Revised job applications may offer Nevada ex-convicts shot at second chance

After serving 20 years in prison, Christopher Ellis said he’s proud to be fueling and washing vehicles for a para-transit company that serves disabled riders in the Las Vegas Valley.

The 40-year-old former gang member from Las Vegas got his job just two months after he was released, in part because Transdev removed a question in 2012 about criminal conviction history from the company’s job applications — a practice known as “banning the box.”

“It’s unbelievable that people are giving me a second chance,” said Ellis, who spent 12 years in prison for attempted murder, followed by an eight-year stint behind bars for burglary and kidnapping.

“When you get out of jail, you usually go back to what you know, so a steady job takes you another way,” Ellis said. “It does a lot of good to get you straight and successful.”

Several private-sector companies in Nevada are banning the box as a way to give that second chance to former convicts, but government agencies across the state still require job-seekers to disclose their criminal backgrounds on applications.

The North Las Vegas City Council signaled its support during a discussion held Wednesday, but members are not required to take a vote on the shift in hiring policy.

City Manager Qiong Liu is expected this month to formally announce that North Las Vegas will become the first public-sector agency in Nevada to ban the box, which would delay running a background check until a job is offered to an applicant.

Councilwoman Anita Wood said the policy would help former prison inmates re-enter society and reduce recidivism rates.

“It’s very hard to do that if they don’t find work,” Wood said.

Twenty-four states and about 150 municipalities nationwide have approved legislation or enacted policies that remove questions about conviction history for government jobs, according to the National Employment Law Project, a workers’ rights advocacy group in New York.

Assemblyman Tyrone Thompson, D-North Las Vegas, sponsored a bill last year that would have prohibited all state and local government agencies in Nevada to remove the criminal conviction question from job applications.

Thompson’s measure stalled, but he said he plans to bring it back when the state Legislature reconvenes in February.

“If people are out working, you don’t have idle time,” Thompson said, adding that more than 70 million people in the United States have a criminal record.

“You’re contributing just like everybody else,” he said. “People want to work, and this makes a community impact.”

At Transdev, Ellis said he was able to quickly find his job after connecting with Hope For Prisoners, a Las Vegas agency that trains and assists ex-offenders to re-enter the workforce.

The group assisted 336 people last year, 131 of whom live in North Las Vegas, said Wayne Tew, a Hope for Prisoners board member. The group plans to open a satellite office in North Las Vegas as city officials fine-tune the hiring policy.

“My hope is that we will recognize that government can help take a lead in this, instead of hoping that only private employers will do this,” Tew said.

Contact Art Marroquin at amarroquin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0336. Find @AMarroquin_LV on Twitter.