It didn't seem too radical or extreme to me last Tuesday at the Norwich City Council meeting when a former Council member, Ms. Jacqueline Caron, and (in turn) three other speakers, during citizen comment asked the City Council to consider a refinement to the city's employment screening process as to when an applicant is asked about a possible criminal record. Of course, I was sitting in the back and may have missed something, though I doubt it.
I don't recall any murmurings or mutterings from other citizen speakers or from those of us sitting in the audience. That's why the online reader reaction to a story on Friday, in one of the local papers, Former Norwich official urges city to place less emphasis on criminal background checks, confounds me.
Someone once told me 'you never get a second chance to make a good first impression' and I think many of us may be a tad too hasty in drawing conclusions before the crayons are all out of the box. From what I read as I sampled the readers' comments, a lot of those who have incomplete artwork on their refrigerators, also have computers and not a lot of reading comprehension skills.
As I understood the original proposal in the Council chambers, the idea was to build a pool of eligible candidates based on ability and suitability as well as education and experience. Once the pool was defined, situations like a police record and the severity of that record would come into play. A lot of folks who commented seemed to not get the concept at all and, instead, made horror movies of unintended consequences.
Just one guy talking, or technically speaking, typing: A critical component of our justice system has always been the successful rehabilitation of those found guilty of crimes and their successful reintegration back into society. I read nothing in the news story to suggest, if implemented, Norwich could have 'ex-crack heads in the school system' (Mike in Norwich).
It must be bracing as an editor at a newspaper with on-line responsiveness to read comments that have nothing to do with anything in the story (sort of like the Literacy Volunteers skipped your entire target demographic). I concluded the fellow who came up with this a had super-duper computer with a monitor with MUCH BETTER resolution than mine because I wasn't able to see ANY of that in the actual story. Perhaps I need even stronger glasses.
In addition to reading comprehension problems, I may have uncovered an issue with compassion for one another. One reader, I assume with a straight face, insisted 'If they [those with a police record] chose (to) act irresponsibly then they should pay the price', ignoring completely that they did pay the price as determined by a court of law. They were incarcerated, and, upon completing their sentences, released.
Sometimes I forget I'm in 'New England' and not the Global Village, but then I come across the type of mindset to underscore that many believe not just Hester Prynne should be made to wear a Scarlet Letter. As a former privileged prep schooler, I remember slogging through Nathaniel Hawthorne, a joyless read for a callow young man in the late 1960's. I hadn't realized he must still be on summer reading lists. I was always partial to The House of the Seven Gables, but there's no accounting for taste, I guess.
I'd hope if this proposal makes it to a resolution and to the floor of the Norwich City Council, all of us could be involved in a reasoned and reasonable discussion on its merits and that the hyperbole of hateful invective and small-minded snap judgements can be kept to a a minimum. For a region settled centuries ago by many who believed so devoutly in their interpretation of the New Testament, I would hope their descendants might remember the people their Saviour chose to 'hang with', the publican and the prostitute, and how The Rock upon which He was to build His church, denied knowing him, it says in the Book, three times the night before the cock crowed. I'm pretty sure that doesn't mean we should never visit a KFC but that a walk in someone elses' sandals might not be a bad idea.
-bill kenny
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