Criminal Background Checks and Recidivism: Bounding the Causal Impact

• In Event: Examining the Employment and Crime Relationship

Abstract

This paper estimates a causal effect of employment background check on recidivism on individuals holding a conviction record who are provisionally hired in the New York State healthcare industry. Using institutional knowledge about the New York State Department of Health's screening process, we build structural assumptions on potential outcomes for different sub-samples in our data, which generates a bounding analysis on lines of Manski's Monotone Instrumental Variables. We partially identify the average treatment effects which indicate a 1.3 to 2.2 percentage point increase in likelihood of a re-arrest due to a denial to work based on a criminal record.

Author

• Garima Siwach, State University of New York at Albany