Blog Image
Profile Image Verifile
January 21 2015

Louisiana Employers Are Restricted in Their Ability to Consider Certain Criminal Records for Employment Purposes

"Effective August 1, 2014, Louisiana became another state to regulate employer use of criminal record information for employment purposes. Under the new law, expunged records of arrests of convictions are now considered confidential and no longer part of the public record. Those records also cannot be made available to any person or entity except: � To members of law enforcement or criminal justice agencies or prosecutors investigating, prosecuting or enforcing criminal law or for other statutory purposes,
� Upon entry of a court order,
� To the person whose record has been expunged, or his or her counsel, and
� To members of law enforcement or criminal justice agencies, prosecutors or judges for the purpose of defending against civil litigation resulting from wrongful arrest or other civil litigation, and the expunged record is necessary to the defense. In addition to providing for confidentiality of expunged records, the new law expressly states that ""no person whose record of arrest or conviction that has been expunged shall be required to disclose to any person that he was arrested or convicted of the subject offenses, or that the record of the arrest of conviction has been expunged."" As a result, job applicants with expunged records may legally answer ""no"" in response to employment application questions concerning expunged arrests or convictions.