Arrested or Jailed Workers

In dealing with workers who've had brushes with the law, remember that there's a big difference between "arrested" and "convicted." How you deal with the situation when a worker is incarcerated will probably have a lot to do with how long the employee will be away from work, with what offense the employee has been charged, and with what relationship that offense has to the employee's work. With any luck, you will never face this situation.

Consider the relationship between the charge and the job. In situations where an employee is arrested for (but has not been convicted of) a serious crime that could affect the employee's ability to do the job, there are other issues to consider. If there is a clear and justifiable conflict between job function and the nature of the offense, you may want to adopt this strategy:

• Place the arrested employee on inactive or suspended status without pay.
• Provide for reinstatement upon acquittal.
• If the employee is convicted, you should terminate the employee.

In considering the relationship between the charge and the job, be sure to take into account whether the employee will have contact with customers or if there are any on-going risks to other employees.

If an employee is arrested for — but not yet convicted or acquitted of — rape and that employee's job allows for contact with the public or other employees in isolated areas, such as parking lots, suspend the employee. This is appropriate because the offense that the employee is charged with is directly related to the kind of work that the employee does. If the employee's job did not entail public contact in isolated areas, perhaps suspension would not be necessary.

Be consistent. Make sure that the course of action that you take cannot be interpreted as discriminatory. If you're unlucky enough to have this situation happen more than once, handle each employee in this situation the same way.

You may decide to:

• treat an arrest or incarceration as an absence
• treat problems with the law as personal leaves
• create a written incarceration policy