begin to repay whatever injustices occurred?

Hey Richard, love this idea. I firmly believe in the notion that once you&#x27;ve paid your debt to society you should be able to participate in society as anyone else would. That this is not the fact is atrocious to me.Do you need a remote full-stack programmer?

I&#x27;m looking forward to hearing your feedback and am happy to answer any questions about 70millionjobs, the challenges faced by people with criminal records, and ideas you may have to improve our site.

I&#x27;m curious about this as well because the two listings I clicked on had requirements like &quot;must be able to pass a criminal background check&quot; and &quot;must have stable work history&quot; as their first hiring criteria.

There may be several factors going into this; for example, in the Bay Area, positions in the city of SF are prohibited from considering conviction history that is not &quot;directly related&quot; to the job. It also suggests specific language for including this information on job postings and corporate websites.I would love to hear from company founders about what factors they use to discover this information in their external job listings that are not on jurisdictions like this.Source: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.millerlawgroup.com&#x2F;publications&#x2F;alerts&#x2F;San-Franciscos-Fair-Chance-Ordinance.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.millerlawgroup.com&#x2F;publications&#x2F;alerts&#x2F;San-Franci...</a>

The site as it stands doesn&#x27;t, as looking at the site currently has plenty of jobs that requires passing a criminal background check. It appears this site is more idea than execution at this point.

Just curious, how do you know that the job postings you&#x27;re listing accept those with criminal backgrounds?Is this a list of curated companies? Or is there something that you&#x27;re parsing out that denotes this acceptability?

And he can, honestly, say that he sucks at getting clients for his consulting, but that he is good at coding.

Your friend just needs to say he was doing consultant work for himself during these periods.

Doesn&#x27;t &quot;had his record cleared&quot; make it obvious that we&#x27;re talking about his crimes? This seems needlessly pedantic.

&quot;Incidents&quot;?You mean his crimes? No need to abstract reality.

Do you mind if I ask if you&#x27;re a woman?  IIRC there&#x27;s pretty substantial hiring discrimination against men who claim to be homemakers (because it&#x27;s less common so people assume that they&#x27;re lying).  The other side of the coin obviously being that women with kids are discriminated against in hiring due to assumptions that they&#x27;ll be distracted by their family obligations.

&quot;Personal crisis.&quot;I was a homemaker for a lot of years. I also happened to be too sick to hold down a job during that time, but homemaker sounds so much better on a resume.Find a preferably true and accurate description that is palatable to employers. Then realize it is tough all over at the moment. LOTS of people are having trouble getting hired at all.

Do people care about that if he does freelance work? Or has he mostly looked for employment? And if so, why not freelance?At least in my neck of the woods (Western Europe) it&#x27;s (relatively) easy to find programming work as a contractor&#x2F;freelancer, and as far as I can tell employment history doesn&#x27;t matter, at least not in the &#x27;web&#x27; space of programming.

A friend of mine finally had his record cleared of incidents from when he was 19-20. He took courses to learn to program but even now it&#x27;s still hard for him to get a job because people want to know about the huge gap in his employment history from when nobody would hire him.

Not a problem. I&#x27;ve always genuinely felt that all people are good people and that when given a chance to integrate and succeed in society, they can make it. Some are just less fortunate to not acquire skills that are needed for jobs today but give them training and more importantly, give them confidence in themselves that there is always hope and I am sure their lives can be transformed.I just read this story and thought it might be interesting for you: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sgi.org&#x2F;people-and-perspectives&#x2F;changing-lives-in-prison.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sgi.org&#x2F;people-and-perspectives&#x2F;changing-lives-in...</a>

That is something that has occupied more and more of my thoughts. thanks for asking

This is a great initiative and hopefully will lead to a positive change for everyone involved. Will you also be thinking about training&#x2F;education opportunities for applicants?

We are currently doing just that, in NY and CA. Their NY director of Workforce Development is on our Advisory Board.

Have you thought about collaborating with CEO works?<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ceoworks.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ceoworks.org&#x2F;</a>

Thanks for this question. We are not yet working in Minnesota (we&#x27;re currently focused on CA and NY Metropolitan area), so search results outside those parameters are not good. We&#x27;re working on it.

I was curious about local jobs, so I put in &quot;Minnesota&quot; and get to <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.70millionjobs.com&#x2F;search&#x2F;-&#x2F;Minnesota" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.70millionjobs.com&#x2F;search&#x2F;-&#x2F;Minnesota</a> – but then when I put more search terms into keywords I keep getting the same results (including keywords that I can tell have associated jobs). I&#x27;m guessing it&#x27;s falling back to ZipRecruiter entirely, but it&#x27;s also not searching those entries.

Great question. First of all, while we believe that there&#x27;s a morality issue here, along with good corporate citizenry, ultimately, we have to serve a viable HR value to corporate America. In fact, there are some 6 million jobs currently unfilled in this country--many of the sort our applicants would excel at. Not filling jobs costs businesses enormously. So we hope to bring that value. At the same time, progressive companies conscious of their corporate issue may feel (or may not) that making an affirmative statement like this hold inherent value, as well.

In my experience, that&#x27;s a very true observation

The hardest workers are people who are (re)building their lives from nothing... Largely immigrants and ex-cons.

I very much like what you&#x27;re doing for those of us who&#x27;ve made wrong choices in the past. However, I am a little bit concerned what drives a company to go to a site -especially made for those people- looking for future employees.

I love seeing startups who can actually transform lives. Its sad being a developer with no technical limitations but have no useful ideas.

Really? From what I understand, the number of black inmates in prison is roughly equal to the number of white inmates (about 40%&#x2F;40%). There is a large disparity in terms of the incarceration rate of people of color, but your above statement is not true.

hmmm, is this correct? It seems the real proportion is 39&#x2F;40&#x2F;19 among Whites&#x2F;Blacks&#x2F;Hispanics.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.prisonpolicy.org&#x2F;reports&#x2F;rates.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.prisonpolicy.org&#x2F;reports&#x2F;rates.html</a>

The majority of images (and there are not many) seem to be black. The hero images, the About pages, all young black people. The only white person is the CEO (which show up predominately on the blog and about the team)As others have mentioned, our prisons are not predominately filled with people of color (although, I&#x27;m sure many people would believe that to be). A bit more diversity would definitely be nice ;)

I appreciate this observation, but our prisons are predominately filled with people of color.

I love the idea, and I really want your company to succeed.  I don&#x27;t really consider myself very easily offended or PC, but I thought it seemed a little stereotypical that the first two images in the hero were black people.  I think that should be changed as quickly as possible if you don&#x27;t want to get any backlash.  My two cents : )

This is awesome, congratulations on your launch!

We can&#x27;t ensure they get a fair offer, other than by providing  information and access to resources to address such injustices. I judge our success one job at a time, and one repaired family at a time.

&gt;How do you ensure they get a fair offer, and not, like migrant labor, receive a below market offer?This will be legal employment, so hopefully the abuses resulting from migrant employment won&#x27;t happen, but the salary they are getting will be below the &quot;normal&quot; market price, at least for a long time - and this is a good thing, since they would otherwise not be hired at all.

Negative bias towards those with records--along with a healthy dose of racism--is certainly at play, but I see the zeitgeist moving swiftly in the right direction. But it&#x27;s a challenge, for sure.

I think this is awesome, and I was relieved to see the focus on non-white collar crime. Some questions that I think are systemic to the entire area -The companies hiring are at somewhat of an advantage (they can hire anyone, the employees have more limited options). How do you ensure they get a fair offer, and not, like migrant labor, receive a below market offer? Would the marketplace effect here help prevent that?
(edit - looking at the website, duh, it looks like you&#x27;ve solved this - awesome - and found good companies.)Your revenue model is based on companies laying to get access to these prospective employees - how do you get past the stigma (without breaching q1 above)?I like the municipality revenue model - it would be awesome to see them as &quot;reverse recruiters&quot; we&#x27;re they pay every time someone gets a job.

Why would having a criminal record automatically preclude you from hiring these folks?Hell, Hans Reiser wrote a great filesystem and he murdered his wife. John Draper and Kevin Mitnick would probably both be good hires for certain roles. Steve Jobs could&#x27;ve been easily arrested for drug use.

&quot;As an employer, I want to hire the best people so my company can be successful. Why would I hire anyone from your site when there are plenty of other candidates elsewhere?&quot;Not associated with that company but one reason to hire a convict is that you get a pretty decent tax break[0] out of it[0]<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.doleta.gov&#x2F;business&#x2F;incentives&#x2F;opptax&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.doleta.gov&#x2F;business&#x2F;incentives&#x2F;opptax&#x2F;</a>

&gt; Why would I hire anyone from your site when there are plenty of other candidates elsewhere?Someone with criminal record has something to prove, so will be grateful for the job and work hard.

Do you employ people with criminal records?As an employer, I want to hire the best people so my company can be successful. Why would I hire anyone from your site when there are plenty of other candidates elsewhere?Do you think people will try to use your site to disqualify potential hires (i.e. use it as a do-not-hire list so those registered with the site can specifically be avoided)? How will you prevent this from occurring?Why would a company that doesn&#x27;t care about criminal records advertise with you? Wouldn&#x27;t it make more sense for them to advertise on a generic job board, take the best resumes, and sort out criminal history issues as they arise?Does your site allow employers to see what a job seeker&#x27;s crime was, or any other info related to that that other job boards wouldn&#x27;t provide?

What about cases such as people who commit crimes against children?  Would at the very least you say they don&#x27;t deserve a second chance at working with children?

No, we believe everyone deserves a second chance. It&#x27;s a challenging moral quandary, I admit, but I for one am no one to pass judgement.

If you have a resume you can typically find a local newspaper report of whatever the crime was even if their name is John smith.That said, local newspaper stuff is a horrible source of information. &quot;Mr. Doe was charged with the entire book&quot; routinely turns into a plea deal for the smallest charge on the list.

Can you sort by criminal record? e.g. Only white collar crimes.

Hmm, so moneyball&#x2F;arbitrage based on criminal history?That&#x27;s interesting; would be curious to hear if there&#x27;s another side of the story as well.

They have an incentive to hire someone, and often can&#x27;t find qualified candidates through traditional channels.In purely economic terms, I&#x27;m willing to bet some people with criminal records are willing to work for less than someone with the same qualifications and a clean record.

I commented this somewhere else, but I figured I would drop this link here for you too, <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.doleta.gov&#x2F;business&#x2F;incentives&#x2F;opptax&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.doleta.gov&#x2F;business&#x2F;incentives&#x2F;opptax&#x2F;</a>. You can get a pretty decent tax break if you hire a felon.

I would imagine the difficult aspect of this two-sided market would be employers.Not to be obtuse, but what incentive would an employer have to hire someone with criminal records?

Thanks for the clarifications.- It&#x27;s a myth that these folks will be criminals on the job.I wasn&#x27;t trying to imply they were, I was more thinking of a company getting dragged into a witch hunt. Regardless of the population there&#x27;s always a bad apple just like there&#x27;s a diamond.

Actually, a federal bonding program has existed for decades, to indemnify employers making &quot;at-risk&quot; hires. Interestingly, on a very few claims have ever been filed. It&#x27;s a myth that these folks will be criminals on the job. In fact, studies out of Harvard and U of Mass suggest that they actually can make better employees than those without records. There are indeed federal tax credits (Work Opportunity Tax Credits) available. Generally, we&#x27;re talking w2 jobs (which are also a requirement of parole&#x2F;probation, generally)

seems like a lot of what you&#x27;ll need to do is on the employer education. please excuse my ignorance, I hope their not offensive, I&#x27;m just trying to help.1. is there any extra liability for the employer if they knowingly hire someone formerly incarcerated and they commit a crime while working for them.2. aren&#x27;t some kind of tax credits for hiring formerly incarcerated incarcerated people.3. is it only w2 or do you allow 1099 opportunities.

I will surely look into this. Thanks for sharing.

While I agree there are bigger crooks who go unpunished, the solution is not to let the smaller crooks go free, but to also catch the bigger ones. BTW just to be clear, I&#x27;m not advocating harsher punishment, just equal punishment.

As someone who broke a whole lot of laws in his late teens and got off pretty easy for all of it, I wholeheartedly agree. They could have thrown the book at me but they didn&#x27;t. Also, it helps if you don&#x27;t confess to anything and hire a good attorney even if you end up taking a plea.Let&#x27;s face it, America sucks in a ton of ways and the biggest crooks are bankers and people in finance--they stole billions and got away with it over and over again. So nothing else quite compares except maybe whatever goes on with the CIA and drugs.

Arizona, too, and you’ll find that’s common in tough-on-crime red states. I can petition to have mine “set aside,” but it sticks. I’m fortunate enough to have a great career in the Valley, but it comes up all the time as the upthread comment pointed out.We are looking into gubernatorial pardon (Arizona has a decent process) but not holding my breath.

Unfortunately some states (eg: Texas) don&#x27;t allow you to expunge a felony no matter how long ago it was. My sister-in-law&#x27;s HS boyfriend was a criminal jerk and she got caught up and charged as an accessory for something stupid (theft IIRC). She fully admits she was rebelling by going after a bad-boy. She had a public defender who met with her once and told her to take the deal to get probation. Unfortunately the plea was for a felony.It&#x27;s been 20 years, she&#x27;s married to a good guy and has a baby... yet that black mark still comes up on her record.

Just want to add support. One of my childhood friends has a felony from when he was an overly-rambunctious teenager that he still gets punished for - including being kicked off AirBnB - for something he stole more than 20 years ago. Despite this, he&#x27;s a very successful leader in mental health services management.So many people deserve a chance to redeem themselves from being &#x27;branded&#x27;, yet are denied the exact opportunities that would allow them to do so. This problem goes back a long, long ways.[1]Anything you can do to help is great. Best of luck![1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Branded_Man" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Branded_Man</a>

Same question I had! Likely answer is YES (at least on HN boards and opinions to drive appearances, maybe not hiring for real).

This is really cool, and I hope that your platform takes off! The SMS integration for texting is also a nice touch. :)One thing I wonder about is if folks in our industry would be more willing to have an felon of some variety working with them than somebody who&#x27;s been tarred with the racist&#x2F;sexist&#x2F;conservative label?

thank you  The YC experience has been great and everyone&#x27;s been very supportive

happy to see you made it to YC, good luck!

It would be so great if attitudes were changing quickly in a positive direction. In tech, it is still impossible to get your first job after a career change as a woman, a person of color, or a person over say 35. Many of these people fall into one or all three of these categories. In addition to that, they have this ridiculous other hurdle to clear, and tech is still trying to figure out if women can do any technical work at all. It is great that people are making resources like this-- and for veterans, but I&#x27;m afraid that without penalties or major financial advantages for companies supporting &quot;equality&quot; and &quot;diversity&quot; it&#x27;s gonna take longer than anyone actually has before homelessness. i wish we could find a way to get financial penalties&#x2F;incentives for moral action to amplify the voices of the marginalized in tech. Ideas? Any takers on a partnership toward this? I&#x27;m fed up with companies not being held to account on this score. I may have to join Rosie O&#x27;Donnel&#x27;s womens&#x27; party, since it seems it may take that kind of measure.

I want to believe that attitudes are changing and I do believe that more and more people are behind efforts to make it easier for people with a criminal history to find jobs. But I still think that most people are quite NIMBY about it. They&#x27;d love for it to be much easier for them to find jobs, but they&#x27;re still uncomfortable being the ones actually working with them.Don&#x27;t get me wrong...I think what you&#x27;re doing is great, but I think &quot;ban the box&quot; laws that allow criminal histories to be hidden from prospective employers are the thing that&#x27;s really going to make a difference. Because hiring managers can always find fault with a candidate, either consciously or subconsciously, and playing it safe with hiring decisions is often in their personal interests, even if it&#x27;s not the right thing to do.

Thank you for sharing that. It&#x27;s a common story. Attitudes are changing quickly, so I hold out hope. I very much appreciate your support.

Some states allow for reduction of felonies to misdemeanor offenses after a specific amount of time has passed without re-offending. Many background checks don&#x27;t reveal misdemeanors.

I have never heard of a felony falling off a background check. Can you elaborate?

Quite weird that background check. We have something like that in Belgium but no employer ever asks for it. They actually never even asked to provide proof of my degree.Only exception government jobs....

Felon here! I&#x27;m in a similar circumstanc. Four felony convictions to be specific, 1x drug possession (adderall) 3x trafficking marijuana (same case, multiple counts). I was certainly guilty on all counts. Lost my job after employer found out about the first felony probation (adderall), made some severely short-sighted decisions to supplement my income (traffic marijuana). Anyways it&#x27;s late and I have company, but TLDR: Job hunting as a felon(for any reason, most don&#x27;t care to understand the details) it&#x27;s much more limiting than I would have ever anticipated.OP: Thanks for starting this, good luck, I&#x27;ve been thinking about doing something similar for a while now!

I went through an IT technical degree at a community college. Three of my classmates were timing their graduation to the year their felony fell off background checks.These guys spent 5 years grinding it out at whatever shit job would hire them just to spend 2 more in school + working with the hope of getting a simple rack &amp; stack job, all because of some mistake they made in their late teens&#x2F;early twenties. It was the exact same story 3 times, and all involving drug offenses.It really gave me a different perspective on the situation. I don&#x27;t think these 3 people should&#x27;ve been sidelined for 7 years. They could&#x27;ve been productive members of society well before that. Keeping them out of the skilled&#x2F;professional workforce is painful.This could be a huge untapped pool of candidates, as long as companies are willing to take the risk. I hope it takes off.

My greatest pleasure will be the day I have to buy 60millionjobs.com, 50mill....

Why buy a domain name for a number that will fluctuate over time?

My father owns a retail business that has four stores and employs a bunch of hourly workers.  After growing up around the business and working there in my teens and twenties, I feel pretty confident that the risk of a second-chance felon is probably no more than the risk of any average off-the-street hourly worker.  Bad apples show up all of the time.  They steal a little money or some inventory, get fired, and life goes on.  The risk is far greater for an ex-con: why would they risk going back to prison and losing a good job that gave them a second chance over a little money in the register or some inventory?

Aside from any legal&#x2F;HR consideration, we feel that everyone deserves a second chance, so we don&#x27;t discriminate based upon the nature of the crime (but believe me, this is not an easy issue to reconcile). Ultimately, it&#x27;ll be between the applicant and employer to resolve this. As it relates to liability to the business, there&#x27;s a federal bonding program that has existed for decades, indemnifying employers from making at-risk hires. Interestingly, over this period of time, only just a few claims have every been made. The facts are that folks with jobs almost never recidivate. In fact, studies are now showing that these folks, for certain jobs, actually may be better employees. Hiring them is very good business.

If you find that someone does not have any criminal history and is using your boards to apply for jobs, what action might your company take?

No, we don&#x27;t inquire as to the nature of their crime(s). Aside from it opening a wasp nest&#x27;s of legal issues, I personally believe that everyone deserves a second chance. (and certainly don&#x27;t believe that I should stand in judgement of anyone). Ultimately, like an job board or HR resource, there&#x27;s stuff an employer and prospective employee will have to hash out. My mission was&#x2F;is to create an efficient marketplace that allows employers (especially large ones) to consider hiring this population at scale. Many have suggested some kind of vetting process, which I know would help the top 10% appliers, but I think they&#x27;d probably find success anyway. I&#x27;m not sure that it&#x27;s fair to require someone who&#x27;s already done their time to have to pass another test, just to get a job to feed his&#x2F;her family. No easy answers here.

&gt; So we created a &quot;save haven&quot; where all parties knew the scoreDoes that mean that employers know what offenses were committed, and how long ago? Or does it just mean that they know that the candidate has been convicted of something, but figuring out whether that&#x27;s a liability to the business or not needs to be discussed?

Just wanted to be another HN-er voicing my support for what you&#x27;re doing :)Good luck and i hope you&#x27;re successful!

I don&#x27;t know about being &quot;yet another case...&quot;  This is something that has affected me, my family and many friends square on, and I&#x27;m compelled to try to improve things. There are more and more people like you who clearly &quot;get it,&quot; so I have hope.

&gt;systematic screwup of law in the USA&quot; is a pretty good description; another might be &quot;massive market opportunity&quot;The way Americans have the capacity to acknowledge something intrinsically fucked up about their society, and see it as a business opportunity regardless is something I both admire, and despair over.

On #2, you could say the same thing about all black markets.

&gt;Isn&#x27;t yet another case that startup is trying to fix systematic screwup of law in the USA?Two thoughts:1) &quot;systematic screwup of law in the USA&quot; is a pretty good description; another might be &quot;massive market opportunity&quot;2) &quot;startup trying to [take advantage of market inefficiencies created by] systematic screwup of law in the USA&quot; is also a pretty good description of drug traffickers of all kinds. (I&#x27;m not passing judgment; just making an observation. The meta observation is that you can&#x27;t cheat reality, so when law gets out of whack the gap between Ideal and Actual creates an inefficiency, which savvy entrepreneurs can profit by bridging).

Even though this shouldn&#x27;t be a problem (in that I agree that this is a policy issue in a lot of ways) I think that this could create more momentum for a fix by bringing this issue to light. They could potentially put themselves out of business (eventually, not any time soon) by de-stigmatizing a criminal record.

&gt; In USA once you got criminal record, by default it stays for rest of life with you.You have no idea what you are talking about.&gt; On the other hand in most of the European countries criminal records are limited and after X years they disappear and you can&#x27;t legally discriminate based on that.This is something that varies state by state in the United States. In general, misdemeanors can be removed from your record faster than felonies and if they could they&#x27;d put a big red &#x27;A&#x27; on your chest for sex crimes. Some places will clean your record automatically and some will requre you to contact the courts. But again, varies state by state, or even county by county.

&quot;Not giving them another chance is a major problem and actually can cause a lot of damage for everyone.&quot;To build on this: disallowing them from becoming productive members of society means that they&#x27;re that much more inclined to revert to a life of crime.

Isn&#x27;t yet another case that startup is trying to fix systematic screwup of law in the USA?In USA once you got criminal record, by default it stays for rest of life with you. Implications of that may be even more severe than actual punishment.On the other hand in most of the European countries criminal records are limited and after X years they disappear and you can&#x27;t legally discriminate based on that.Some ppl will do something stupid at some point in their life and get a criminal record. Not giving them another chance is a major problem and actually can cause a lot of damage for everyone.

It&#x27;s <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.imdb.com&#x2F;title&#x2F;tt2674348&#x2F;?ref_=fn_tt_tt_17" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.imdb.com&#x2F;title&#x2F;tt2674348&#x2F;?ref_=fn_tt_tt_17</a> , although sadly it seems to have mostly vanished into the analogue void. I remember it being pretty good, but I probably had dreadful taste at the time.<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.rochellestevens.com&#x2F;wp&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2013&#x2F;01&#x2F;Credits-Moore.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.rochellestevens.com&#x2F;wp&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2013&#x2F;01...</a> has a very slightly better summary (at least enough to prove I&#x27;m not making it up).

Possibly interesting trivia: There was an &#x27;80s British TV series called Inside Out, about people doing what you&#x27;re doing.

Will it be possible to limit job postings to groups of offenders? Eg only non-violent offenders, only people who have been out for at least x years with no new crimes, etc?

Wow, and that was for people born in 1953(!!).The net cast by law enforcement has not gotten smaller since then.

This is from 2002, but it makes the point:&quot;... that almost a third of men [in Britain] have a criminal conviction by the age of 30, according to the Home Office. Research on men born in 1953 showed that about 30 per cent had clocked up a standard list offence - one that is dealt with by the courts but excludes minor motoring offences - by their thirtieth birthday. Research in Scotland points in the same direction, suggesting that about 25 per cent of men have a record by age 24.&quot;<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;money&#x2F;2002&#x2F;apr&#x2F;14&#x2F;workandcareers.observercashsection" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;money&#x2F;2002&#x2F;apr&#x2F;14&#x2F;workandcareers...</a>

Right you are. The US has 5% of the world&#x27;s population, and 25% of the world&#x27;s incarcerated population. Per capita, more than China, Iran, N Korea.

Pretty sure it&#x27;s uniquely a USA issue: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;United_States_incarceration_rate" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;United_States_incarceration_ra...</a>

&gt; 1 in 3 adults—with criminal recordsI must admit I haven&#x27;t ever thought about these numbers but it strikes me as insanely high. How can this be explained? Is it a feature of just America or is it reproducible in other countries as well?

There&#x27;s great demand, exacerbated by our administration&#x27;s crack-down on illegal aliens

Great business concept and social good all in one.With the unemployed persons per job opening at such a low present level (~11-12 year low), I bet you see a lot of employer interest.

Understood. thanks for letting us know. we&#x27;re on it.

Its a listing that excludes candidates with felonies on a job board specifically for candidates with felonies.

&quot;Have no convictions for any felony...&quot;

What&#x27;s the problem specifically with that listing?

One of the first things I came across was &quot;Police Officer&quot; in Tallahassee, FL. It&#x27;s an external link. Part of the description even says:&quot;Have no convictions for any felony, perjury, false statement, or domestic violence. No DUI convictions past ten years. Other arrest histories are reviewed on a case-by-case basis.&quot;I love the idea, but it needs a bit more work.

Thanks for your kind words. Yeah, our search algorithm needs lots of work. It&#x27;ll get there.

I ran a search and a few banking jobs came up, one of which mentioned going through a fingerprint background check. I find it hard to believe the US Bank in SF would take me seriously for a teller opening if I had any sort of hangups in my background.I guess this is more of a feature request but... It would be great if you could filter out job postings that were likely just scraped or aggregated from other places!Nice work btw, a great start for a much needed service

Business wise: what make a company want to hire someone with a criminal record?

Well if nothing can be done to dissuade people from criminality we might as well not bother having a criminal justice system and put up with it.

No, it probably will not dissuade people all that effectively. That logic is part of the problem.

Or maybe it ought to convince us that we shouldn&#x27;t make it so hard for people with minor criminal records to get back into society?

&quot;Leads to license suspencion.
Leads to driving while license suspended.&quot;
Or, like, don&#x27;t drive without a license.

That is the absolute wrong takeaway here. It&#x27;s about being overly harshly punished for mistakes in their youths. I&#x27;ve heard very similar stories from public defenders that have nothing to do with drugs, but with common punishment escalations that are hard to avoid when you&#x27;re poor, and people surely can&#x27;t avoid being poor.Minor fine goes unpaid because this month the electric bill is more important.Leads to more fines.Leads to license suspencion.Leads to driving while license suspended.Leads to license suspension.Leads to driving while license suspended.Leads to felony jail time.Don&#x27;t get me wrong, there are choices made at each stage of escalation, and often all that&#x27;s needed is to show up to court, dressed in your sunday best and respectfully explain situation to the judge, and the chain can be broken, but being poor leads to a lot of suboptimal decisions that could make it difficult or impossible to deal with any of this until there is no choice, and a felony conviction often ends up as the escalation that can&#x27;t be putoff any longer.

Your comment is very insightful. I was in prison with lots of folks who:
1. Dealt pot. Now widely decriminalized.
2. Cheated on their taxes. I don&#x27;t know a business person who doesn&#x27;t fudge their T&amp;E.
3. DWI&#x2F;Drunk driving. Who among us hasn&#x27;t driven, having had that extra glass of wine.
Morality is frequently not as black-and-white as we&#x27;d wish it conveniently be. We are human. We screw up. There should be ramifications for our transgressions. 
But a life sentence! That&#x27;s the punishment, effectively, that&#x27;s meted out. How evolved does that make us, as a society?

You realize that you can acquire a criminal record for something as innocuous as urinating on your own private property right?

How is this off-topic? Do you mean &quot;off message&quot;?

We detached this subthread from <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=14911995" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=14911995</a> and marked it off-topic.

I wish we heard more stories like these. It might dissuade people from getting involved in drugs in the first place.

In the UK, Timpson[0] are a well known example of a national employer not only willing to hire ex-offenders but one that does so proudly, and indeed offer training to prisoners before they are even released. They have tried to convince other companies to follow their lead but with limited success. That said, we also have Clean Sheet[1] through which employers can expressly publicise their willingness to employ ex-offenders.I find it extremely admirable. Best of luck with your approach.[0] See for example this archived blog post: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20150222003545&#x2F;http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.timpson.co.uk&#x2F;blog&#x2F;article&#x2F;79&#x2F;john-timpson-we-are-making-a-difference-to-the-lives-of-ex-offenders-" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20150222003545&#x2F;http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.timpso...</a> or a search for &quot;Timpson ex-offenders&quot; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.co.uk&#x2F;search?q=timpson+ex-offenders" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.co.uk&#x2F;search?q=timpson+ex-offenders</a>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;cleansheet.org.uk&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;cleansheet.org.uk&#x2F;</a>

There will always be a segment of society that were bullied as kids and get their rocks off being as cruel as possible to those they believe deserve it.People like that are not part of this conversation.

So are you of the opinion that people who commit major crimes should just be unemployed for life, and no effort should be made to cater to their job search? You don&#x27;t realize that&#x27;s a recipe for virtually guaranteed repeat offenders?

Minor things like small drug offences etc. fine but major crimes? No.

See definition 4<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.merriam-webster.com&#x2F;dictionary&#x2F;healthy" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.merriam-webster.com&#x2F;dictionary&#x2F;healthy</a>

A &quot;healthy dose&quot; of something negative is bit of a sarcastic idiom. More generally a &quot;healthy&quot; dose could be described as one that is not lacking in any way.

We detached this subthread from <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=14912145" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=14912145</a> and marked it off-topic.

&gt; along with a healthy dose of racismEr, when is racism ever healthy?

I&#x27;d add that framing the hiring decision as charity (&quot;giving someone a second chance&quot;) could be improved. I&#x27;d go for more of a &quot;diamond in the rough&quot; angle.&quot;Find talent everyone else is missing.&quot;

In line with that, I think you could also put up a blog section for testimonials, in the near future. IMHO, People need to read stories of how 70million Jobs has helped successful candidates, as that will build confidence in the system.

Also, please reconsider your decision to feature Google and Facebook as prominently as &quot;featured employers&quot;. If it&#x27;s for security, maintenance, and janitorial work, it&#x27;s more practical to list the agencies that they hire temps from. Otherwise, look no further than nearby East Palo Alto and one will find that neither company particularly cares about rehabilitating ex-offenders or people from at-risk communities for any type of technical employment.The general rule with Silicon Valley and San Francisco companies is to take everything they say in public or through their carefully worded P.R. with a grain of salt, and actually find out first hand if they practice what they preach hiring outliers with respect to diversity, records&#x2F;credit&#x2F;etc, non-Ivy League degrees, etc.

You are so right on all your comments. Soon we&#x27;ll be re-doing the entire site. Perhaps we can talk in several weeks?

&gt;In other words, don&#x27;t tell them &quot;give a criminal a second chance.&quot; Tell them that many people with criminal records simply shouldn&#x27;t have them...That&#x27;s a very interesting approach, but I believe a hard sell to potential employer. As true as it may be, an employer is more likely to appreciate the individual who says this is my background, this is what I learned and this is my vision of my own future...rather than, it&#x27;s not my fault, I&#x27;m a societal statistic.In fact, despite the ideas of US prison overcrowding and for profit drive conviction rates...I&#x27;d argue the opposite, that it&#x27;s very likely the employer has already hired individuals who have committed various &quot;crimes&quot; and could but simply don&#x27;t have records.I know it&#x27;s stance but all you need to do it look at the number of reported crimes (serious, not victimless like many would argue about drug possession) and the total prison population.Example:prison population = ~ 2.2M inmatesEvery year in the US 60,000 children are sexually abused; ~220,000 adults sexually abused or raped; ~19,000 military members experience unwanted sexual contact. [1]US prisons only seem over crowded until you see the number of violent crimes in the country, it basically works out to a sexual assault&#x2F;rape every 90 seconds, it&#x27;s pretty disturbing.[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.rainn.org&#x2F;statistics&#x2F;scope-problem" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.rainn.org&#x2F;statistics&#x2F;scope-problem</a>

Prison population per 100k isn&#x27;t the same as criminal record per 100k. It could be that other countries enforce laws differently. Eg if the US has longer sentences on average and let&#x27;s fewer people out on parole or out early then their prison population will be much higher even  if the crime rates are identical.

&quot;Many American citizens have a criminal record for the crime of being an American citizen.&quot;It&#x27;s better to have the tone of people owning up to their actions and then moving forward rather than saying the US is just giving out criminal records like candy and it&#x27;s not anybody&#x27;s fault.

In addition to the above great ideas, here are some stats for you:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;fact-checker&#x2F;wp&#x2F;2015&#x2F;04&#x2F;30&#x2F;does-the-united-states-really-have-five-percent-of-worlds-population-and-one-quarter-of-the-worlds-prisoners&#x2F;?utm_term=.1335c5e4202b" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;fact-checker&#x2F;wp&#x2F;2015&#x2F;04&#x2F;...</a>The US has about 4.4 percent of the global population and about 22 percent of the global prison population.The numbers are more startling using a different measure in the report: the prison population rate. Criminologists say this is a reliable way to compare incarceration practices between countries.The United States had the highest prison population rate in the world, at 716 per 100,000 people. More than half of the countries and territories had rates below 150 per 100,000. The United States had a much higher rate compared to other developed countries: about six times Canada’s rate, between six to nine times Western European countries, and between two to 10 times Northern European countries.So, I will suggest you work hard to frame it as &quot;Many American citizens have a criminal record for the crime of being an American citizen. The system is broken and many people with criminal records really don&#x27;t deserve to have them at all.&quot;In other words, don&#x27;t tell them &quot;give a criminal a second chance.&quot; Tell them that many people with criminal records simply shouldn&#x27;t have them and you are making a terrible mistake to hold that against them, both in practical terms by cutting out talent from the hiring pool for specious reasons, and in moral terms because you are denying someone an opportunity to recover from having been shafted by a broken system to begin with.FYI: I&#x27;m a copywriter by trade.

Hi Richard, great idea. I&#x27;m a UX designer and want to throw out some suggestions on how to improve the experience of the site.First, use more cheerful&#x2F;positive messages&#x2F;visuals. It was a joykill when I checked out your website and there&#x27;s a sad guy placing his hand on the forehead. Show what&#x27;s possible. How successful people can be once they get a job.. rather than their current state (unemployment). Don&#x27;t focus on the current stat, focus on the future desirable state.Also, you need to put more focus on the jobs. List featured jobs to draw people in. Just list some jobs below the search. This will engage the user to explore the site.

We need to find a much better product market fit. This job board was our first pass at it, but we&#x27;ve learned lots and look forward to being far more engaging for our users in the future. There&#x27;s been so much great feedback here alone, I can&#x27;t wait to iterate.

Hi Richard,This is a great idea with a nice social cause. Also,from a business perspective this is a good niche and large scale.
Aside the mission and the targeted niche, how do you expect&#x2F;plan to diferentiate in your product offering?

&quot;Richard Bronson&quot; is an awesome name for this. It has real gravitas.

How come 1 in 3 adults in the USA have a criminal record?

Another broken page is your &quot;For Formerly Incarcerated-&gt;Gain Certification&quot; page:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.70millionjobs.com&#x2F;page&#x2F;Certification" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.70millionjobs.com&#x2F;page&#x2F;Certification</a>I see nothing but some share buttons, the standard header and footer, and a blank white page. There&#x27;s a Sumo login tab that slides out of the scroll bar if you mouseover near the top right corner.It&#x27;s perhaps only caused by the Show HN DDOS&#x2F;hug of death, but better to learn now than later that the Sumo Listbuilder popup takes at least 30-60 seconds to load. I only waited long enough to notice it because I had to disable UBlock and reloaded watching the Network tab of the dev tools.

quick FYI, Your og:image is broken because I just tried sharing your site on facebook and all I saw were logos from other companies. When I go directly to the image you set in your og:image meta tag I get an error response<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jobboardhq.blob.core.windows.net&#x2F;assets&#x2F;prod&#x2F;2ttp&#x2F;logo_social.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jobboardhq.blob.core.windows.net&#x2F;assets&#x2F;prod&#x2F;2ttp&#x2F;lo...</a>here&#x27;s a direct link to FB&#x27;s open graph debugger with your site already loaded into it:
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;developers.facebook.com&#x2F;tools&#x2F;debug&#x2F;sharing&#x2F;?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.70millionjobs.com%2F" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;developers.facebook.com&#x2F;tools&#x2F;debug&#x2F;sharing&#x2F;?q=https...</a>

I&#x27;m very familiar with those folks, thanks.

this is cool. you should get in touch with Pigeonly (YC W15).

very interesting concept, all the best :-), hope it picks up, we need more love in our society

Important (and inglorious) work. I wish you the best Richard, genuinely.

YES!!!! This is exactly the kind of innovation we need. Great work! Let us know if we can help. We are at very beginning stages of supporting people that are re-entering and getting folks lined up with jobs in a safe and supportive way is a big part of that. Again, hats off!

I&#x27;d definitely consider hiring ex-cons, as long as they had some sort of &#x27;come to Jesus&#x27; moment where they changed their life.  I used to do a lot of bad stuff, just didn&#x27;t get caught for it ( mostly doing drugs ).  I wouldn&#x27;t want to hire former me, but now that I&#x27;ve changed...

It&#x27;s both better and worse than that. The photos of the job seekers are all African Americans, yes. But there is a photo that includes white men and even two white women: It&#x27;s behind the &quot;Employers&quot; heading most of the way down the main page. Yikes.

Some studies* have found that black men with a conviction experience significantly more hiring discrimination than white men, so the pool of &quot;people with convictions struggling to get a job&quot; is probably even more skewed towards black people.* random example form googling, but I&#x27;ve seen a few on the topic <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;thesocietypages.org&#x2F;socimages&#x2F;2015&#x2F;04&#x2F;03&#x2F;race-criminal-background-and-employment&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;thesocietypages.org&#x2F;socimages&#x2F;2015&#x2F;04&#x2F;03&#x2F;race-crimin...</a>

Um, why are all of the photos on the site of African Americans? Yes, it&#x27;s true that African Americans make up 40% of the prison population, but whites make up 39% and hispanics 19%. It seems the images you have chosen are an unfair stereotype.

i&#x27;m also working on the jobs problem (not in your niche however) and really don&#x27;t find the idea of another job board very compelling. can i ask why you went that route?in any case, best of luck! it&#x27;s important work to be doing.as a society, we should do everything possible to help people who make mistakes and want to get back on the happy path. (as a side note, i think punishment is way out of whack. we need more carrot and less stick for low-level offenders, and more stick and less carrot for white-collar crimes that affect many more lives, though it seems like you got a fair amount of stick in your case.)

I read exactly the same.Mind playing tricks on us.And then... Wolf of Wolf Street.I&#x27;ll make an insider joke and update my LinkedIn profile for &quot;Stratton Oakmont Chief Compliance Officer&quot;...Good energy, much love!

What a big difference one letter can make.
thanks for your thoughts.

I did a double take when I read the first 4 words: Richard Branson is in YC? Launching a job platform?Anyways, this is a great idea, I hope you succeed!

Or they only got busted for a joyride but not the 12 B&amp;Es and embezzlement. False signals.

And a lot of people are forced to a plea after being overcharged and put through a very long crippling (financially  and mentally) process while for the DA&#x2F;cops is just another day to go to work

Uh, no you don&#x27;t.  A lot of cases get plead down and the cops&#x2F;DAs are lazy and often don&#x27;t charge people with crimes they&#x27;re not sure they can successfully prosecute.  That&#x27;s why there&#x27;s so many &quot;non-violent drug offenders&quot; in prison all over.  Yeah, most of those people were up to no good but got taken down for something less serious.

Which also undermines the usefulness of judging based on criminal record...

Uh, you don&#x27;t know what the ex-con hasn&#x27;t been caught for either. Maybe they got away with murder 10 years ago, but where only caught for their petty theft 5 years later.

The good thing about people with a criminal record: you know what they did! You will never know this of the people around you who got away not being caught. Do I know if my neighbour did not rob a bank 10 years ago? No. So working with ex-criminals can be an encounter with honesty.

Massachusetts...has always had a high incidence of racism. See <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Boston_busing_desegregation" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Boston_busing_desegregation</a>.

Boston. Ah Boston. For an entertaining account of some of Boston&#x27;s history of racial conflict, I recommend the 2-part Dollop podcast about the bussing conflict:<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;thedollop.libsyn.com&#x2F;228-boston-busing-1974" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;thedollop.libsyn.com&#x2F;228-boston-busing-1974</a><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;thedollop.libsyn.com&#x2F;229-boston-busing-1975" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;thedollop.libsyn.com&#x2F;229-boston-busing-1975</a>It sounds more like a bad disaster movie than recent American history.

yeah, Wahlberg&#x27;s crime is an interesting case -- the kind of violent crime most people think merits a severe punishment. and yet, he&#x27;s a wealthy movie star today. American justice, folks.oddly enough, it happened in Massachusetts of all places, a state i expect to take this sort of hateful crime more seriously. maybe it would nowadays. that particular violent attack happened a while back.regarding licensing: the rumor i heard (for what it&#x27;s worth) was that Wahlberg recently wanted to become certified as an actual officer on a local auxiliary or reserve police force for some new show he was planning. but, as a convicted felon, he is not eligible.

Wow, that is surreal. It is hard to believe this, from Marky Mark &#x2F; Smooth Vibrations. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=AO9909uexu8" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=AO9909uexu8</a>

I&#x27;m super-excited to see this. I really hope it works out. Thanks for doing it.Honestly I find how this country treats those with a felony record absolutely disgusting. The &quot;Are you a convicted felon?&quot; is a scarlet letter that never seems to disappear. While this might&#x27;ve originally been well-intentioned, IMHO it perpetuates criminality as I suspect what other choices do a lot of former felons have?There was (is?) a campaign in Massachussetts to retroactively pardon a felony conviction for Mark Wahlberg. Apparently this makes it difficult to, say, get liquor licenses and so forth.Personally I&quot;m 100% against a commutation for the rich and famous. What we should be doing is freeing people from this stigma, particularly when the crime was a long time ago, especially nonviolent and likely not relevant to your job.FYI Mark Wahlberg&#x27;s felony conviction was violent and pretty egregious actually as it was IIRC a racially-motivated attack on a Vietnamese man.

Urinalysis as a service has got to be a thing already. Probably a partnership deal. Maybe LabCorp or Quest. Just stay away from Theranos :) If not, we could probably russle you up a chemist if you&#x27;re willing to front the immunoassays and mass spectrometer. Or microfluidics. Then Theranos might be interested...

Considering the number of friends who repeatedly and confidently pass state mandated drug tests, I would not trust that at all.

Great point. I think the problem is that employers often use boilerplate conditions, and requirements are more stringent than the job would require.

In a past job I was responsible for hiring a few warehouse workers, and in one case I was actually relieved to find that the applicant was on probation for a drug charge, and was required to submit to weekly urine tests. Basically the state was paying to guarantee that this worker was staying clean, and so I was pretty confident about hiring him. I wonder if other employers would be interested in that kind of info as well.

This is fixed pie thinking and it&#x27;s not a good way to look at the economy and jobs. If this large block of people were earning more, they would be spending more. That means more restaurant jobs, home builders, baby sitters, etc. It&#x27;s not a perfect one to one that jobs will increase with spending, but it&#x27;s closer to that than the fixed number of jobs view you are putting out.

Economics isn&#x27;t a zero-sum game. People with better jobs spend more money to buy more products, including a lot of the products startups would very much like to sell. An ex-con working minimum wage isn&#x27;t ordering Muchery, using Instacart, or taking Lyft rides. An ex-con working in frontend development very well might use those services.This generates economic activity across the entire chain, enriching everyone along the way. All of these people end up paying more taxes. Collectively the increase in activity can cause retailers, suppliers, and manufacturers to hire to keep up with demand further feeding the cycle.IIRC the research shows ex-cons are far less likely to re-offend in the future if they land a good job. How many kids looking forward to $130k&#x2F;yr jobs would choose to join a gang instead?There&#x27;s also the deadweight loss of criminal prosecution and jailing offenders. It generates a few legal and prison guard jobs but most of the taxes spent in the criminal justice system don&#x27;t contribute constructively to society the same way building new bridges, subway systems, or funding science research does.

This is not how economics works. Here&#x27;s a good place to start: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Lump_of_labour_fallacy" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Lump_of_labour_fallacy</a>

Is that true? I don&#x27;t know much about macroeconomics but it seems to me that even though these folks aren&#x27;t earning at their full potential, the jobs are being done by someone.In other words, if these folks were earning more, someone else wouldn&#x27;t be doing that job, so the overall earning that the set number of jobs would support wouldn&#x27;t change one way or the other from the tax revenue point of view.(Not advocating for or against these folks being able to work at their full potential, just trying to look at the tax revenue argument objectively).

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;fact-checker&#x2F;wp&#x2F;2015&#x2F;04&#x2F;30&#x2F;does-the-united-states-really-have-five-percent-of-worlds-population-and-one-quarter-of-the-worlds-prisoners&#x2F;?utm_term=.1335c5e4202b" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;fact-checker&#x2F;wp&#x2F;2015&#x2F;04&#x2F;...</a>The US has about 4.4 percent of the global population and about 22 percent of the global prison population. So either we are seriously fucking up as a country and incapable of producing decent human beings, or our entire justice system is broken.Something needs to be done differently at the systemic level that doesn&#x27;t involved holding every individual fucked over by the U.S. personally accountable for being crushed under the wheels of the goddamn system.

Yeah same here. On the one hand people deserve a second chance and it just happens that someone can get sucked into a stupid situation.On the other hand when someone boldly ignored certain moral rules, will the person continue to do so? I think it&#x27;s pretty serious when someone else had to suffer because of that.

Whats the point of a judge handing out a sentence if society heaps on a constant amount of extra punishment afterwords?

Do you really think preventing people from getting jobs makes them less likely to commit crimes in the future? To me it seems the opposite is much more likely. If people are unable to make an honest living they will be forced to commit crimes to make ends meet.The prison sentence is the punishment for the crime. After people are let out of prison they should be reintegrated into society.

So I have mixed feelings about this situation. On the one hand, if the sentences were for drug possession, yes, I think its really shitty to incarcerate people for that. But if their felony was due to burglary or something more serious&#x2F;violent, I do think they deserve the punishment.I also agree that once the sentence has been served, people should not be punished any further, except where the occupation requires a clean record. e.g. I would be OK with pharmacies requiring no arrest for drugs etc. as a condition for employment, or drivers without DWI convictions etc.I guess my point is: its not a purely economic decision. Sure you&#x27;re losing tax revenue, but that&#x27;s because you&#x27;re:1) Protecting society from a person who has demonstrates some lack of understanding&#x2F;acceptance of its rules.2) Cause significant discomfort&#x2F;pain to the perpetrator of the crime so that they realize the consequences of breaking the law and hopefully never do it again.

State and federal governments do not get as much tax revenue either because these people are not earning at their full potential. So basically, it hurts everyone involved as well as society as a whole.

If I remember correctly Texas has at least one thing that can be done, an ex-con can petition the court to seal their records, which is similar in effect. (a pre-employment background screening place cannot report expunged or sealed records) I don&#x27;t really know what the politics are like in Texas but I suspect getting that done isn&#x27;t easy...

Remember that many states do not allow expunging records no matter how old (eg: Texas). For some people a conviction will follow them literally for the rest of their lives.

...or team up with rehabilitation organizations. Unfortunately there&#x27;s no shortage of ex-prisonners in USA: About one third of the people in age of working.

Change the wording of the question slightly, and answering &#x27;No&#x27; to it becomes dishonest.The change in wording may be illegal, but good luck proving that to anyone who cares.

The question is sometimes phrased in a way that requires the applicant to lie. &quot;Have you ever been convicted of a crime,&quot; etc.

What&#x27;s dishonest (and what&#x27;s demanded?) about honestly stating that one has no criminal record (since the record was deleted)?

This presents an interesting dilemma here for an ex-con. Most people can eventually get their records expunged after they&#x27;re out for a while, at which point we as a society demand that they start responding &quot;no&quot; to the questions about having a criminal record during the interview process. It&#x27;s dishonest but it&#x27;s how the legal system works.If you&#x27;re an ex-con who will eventually get his record expunged, is there any risk to participating in a job board like this? I&#x27;m guessing it is pretty small, and the advantages presented by the site will be worth it. Still, it&#x27;s ironic that eventually users will probably be in a position (after expungement) where it is not in their interest to use the site anymore. I wonder if, when this site is successful, it will eventually want to team up with a more conventional job site to move some of those users over. Just a thought.

Can you filter candididates by the type of crime they did?I&#x27;d be fine with hiring people previously incarcerated for drugs offenses and other minor crimes.However, there&#x27;s no way I&#x27;m hiring any rapists or pedophiles, or other such scum.

I don&#x27;t think he&#x27;s arguing the disparity of the rate, but rather the implied generalization that former-convict = African-American.  Look at the statistics posted above, that is not true.  I agree, it needs redesign.

What do you mean? The reality is that African-American people are incarcerated and convincted at very high rates, in great part thanks to policies that very specifically designed to target them (re: war on drugs).

There are pictures african-american people on frontpage, about and guiding principles.People MAY be offended. Just a suggestion.

I like that you&#x27;ve used phrase &quot;double bottom line&quot;<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Triple_bottom_line" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Triple_bottom_line</a>Yes... Helping people, communities, over the generations.

Love it.  Doing good and making money at the same time.  What a great idea.

&gt;&gt; We expect additional revenue to come from municipalities, who spend tens of billions of dollars annually, when someone is rearrested.I&#x27;m curious - while I agree that it also benefits the municipalities to help former criminals reintegrate into productive society, through what channel do you see expect this revenue to come? I know some tax breaks exist for hiring ex-cons, but dishing out funds to a service like this would be entirely new, right?

for branding, i would consider not using a fixed # in the name - as that will fluctuate. instead consider the spirit of the idea : perhaps &quot;SecondChances.io&quot; or better.. keep up the good work!

I am indeed. I&#x27;m at Richard@70MillionJobs.com

Richard,Thanks for your effort in the reentry space! The struggle for returning citizens is real and constant and I love seeing things like this on HN. At one point I worked for a company apploi.com that had a similar business model but targeting a different demographic. I would love to share some things I learned from that experience. I also started a similar venture corestaffing.us that is hyper-focused on the Baltimore&#x2F;Washington area. Let me know if you are interested in chatting!

was going to comment on this but will add on to yours. many states prohibit felons and even some non felons but with criminal records from certain fields that require occupational licensing.do you have methods in place or planning to filter jobs with such restrictions as not all states adhere to the same rules.great idea btw

Are you sure those jobs all hire felons?I browsed my State and saw jobs for physicians, pharmacists, and even a school psychiatrist.

This is a beautiful project.Have you met the guys behind <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pigeon.ly&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pigeon.ly&#x2F;</a>?Are there any other problem areas related to the criminal justice system that you are not addressing, that you think a startup could help with?

Edit: Thank you everyone for the incredible wealth of insightful suggestions. To anyone who wants to continue the conversation, I&#x27;d appreciate your pinging me at richard@70millionjobs.com with your continuing ideas, so we can stay in touch. Many challenges lie ahead for us, but your help will keep us on the right track.Again, on behalf of all the folks with records trying to get on with their lives, and myself personally, thanks again for your incredible support. Richard-------------------------------------Hi HN,My name is Richard Bronson and I&#x27;m the founder&#x2F;CEO of 70MillionJobs (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.70millionjobs.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.70millionjobs.com</a>). Our website is the Internet&#x27;s first job board for 70 million Americans—1 in 3 adults—with criminal records.I&#x27;m something of a domain expert in this area because I myself have a criminal record. In the early 1990s, I worked on Wall Street and some of what I did was illegal. For a time I was a partner at the infamous Wolf of Wall Street firm, Stratton Oakmont (Scorcese film). I ended up with a 2 year Federal prison sentence. I was guilty.I experienced first hand how difficult it was to get on with life after going through the &quot;system.&quot; I served as Director at Defy Ventures, a great non-profit in the reentry space, but was interested in a scalable solution to ex-offender unemployment and resultant recidivism. I felt a new, for-profit, tech-based approach was necessary, so I launched 70MillionJobs. We&#x27;re seeking &quot;double bottom-line&quot; returns: make money and do social good.Like most job boards, our business model is based upon employers paying to advertise their jobs. We expect additional revenue to come from municipalities, who spend tens of billions of dollars annually, when someone is rearrested.You might not be surprised to learn that most formerly incarcerated men and women are petrified to discuss their background with prospective employers. So we created a &quot;safe haven&quot; where all parties knew the score, and applicants could relax knowing that jobs being offered were with companies that accepted their pasts.Since many of our applicants don&#x27;t have a laptop or easy access to the Internet, we send out text alerts they can easily respond to. Because most of these folks have limited work experience and limited formal education, we plan on building a video resume platform to accompany their resumes. In person, many of these folks are respectful, bright and personable, so this will show them at their best.

Launch HN: 70MillionJobs (YC S17) – Job board for people with criminal records