{"id":828,"date":"2014-08-14T15:30:09","date_gmt":"2014-08-14T19:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/events-lindabury.blawgcloud.com\/?p=828"},"modified":"2025-02-05T11:30:34","modified_gmt":"2025-02-05T16:30:34","slug":"employers-take-notice-new-jersey-has-banned-the-box","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/employers-take-notice-new-jersey-has-banned-the-box.html","title":{"rendered":"Employers Take Notice &#8211; New Jersey has \u201cBanned the Box\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On August 11, 2014, Governor Christie signed into law \u201cThe Opportunity To Compete Act\u201d (the \u201cAct\u201d)<a title=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/dynapsis.inherent.com\/admin\/index.cfm?fuseaction=cDynapsis.dataform&amp;tableid=2&amp;siteid=lindabury&amp;pkvalue=1070#_ftn1\">[1]<\/a>. In adopting that law, the legislature specifically found that \u201cremoving obstacles to employment for people with criminal records provides economic and social opportunities to a large group of people living in New Jersey, increasing the productivity, health and safety of New Jersey communities.\u201d The new law is applicable to employers within the State with\u00a0<em>fifteen or more<\/em>\u00a0employees over 20 calendar weeks, but excludes persons employed in domestic service in a person\u2019s home.<\/p>\n<p><strong><u>Criminal Record Inquiries Prohibited During the Initial Employment Application Process:<\/u><\/strong>\u00a0 The new law provides that an employer shall not place any advertisement soliciting applicants for employment that explicitly states the employer will not consider an applicant who has a criminal record unless a criminal background check is required by law or regulation, or a law or regulation would restrict an employer\u2019s ability to engage in specified business activities based on the employees\u2019 criminal records. The new law also provides that during the\u00a0<em>initial employment application process<\/em>\u00a0an employer (1) shall not require an applicant for employment to complete an employment application that make inquiries regarding the applicant\u2019s criminal record and (2) shall not ask any questions regarding the applicant\u2019s criminal record. The\u00a0<em>initial employment application process<\/em>\u00a0begins when the applicant first makes an inquiry about a prospective position and ends when the employer has conducted a first interview of the applicant.<\/p>\n<p>Following the\u00a0<em>initial employment application process,\u00a0<\/em>an employer may require an applicant for employment to complete an employment application that makes inquiries about the applicant\u2019s criminal record, and may ask questions regarding the applicant\u2019s criminal record. An employer may refuse to hire an applicant for employment based upon the applicant\u2019s criminal record, unless the applicant\u2019s criminal record was expunged or erased by executive pardon. It should also be noted that if an applicant voluntarily discloses information about his\/her criminal record during the<em>\u00a0initial employment application process,\u00a0<\/em>the employer may ask additional questions about the applicant\u2019s criminal record during that process.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/employers-take-notice-new-jersey-has-banned-the-box.html\"  title=\"Continue Reading Employers Take Notice &#8211; New Jersey has \u201cBanned the Box\u201d\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On August 11, 2014, Governor Christie signed into law \u201cThe Opportunity To Compete Act\u201d (the \u201cAct\u201d)[1]. In adopting that law, the legislature specifically found that \u201cremoving obstacles to employment for people with criminal records provides economic and social opportunities to a large group of people living in New Jersey, increasing the productivity, health and safety [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,108,247],"tags":[],"coauthors":[189,139],"class_list":["post-828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-insights","category-schmidt","category-labor-employment-insights"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Employers Take Notice - New Jersey has \u201cBanned the Box\u201d &#8212; August 14, 2014 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"On August 11, 2014, Governor Christie signed into law \u201cThe Opportunity To Compete Act\u201d (the \u201cAct\u201d). In adopting that law, the legislature specifically\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/employers-take-notice-new-jersey-has-banned-the-box.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Employers Take Notice - New Jersey has \u201cBanned the Box\u201d &#8212; August 14, 2014 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On August 11, 2014, Governor Christie signed into law \u201cThe Opportunity To Compete Act\u201d (the \u201cAct\u201d). In adopting that law, the legislature specifically\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/employers-take-notice-new-jersey-has-banned-the-box.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-08-14T19:30:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-02-05T16:30:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"John H. Schmidt, Jr., Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"John H. Schmidt, Jr., Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C.\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Employers Take Notice - New Jersey has \u201cBanned the Box\u201d &#8212; August 14, 2014 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events","description":"On August 11, 2014, Governor Christie signed into law \u201cThe Opportunity To Compete Act\u201d (the \u201cAct\u201d). 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Firm News &amp; Events","article_published_time":"2014-08-14T19:30:09+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-02-05T16:30:34+00:00","author":"John H. Schmidt, Jr., Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C.","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"John H. Schmidt, Jr., Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C.","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/employers-take-notice-new-jersey-has-banned-the-box.html#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/employers-take-notice-new-jersey-has-banned-the-box.html"},"author":{"name":"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C.","@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/#\/schema\/person\/429b3bd6b52a7aa6eb9a0709bbb4d06f"},"headline":"Employers Take Notice &#8211; New Jersey has \u201cBanned the Box\u201d","datePublished":"2014-08-14T19:30:09+00:00","dateModified":"2025-02-05T16:30:34+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/employers-take-notice-new-jersey-has-banned-the-box.html"},"wordCount":436,"articleSection":["Insights","John H. 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