A former school custodian for the Chicago area Naperville school district with a record of felony conviction has been found guilty in the sex-related battery of a teacher at Beebe Elementary School. Fifty-five-year-old Kenneth R. Brown, was charged with a Class 3 felony of aggravated battery of a school employee, and has been ordered to serve six months in a jail work-release program, plus two and a half years of probation. Brown was arrested in December for allegedly exposing and fondling himself near the teacher, and made physical contact. However, police said no students were present at the time of the incident.

After Brown’s arrest, it was found that he had a prior felony conviction for theft. In 1990, Brown was convicted by a grand jury on a felony count of theft for stealing $12,050 from a Naperville Kmart store while working for an armored trucking company. In 1989 Brown worked for Federal Armored Express Co., where part of his job duty was to collect cash deposits from businesses. Following the theft conviction, Brown was placed on probation and ordered to perform 50 hours of community service work. Brown began working for the Naperville school district before 2004, prior to a law mandating felony background checks for public school employment applicants.

District 203 Superintendent Mark A. Mitrovich appeared to deflect blame for having a convicted felon employed by the school district and working in an elementary school. Mitrovich states that employees hired before 2004 did not undergo background checks. “The issue, quite frankly, is that he was on staff when all of us got here,” said Mitrovich of himself and other administrators. Mitrovich adds that all potential hires must now “go through an FBI background search and fingerprint screening,” something that “wasn’t required by the state when (Brown) was hired, to the best of my knowledge.”

In addition to work release and probation, Brown was also ordered to undergo a full sex offender evaluation, and ordered to not have any further contact with his victim, her family, or any of the school district’s other employees. He was also assessed fines and legal fees totaling $575, according to court records. Brown resigned from his custodian job in December, 2011.

Are you performing routine and ongoing background checks on all of your employees? If you have only recently begun performing background checks as part of your hiring process, you may be making a mistake if you’re not also checking into other employees. By using background check company like backgroundchecks.com, you’ll be assured of the most up to date information available. With access to countless criminal databases nationwide, they provide several options for instant results. With their US OneSEARCH, you get information from more than 430 million criminal records from counties, Department of Corrections (DOC), Administration of Courts (AOC) and State Sex Offender Registries covering 49 states plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and Guam. Also included are national and international terrorism sources, more than 11 million photos, and their proprietary database of previously completed reports. Ongoing searches provide even more security. Or try their Ongoing Criminal Monitoring tool, which allows you to automatically run a continuous background check against a name and date of birth. They notify you via email of any new information that may appear on the record, and will run the name for one year and remind you when it is time to renew the monitoring. You can remove the name from being monitored at any time.

About backgroundchecks.com -

backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) and cofounder of the Expungement Clearinghouse  - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.

Source: http://napervillesun.suntimes.com/news/12621339-418/former-janitor-sentenced-in-beebe-school-teachers-battery.html

When a new daycare opens in any state, it must undergo inspections that will assure its safety and quality for the care of children.  All workers who work at that facility must also undergo training and background checks in order to prove their expertise and ability to work with children.  Unfortunately, in Illinois, of the 12,000 day care facilities currently in operation, more than 6,000 have not yet had their required inspections and are waiting for their background checks to be processed.  Illinois daycares are responsible for the care of approximately 300,000 children, but right now, it is unclear if they are maintaining health, safety, and curriculum standards or if they are employing lawful individuals. 

The Illinois Department of Child and Family Services plans to hire four new people to take care of their backlog of background checks alone.  They also hope to hire more inspectors, so they can catch up on the annual requirement.  Every daycare receives a three year license which includes both planned and unplanned inspections to make sure they are up to code.  It will likely take several months to hire and train new inspectors to take care of these procedures.  Some daycares worry that their grant money will be revoked because their licenses have expired.  They will have to wait for their turn on the long list of inspections in order to get those renewals though.  The DCFS says that in order to hire additional staff, they will have to cut funding from other family programs, though they didn’t comment as to which ones.

It’s unclear how the department got so far behind in the first place.  Either the rate of daycares opening has increased at unexpected rates or they simply allowed their work to pile up.  It might be a good idea for the department to outsource their background check processes in order to save money and time.  By partnering with experienced organizations like backgroundchecks.com, they can gain affordable and instant access to national criminal databases like US OneSEARCH and US Offender OneSEARCH.  Then, with the money they save on those types of searches, they can allocate more funds to the hiring of inspectors.  Otherwise, Illinois may be a magnet for sex offenders seeking employment in childcare organizations until the problem is resolved.  There has been no mention of whether or not the department is making changes, but the media attention they are getting has certainly put pressure on their program that should move them to quicker action.

About backgroundchecks.com -

backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) and co-founder of the Expungement Clearinghouse - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services.  Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.

Source:  http://www.rrstar.com/news/x787564478/Report-Illinois-fails-to-inspect-day-cares

Earlier this week the Associated Press reported on a new trend among private companies and government agencies where they are asking applicants to divulge their Facebook account names and passwords or simply show an HR professional their private information on Facebook in a joint web browsing session. Regardless of the reaons why job seekers might be refusing or complying with such request, this practice remains a clear violation of Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities that prohibit users from sharing and others from soliciting a Facebook password.

One frequently mentioned case concerns the city of Bozeman in Montana which asked job applicants not only for their Facebook username and password, but also requested similar information for their private email acccounts and other social-networking sites.

Aside from the threat of legal action by Facebook, the more troubling propsect for employers is the fact that by requesting such information, they may be unknowingly be incurring potentially additional legal risk. If an employer because of this type of access discovers on Facebook that someone is a member of a protected group (e.g. disabled, an ethnic minority or over a certain age, etc.) that employer may open themselves up to claims of discrimination if they don’t hire that person.

Various state legisltors in Illinois and Maryland have already raised questions about the legality of this practice and are working on legislation to forbid public agencies from asking for such type of acces.

About backgroundchecks.com -

backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services.  Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.

For more information about our authors, click here.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-and-privacy/protecting-your-passwords-and-your-privacy/326598317390057

The state of Illinois has a mandate that all teachers in all schools go through a criminal background check before being able to work in the state. For some, however, the background checks that are currently being done are simply not enough. An incident in late December, where a school custodian, Kenneth Brown, exposed himself to a female teacher, caused this call for change. Though no students were present at the time, the fact that it happened at all is alarming to many school officials and parents.

Officially, Illinois state law focuses only on those school employees who were hired after 2004. Those hired before that time were never required to go through a background check. Since Brown has been employed at the school since 2000, his background, which is littered with petty crimes like theft, was never put through a full criminal background check. Employees who go through the full background check are subject to fingerprinting and are made ineligible for employment should there be any crimes like drug offenses or felonies. Theft, like the crime committed by Brown, is also included, however he was grandfathered in and fell through a loophole.

Another concern from parents and district leaders is the fact that Naperville school employees are only required to go through a background check when they are hired, not after that. Technically there could be teachers or other employees who are working at Naperville schools who have a criminal background, but the crime was not committed until after they were hired. There are many instances where a person could be accused of a crime and the workplace would never know unless someone stumbled upon public records.

Suggestions to change this are being tossed around and one of them is that a random background check be done on ten percent of all employees each year.  Another suggestion is to use a third party background check company like backgroundchecks.com which offers several products that would help the school district keep tabs on any crimes committed by their employees. One of these products is known as Ongoing Criminal Monitoring and would allow the schools to be notified when any of their employees has a new crime record appear in the national database. There is also the option, of course, to rescreen all employees every few years as a way to ensure that children are able to attend a school where they will be safe from bad situations.

About backgroundchecks.com -

backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services.  Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.

Click here to find out about our authors.

Source: http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20120220/news/702209725/

A registered sex offender has been working at a Chicago area day care without the knowledge of parents, the community or other employees. Eric Ellis, the employee in question, was hired by the day care through a temp agency. Though Ellis worked in the kitchen and had no access to children, as soon as the management found out about the history of Ellis, they immediately removed him from the property.

Ellis states that both the day care center and the temp agency knew of this background as he informed them both. The day care, on the other hand, states that they only hire temps when regular employees are sick. They rely on the temporary agency to do the background checks on these employees. The day care does not do the background checks on temporary employees themselves, though they do background checks on permanent employees.

Parents had mixed thoughts about Ellis being inadvertently hired by the day care center. Some were understandably upset and are considering removing their children. Others, though happy that Ellis was quickly found, believe it was an honest mistake and do not hold the day care responsible. Both sides believe that the day care needs to re-evaluate the way they get employees, even those through background checks. Though the day care relies on the temporary agency to perform the background checks, they may consider taking a closer look at the results.

It is true that the temporary agency does background checks, but the day care did not take on the responsibility to actually look at the results of the background checks in question. It may be difficult to place blame in this situation as some would say the temporary agency is at fault for not informing the day care center of Ellis’ background and others would say the day care is to blame as they did not take the responsibility to check the background of Ellis themselves. Both agencies should likely re-evaluate their practice in this situation.

There are many third party companies like backgroundchecks.com who perform background checks instantly and have products like a US Offender OneSEARCH that can search through records in seconds. It contains records from all 50 states and US territories like Puerto Rico, Washington DC and Guam. If the day care in question had considered an option such as this, it is very possible that this entire situation could have been avoided.

About backgroundchecks.com

backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services.  Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.

When it comes to online dating, most companies that set up matches between two people almost never offer background checks. Lawmakers in Illinois are now introducing legislation that would require any company that serves as an online dating service to prominently display information on their website saying if they perform background checks or not. They would also have to put information on their site regarding the option of clients to request background checks. Some sites currently give their clients the option of going through background checks in order to assure their dates that they are who they say they are.

The truth is, when people engage in online dating, they really don’t know who they are dealing with nor the background of the person they may be spending time with alone. For most dating sites, there is no screening at all. If these dating sites would begin screening clients through companies like backgroundchecks.com, others would be able to have a greater overview of who they were going out with when they use products like US Offender OneSEARCH  which searches records on sex offenders. Daters would be able to gauge if they felt safe or not, before going out alone with the other person.

About backgroundchecks.com -

backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services.  Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.

Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-online-dating-regulation-20120126,0,7998978.story