SOUTH BEND — Indiana has become the first state in the nation to ensure that employers can ask job seekers about their criminal histories when they fill out applications.

Over the past decade, so-called “Ban the Box” laws have grown in popularity as an effort to help ex-offenders re-enter society and stay out of prison. They prohibit employers from requiring applicants to check the box on applications asking whether they have been convicted of a crime. Such laws seek to establish an environment in which employers can still learn that information before making a hiring decision, but the disclosure comes later in the process so that the ex-offender can at least land an interview.

Indiana’s law, which the General Assembly passed this year and which took effect Saturday, isn’t sitting well with South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg. In 2015 he had the question removed from applications for city government jobs.

City of Mishawaka government job applications also don’t contain the box, while St. Joseph County government job applications do, asking applicants if they've been convicted of a felony or misdemeanor that has not been expunged by a court, while noting, "(conviction will not necessarily disqualify an applicant from employment)."

Buttigieg said the city has "worked with a lot of ex-offenders who've gone on to make huge contributions."

“If we want people to be able to put their lives back together, to be at work instead of going back into the criminal justice system, we should take away unnecessary barriers to employment,” he said.

Still, he said he's been reluctant to dictate hiring practices of private sector employers, as the city of Indianapolis did with a 2014 ordinance that affects all employers in the city.
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