CORIs blocking teens from summer jobs

Yawu Miller

The Boston City Council last year took a bold stand on the Criminal Offender Record Information Law, passing an ordinance that would ban the city from awarding contracts to firms that discriminate against job applicants with criminal records.

But for teenagers applying for summer jobs with the city, a criminal record for an offense as minor as trespassing can be a deal breaker.

“If you have a CORI, you’re done,” says John Barros, executive director of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative. “There’s only a small sliver of jobs for folks with CORIs.”

Barros and others who work with teens seeking summer jobs say that teens with criminal records are barred from all jobs but those with the strictest supervision.

The criminal records accessed by CORI checks can be for minor or serious offenses. Any person who is arraigned for a crime accrues a record, regardless of whether the charges are dismissed or they are exonerated in a trial.

Many companies use CORI checks to exclude potential hires. Applicants for summer jobs have to submit to CORI checks as well as Sexual Offender Record Investigation checks.

The city’s summer jobs program, which allows teens to work for the city and also for nonprofit organizations, places more than 6,000 teens a year.

Media liaison’s in the mayor’s press office did not respond to Banner requests for comment on this story and would not state what the city’s policy is on the issue.

But Horace Small, executive director of the Union of Minority Neighborhoods, said that because much of the funding for the jobs program comes from the state and the federal government, state and federal guidelines barring the hiring of criminal offenders apply to the jobs program.

“There are strings attached,” he said.

While most of the employers participating in the city’s summer jobs program exclude teens with CORI records, DSNI and other neighborhood organizations don’t, according to Barros.

“Kids come to our organization with CORI issues all the time,” Barros said.

At Teen Empowerment, a South End-based youth organizing nonprofit, Program Coordinator Craig McClay says teens with records are welcome.

“We try to keep our groups balanced in different ways, gender, age and criminal records,” he commented. “We usually have three or four people who are court-involved. There’s no limit.”

Summer jobs are often a teenager’s introduction to the work world that teaches valuable working skills and helps build an employment history. Marlena Rose, a youth coordinator with the Roxbury Environmental Empowerment Project, said there is general a shortage of jobs for teenagers in the city.

“For youth, jobs aren’t just a way to stay out of trouble,” she said. “Many of them actually help support their families.”