1. Life & Times
  2. The Great Antidote
  3. Extras: Matthew Mitchell on the Continuing Punishment of Criminals Records

Extras: Matthew Mitchell on the Continuing Punishment of Criminals Records

September 4, 2022


Juliette Sellgren welcomes Matthew Mitchell back to the podcast to talk about how state job regulations hold back innovation and harm individuals - especially those who have completed criminal sentences. 
The discussion begins with Friedrich Hayek and ends with Abraham Lincoln but in the middle you will also get to hear about a Charlottesville piercing and tattoo parlor. Great Antidote host Juliette Sellgren is back with second time guest, Matthew Mitchell. Sellgren and Mitchell begin by talking about what occupational licensing is and what we know about its effects. Then they discuss who occupational licensing harms with a focus on people with criminal records. Finally, Mitchell offers suggestions for reform. Mitchell is a Senior Research Fellow and the Director of the Equal Liberty Initiative at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. You can listen to Mitchell’s first Great Antidote podcast here and read more about his research at his Mercatus profile and follow him on Twitter at @MattMitchell80.

You can listen to this episode here: 

Mitchell doubles down on his answer from last time to Sellgren’s question about the most important thing that people in her generation should know: It’s very helpful in conversation to be clear about differences in normative (shoulds) and positive (descriptive) statements. But he also adds that people's brains are attuned to different things at different points in their lives and shares one of Friedrich Hayek’s great quotes, “But nobody can be a great economist who is only an economist…” Mitchell talks about the difference between going deep in specialization or wide in terms of looking at lots of different disciplines around a specific topic. 

Mitchell is full of stories: eyeglasses, amateur electrician work, hair braiding, child care, and more. Sellgren also shares a story of searching for a place to get an ear piercing and how licensure affected her decision making process (which might surprise you!). 

If you’re familiar with occupational licensing and the arguments against broad kinds of licensure, you might skip ahead to 21:00 where they begin to talk about the specific harms to military spouses, former convicts, and others.

Key Quote
So let me just take Colorado for example. It is more common for you to be a collateral consequence of conviction in a crime involving misdemeanors or controlled substances in the state of Colorado than it is for you to be denied a license for a sex offense or a violent crime. So, listeners might be thinking, well, who cares if you can't get a teacher's license if you've been convicted of a sexual offense involving a minor, that seems like a no brainer. That's not a problem and I'd agree with them.

But that doesn't seem to be the big driver of the problem. In a lot of cases, people can be denied for just any felony or any misdemeanor. It doesn't even have to be for violence. In many cases, there doesn't need to be a connection between the crime and the license being sought. 

Mitchell also shares several stories of real individuals, a daycare provider, a firefighters, a counselor who are and have been harmed by these laws. Sellgren follows up by asking about Mitchell's numerous legislative testimonies on this topic and what he’s seen and now sees about the potential in legislative processes for reforms. 

Key Quote
There has been a little bit more of a bipartisan concern in the last few years about over criminalization, sort of an Alliance between fiscally concern, fiscal conservatives, who are worried about how much we are spending on incarceration, and social liberals or social libertarians who are worried about the consequences of having so many people who are locked up. And so this, I do think it has made people much more receptive.

And interestingly enough, it's a nice way to get Democrat legislators to think a little bit about the consequences of regulation. I have even talked to Democrat legislators, I think who would describe themselves as progressive, who are excited about instituting reforms that protect economic liberties, which I think is not something that's typically on their mind. So that's been nice. Of course now in just the last two or three years, with the pandemic, the crime rate has gone up again and so I think there's been a little bit of a chilling effect and legislators are slightly less receptive to reforms than they were about three or four years ago. Unfortunately. 

Suggestions for reforms start around 35:53 and they close, as is tradition with Mitchell talking about one thing he’s changed his mind about. 

Key Quote
When I was your age, I kind of thought that the best way to make the world better was to make everybody classical a classical liberal and, you know, buy into the whole philosophy. And as I've worked as a professional economist, trying to make the world a better place, I've come to appreciate Abraham Lincoln's idea that it's best to stand with anybody who stands right. Wow. He is right. And part with him when he is wrong. You could achieve a whole lot of good in the world if you are just willing to look for opportune partnerships, times to form unusual coalitions. I think this is a perfect example where fiscal conservatives and civil libertarians can get together and achieve ends that are mutually beneficial. And then they can part ways when it comes to other issues, that's fine. You don't have to always, you know, buy into everything, an ideology wholesale to achieve some good social change.


Great Antidote podcasts mentioned in this episode: 
Related Great Antidote podcasts: 
Comments