Essay – Texas Legislature

Employers are nervous about hiring people with criminal records. Recidivism statistics show those with felony convictions much more likely to commit crimes than those without felony convictions. Housing providers feel the same way for the same reason. Besides scaring people, employers and housing providers are worried about the liabilities. If you hire or rent an apartment to a person with a document history of killing or raping or robbing people, and they then do something bad to one of your other tenants or employees, who do you think is going to get sued? Here’s a hint: It’s not going to be the criminal.

Still, there are nearly a million people in Texas with felony criminal records if you count those behind bars, those on probation or parole, and those “off paper” who have completed their sentences. They all need jobs and they all have to live somewhere.

Bills filed by Houston legislators this year included H.B. 476 and H.B. 1510.

Write a 3-5 pages essay on:

How you will tackle this public policy problem
These two bills (H.B. 476 and H.B. 1510.)
Identify the bill number and author(s) for each
Explain what each bill was designed to do
Who favored and who opposed them
What ultimately happened to each
And how you would vote on each, if you were a member of the legislature

Submit in Word. Cite your sources.

Resources

For anything to do with the Texas Legislature, start with the Texas Legislature’s website: http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/

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Introduction

People with criminal records are often victims of discrimination from the fact that most people in the society find them to be a threat to the society in terms of security (McNabb, Christian, and State Bar of Texas, 2005). Most companies and organizations are always looking for good conduct and past records so as to avoid hiring a person who could be having a bad record such as robbery with violence, rape and drug trafficking. This makes it hard for any person who is undergoing….

APA

1070 words