Instapundit links to an article by Matthew Yglesias with this title: "Banning background checks increases racial discrimination." The bans were instituted to prevent employers and landlords from discriminating against those with a criminal record. Most of the article is behind a paywall, but I believe the title tells us what they learned.
Glenn Reynolds comments thusly, "When people can’t treat individuals as individuals, they look for proxies. Race is an easily available proxy, and while it’s not a great one, it’s good enough to use in the absence of other data."
Apparently in this setting we either make the employer or landlord a victim, by withholding information, or we make the ex-con a victim by having that status known. I know on whose side I'm on.
As an employer or landlord I would want to know if a job applicant or prospective renter was an ex-con. I mostly would choose not to do business with an ex-con, recidivism is too common.
