I have little sympathy for criminals. I don’t buy into the Officer Krupke school of thought that people “are depraved on account of they’re deprived.” And I’m all in favor in getting tough on crime. But I also believe that once a criminal has served his sentence , government policy should be geared to making it easier, not harder, for him to find a job and reintegrate into society.
Employers are understandably reluctant to hire ex-cons for certain types of jobs, with the consequence that many employment opportunities in government, health care, education and finance are off limits. For some felons, the only employment opportunity is creating one’s own job.
But now comes Amherst County, enacting an ordinance in May, that allows the Commissioner of Revenue to “withdraw the privilege of doing business or exercising a trade, profession, occupation, vocation, calling or activity by revoking a business license” for anyone convicted of a felony or crime of moral turpitude.
As Eugene Volokh, a California law school professor observes, “This isn’t limited to particular job categories and particular criminal histories (e.g., barring people with child sex abuse records from working in day care centers, barring people with recent DUIs from driving trucks, and so on). If the Commissioner wishes, anyone with the specified kind of conviction could essentially be disqualified from pretty much any job in the County.”
“This sort of discretionary control over people’s lives is not how a free country should work,” writes Volokh.
I agree whole-heartedly. Indeed, I would go further. The idea expressed in the Amherst County ordinance that the right to self-employment is a “privilege” revocable by government is reprehensible in a free society. The ability to freely sell one’s labor and/or skills in the marketplace is, or should be, a foundational human right. I can’t imagine what the Amherst board supervisors were thinking when they enacted this ordinance, but they need to repeal it immediately. And if they don’t, some one needs to file a legal challenge. This is an embarrassment.
(Hat tip: Tim Wise)