MSNBC’s Dateline program recently featured childcare workers across the country and the fact that there were criminals, many with a violent past that were licensed to take care of children. Some of the crimes that these people had been convicted of included child abuse, assault and even homicide. Several of these people were caring for children that lived in low-income situations, so even their own salaries were even paid by the state. When told about this situation, the parents of these children were absolutely shocked that criminals were taking care of their children. They had assumed that before being licensed, their state agencies would have performed background checks and eliminated these people from taking care of their children. This, however, is not always the case.

The truth is, every state is still allowed  to enact their own laws and regulations when it comes to background checks for those who take care of children. Some have no regulations at all while others have very strict background check procedures that childcare workers must go through before being licensed. Only half of states in the US require a background check and fingerprints for child care workers and only 10 states actually require fingerprinting before federal funds can be used to pay for these childcare workers. Fingerprinting typically gives access to a national search vs. just a local state wide search. This inconsistency leaves the door wide open for anyone with a criminal past to not only take care of children, but to also get paid for their work with federal money.

States with the most stringent regulations, like New York, not only put their licensed childcare workers through a full national criminal background check based on the FBI’s records in order to eliminate those who may have a history of criminal activity.

One thing that can be done, however, is for agencies that provide these childcare workers to carry out full background checks themselves. Using companies like backgroundchecks.com can help eliminate those who have criminal backgrounds. Using their US OneSEARCH product, agencies not only get immediate access to searches of sex offender registries, but they can also cast a much wider net across every state in the nation in multiple to search for criminal records. When using a company such as this, companies who hire childcare workers can help reduce the chances that children will be cared for by people with the wrong criminal background.

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.romesentinel.com/news?newsid=20120310-142121

Today in our journey in continuing education, we’re going to tackle backgroundchecks.com instant database search options which we consider to be the best and the brightest of national criminal databases.

Why is backgroundchecks.com national criminal convication database the best and brightest?

For a few reasons. First, our instant criminal database products have a dedicated data acquisition team—One that actively searches for and accumulates sources. Second, records are refreshed within 10 days of being received by backgroundchecks.com, increasing your compliance and your accuracy. Third, with over 400 million criminal records, over 900 million pictures and 748 sources, our database is without question one of the largest proprietary national criminal databases in the industry.

And in this case, bigger is certainly better.

A bigger database means more peace of mind for you, your company, and your clients. In truth, a bigger database means more records and more chance of finding that one record that gives you pause. That may sound like a negative, but let’s face it: you want to find those records. It’s the reason you hired us.

Our criminal conviction record database is national, but you may be wondering why you would need this when you’re running a county criminal history search as part of your pre-employment screening background check. It’s simple, really. While county criminal searches are perfect for digging deep and getting every available detail in targeted areas, they cannot return criminal conviction results from all across the country in one sweeping search. Our database does just that. In fact, by combining this powerful enhancer with a county criminal history search, hit rates are increased as much as 50%. (As a side note, please understand that we recommend this be run with a county criminal history search, not on a standalone basis!)

That’s no small factor, and it certainly helps protect you when it comes down to due diligence.

The next logical question, then, is “Why should I bother with a county criminal history search?” For now, let’s suffice to say that I promise you it is worth it, and we’ll discuss that the next time we write our question and answer blog article.

The national criminal database service from backgroundchecks.com has reached 400 million records.  BackgroundChecks.com is a leading provider of background screening services. According to Craig Kessler, president of backgroundchecks.com, the size of a national criminal database is significant.

“This is a huge achievement for BackgroundChecks.com,” said Kessler.  “Size is the major differentiator among criminal database providers.  The scope of the search broadens with each additional record and source that becomes available.  This in turn allows better criminal reporting accuracy and, at 400 million records, clients – whether they are employers, tenant screeners or volunteer organizations —are recognizing the value inherent in this database.”

The growth of the national criminal database comes as no surprise.  It has been growing steadily in years past thanks to a dedicated source acquisition and data aggregation team within the company which has gathered a large number and variety of sources.  The source list includes sources from all levels: international (such as global threat lists) national, state (such as sex offender registries) and county.

Through the national criminal database, clients can perform ongoing criminal monitoring on previously-checked individuals in addition to running the initial investigation.  This alerts clients to new crimes that may be associated with subjects previously run through the national criminal database.

Checking applicants’ backgrounds before you hire them is important, but what happens if they commit crimes after starting work?

Across the board, the media focus on background screening is on pre-employment checks: whether and why you should do them, which types of checks you should do, and so on.  While these questions are undeniably important, they miss another whole aspect of screenings that can be equally important: post-employment background checks, most commonly seen in the form of ongoing criminal monitoring.

Ongoing criminal monitoring is exactly what it sounds like: a process by which you screen your current employees on an ongoing basis to confirm the employee’s continued eligibility for employment under your criminal background policy.  So, if you require an employee to have had no violent felony convictions in the previous seven years in order to begin work, you then check on a periodic or ongoing basis after the employee has begun work to verify that he still has no violent felony convictions.

While important in every company, those organizations that have a good retention rate particularly need ongoing criminal monitoring.  If your company only screens on a pre-employment basis and has a good retention rate, some of your employees may not have been screened for 10 years.

The possibilities of what could have happened in those 10 years are endless.  Maybe an employee in your accounting department has been convicted of credit fraud since he started there.  Maybe an employee who works with kids has been convicted of child molestation.  These types of employees can get out on bail before you find out they were arrested; if it is their first offense, they can receive probation, even for serious convictions, that allow them to continue working for you. Your best protection is to check your employees periodically to make sure that they measure up to the same standards they used to.

The catch is that this can’t just be done willy-nilly.  There are some additional considerations, among the most important of which is an item known as an evergreen authorization.  This is an authorization similar to one that the applicant would sign in order for any background check to occur however it is considered valid for more than one round of checks.  Another option would be to run annual background checks on your employees and have them sign a separate authorization each year.  In either case, you should check with your lawyer to make sure that your authorization is valid.

Earlier this year, workers for the 2010 census started visiting the homes of citizens who hadn’t filled out and returned their census forms. Since then, it has come to light that a few criminals have slipped through the background checks and on to the street in the employ of the census.

While the numbers aren’t large, especially considering the size of the workforce, the fact that it occurred still highlights two major problems with the census background checks: First, the only checks they performed were fingerprinting and an FBI background check; second they allowed census takers to start working before the full results of their checks came back.

While running both a fingerprint check and an FBI background check is a good start, it doesn’t cover the full spectrum of all crimes that could’ve been committed by a person. The FBI background check is a national criminal database. Though it may be a good national criminal database, you must carefully weigh whether or not the database will be sufficient on its own.

The second issue is actually something many employers practice and it’s not always a bad idea. However there are many positions for which this might be a problem. For instance, would you allow a nurse to begin work if his professional license verification hadn’t come back yet? To do so is to open your company up to liability.

Similarly, any positions that call for the employee to go to, or worse into, someone’s home should not be begun before the background check comes back with no issues. It was letting an employee start his duties before the check came back that allowed a sex offender to go door-to-door in New Jersey. While we can assume that the Census Bureau would have retracted his employment once his conviction had come to light, a New Jersey woman he was interviewing recognized him from the state’s Sex Offender Registry before it came to that.

In life, you have to learn from the mistakes of others. This man, as far as the public is aware, committed no crimes while he was a Census Bureau employee but had he the Census Bureau would be facing a large suit simply for want of a little patience and an extra search. Don’t let their mistakes become yours. Be careful of the duties you allow an employee before his background check has come back and don’t let a small savings stand in the way of the safety of your clients and employees.

Sources

http://www.theindychannel.com/news/23784452/detail.html

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2010/05/nj-woman-recognizes-us-census-worker-from-sex-offenders-registry/1?csp=obnetwork

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2010-06-02-census_N.htm