I rented a house to two non-violent former felons. They are the worst renters I have ever had and that is impressive.
I didn’t actually know they were former felons until I thought that maybe they had been arrested, as I couldn’t find them at home. I put their names into google with the word arrested. They were thieves, drug users; a man and wife team with two kids. They seem to have lots of cash, but never pay rent unless I go over and give them a three day notice. Ten months of three day notices. There is always brand new stuff around the place; some of it left outside in the rain. The problem appears to be in their heads. For example, I went over to collect the rent, which was fifteen days late. They were running the air conditioning with a few windows open and telling me all about their difficulties. (They had all new porch furniture.) Once, they paid part of the rent by having me follow them to a store where they cashed in eight $20 lottery tickets. How many of those tickets did they buy to get eight that paid off a total of about ninety bucks? Nothing they do makes sense.
What I’ve noticed about the felons I’ve dealt with over the years is they make bad decisions; driving without a license, for example, and, they have poor impulse control. Virtually all of them smoked. If I had my choice I would never again hire or rent to a former felon. (I do realize people make mistakes and they can later be good people. If I’ve met those people I never knew about it. I always found out about the bad ones the hard way.)
I work with felons all day, exclusively.
It takes three things to be a criminal:
Immaturity
Selfishness
Lack of foresight
Why a business would want to hire an employee with those qualities anyway is beyond me.
Regardless, too many people have begun to think that a person’s choices shouldn’t follow them. Which is reckless and kind of sad commentary.