Stable housing is one of the most important factors shaping the success of individuals returning from prison. Yet across the United States, securing housing after incarceration remains extremely difficult due to landlord discrimination. Even when people have completed their sentences, paid fines, and complied with legal obligations, landlords treat the marks of criminal records as justification for denial of renting houses. Research consistently shows that individuals with criminal histories—whether formerly incarcerated, wrongfully convicted, or convicted but never imprisoned—face high levels of discriminatory exclusion from housing.
Over the past two decades, criminal background checks have become a normalized part of rental applications becoming a “nearly universal requirement in the private rental market” (Keene et al.). Most landlords now require applicants to reveal any past convictions, meaning that individuals are forced to reveal information they may wish to keep private. Once disclosed, these records immediately open assumptions about risk, responsibility, and moral character. The widespread use of background checks creates an environment in which criminal history is treated as a legitimate—and even expected—basis for exclusion, despite the lack of evidence that past convictions will reflect on future behavior. Digital screening tools intensify the problem as modern background-check platforms have become more detailed, allowing landlords to instantly access conviction histories, often with context or information about time elapsed or record accuracy. This visibility ensures that criminal records remain permanent tags intensifying their past. As a result, it became extremely difficult for individuals to leave their pasts behind and criminal history operates as a structural barrier that persists regardless of actual incarceration experience.
There are different ways in which landlords discriminate. This is not merely an interpersonal decision as it is embedded in structural stigma. Many housing policies explicitly allow landlords to treat criminal records as disqualifying, positioning exclusion as a form of “risk management.” This legitimizes discriminatory behavior. As Keene et al. show in their qualitative study, both public housing authorities and private landlords routinely cite policy requirements as justification for rejecting applicants with criminal histories. Discrimination also manifests in landlords’ supreme power in decision-making and their arbitrary standards. Despite attempts by formerly incarcerated applicants to distinguish themselves from their pasts by highlighting employment, rehabilitation, or family stability, these efforts frequently fail as landlords merely view these individuals through the lens of their criminal records. Even when housing is not outright denied, landlords often steer formerly incarcerated individuals toward low-quality rental options: units in highly disadvantaged neighborhoods, short-term transitional housing, or buildings with poor physical conditions. These patterns reflect a form of “selective discrimination,” where individuals with records are granted access only to the bottom tier of the housing market. It is important to note that criminal history applies throughout the application process. For instance, 2023 correspondence-audit experiment found that landlords were significantly less likely to respond to rental inquiries from applicants with any form of criminal record—simply having a documented criminal event triggered lower response rates. Further, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 data disclosed that felony convictions alone can produce substantial housing instability. They receive fewer callbacks and rejections at much higher rates. Landlords apply inconsistent standards, often rejecting applicants with minor convictions while accepting those with more serious offenses, suggesting that subjective perceptions of risk matter more than actual criminal history.
Landlord discrimination has immediate and long-term effects on housing stability. Individuals with felony records are forced to move more frequently, rely on temporary housing arrangements, and experience persistent difficulty securing stable leases. They are often funneled into high-poverty areas with limited social services, inadequate transportation, and higher crime rates. These neighborhood conditions further disadvantage individuals already struggling with reentry. Beyond material consequences, discriminatory housing practices also shape identity and self-perception. Formerly incarcerated individuals in Keene et al.’s study described feeling permanently marked by their pasts, unable to escape their “ex-prisoner” label. This internalized stigma undermines their confidence, sense of belonging, and ability to rebuild stable lives.
Landlord discrimination is vulnerable to continuation in cultural belief systems backed by policy and technology. Criminal background checks are widely viewed as common sense, and landlords feel both legally and socially justified in using them. Digital databases make records permanently accessible, while policy frameworks offer little protection for tenants with criminal histories. These factors converge to normalize discrimination, even in the absence of evidence that it enhances safety or property management. To address landlord discrimination, society should target both structural and interpersonal mechanisms that sustain it. For instance, there should be efforts to revise screening policies to limit when and how individuals can consider criminal history, to promote individualized assessments, to increase oversight and reduce arbitrary and inconsistent landlord discretion, to create public education campaigns that challenge misconceptions about formerly incarcerated individuals and emphasize the importance of stable housing for community safety, and to provide legal protections that categorize unfair criminal-record discrimination as a form of housing discrimination.
Landlord discrimination against people with criminal records is a powerful and persistent barrier to housing stability. It operates through formal policy, discretionary decision-making, and structural stigma, affecting individuals regardless of the severity of their conviction or their incarceration status. To ensure fair and equitable access to housing, policymakers must confront the entrenched stigma that criminalizes people far beyond their sentences. Only by reshaping both policy and perception can society support genuine reintegration and reduce the cycle of marginalization that follows from a criminal record.
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