Employers regularly check the background of potential workers for criminal records, even though claims that such checks predict their diligence or trustworthiness are dubious. Anthropologist Melissa Burch reflects on how criminal background checks became commonplace — and what vested interests maintain their ubiquity.

Afterlives of Conviction Project

Melissa Burch, The Criminal Record Complex: Risk, Race, and the Struggle for Work in America Princeton University Press, 2026

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