Doesn't asking about arrests instead of convictions kind of run contrary to "innocent until proven guilty"?
Seriously. I don't understand why it's legal for any potential employer to ask about arrest records.
Being arrested is not the same thing as being convicted. I know that employers still do this, but IMO, unless you are going for a security clearance, or working in law enforcement/defense, it's grossly unfair.
A few of the posters on this thread might want to take a minute to think about this. Once you are arrested, that record exists forever, regardless of whether you are even charged with a crime, since you can be arrested prior to charges. Imagine that you were arrested in error: you stepped in to break up a fight outside of a restaurant one night, and the police arrested everyone involved at the scene, but released you once they took a look at the security footage and saw that you never so much as took a swing at someone. Or you have the same name and general physical appearance as someone else in your area who is being pursued by the police, and are mistakenly arrested. In both cases, you didn't commit a crime. Still, your arrest record will always exist, and in many areas,
arrests are on the public record. That means that people may be able to access the arrest report and possibly even your mug shot. And now that the internet exists, the details of your arrest may be available indefinitely, even if your police jurisdiction later decides to stop listing that information online. Hell, third party websites have sprung up recently that post mugshots online and then offer to take them down only if you pay them a fee. These websites aren't concerned about whether people were actually convicted of anything, either.
I've never even gotten a speeding ticket, fwiw, but I tend to get soapbox-y about this topic. I just think it's distressing that the OP should have to worry about facing career consequences when s/he was never convicted of a crime.