A child from Wheeler Elementary School in Millard, California claimed that an ice cream truck driver from Frosty Treats was giving out ice cream in exchange for children’s addresses.  This caused quite an uproar and had parents calling in to the company with complaints and inquiries.  The driver who was accused was said to be devastated, as they had been working in that community for years and was one of their top sellers.  Luckily, the accusation turned out to be a misunderstanding.  Parents were still shaken though and demanded to know more about the drivers in their community.

Ice cream truck drivers have access to children and are normally trusted individuals that symbolize happy childhood summers.  No parents had previously thought to question their trustworthiness until now.  Millard parents wanted to make sure that the employees who roamed their streets in search of their children were safe.  A manager from Frosty Treats assured parents and the media, that their drivers are safe.  All drivers working for them must have a driver’s license, a clean driving record, and a clean background report.  Anybody who applies for a job there goes through a background check before becoming a Frosty Treats driver.  They must also go through their safety training program.  Parents are happy to hear this news and plan to continue to support the company in the future.  Nobody is saying who made up the accusations and for what reason, but the company is glad it turned out to be false.  They have enjoyed serving their treats to their community for several years, and will surely be glad to continue doing so. 

Whenever company employees have special ties or access to kids, it’s important to know that their employees can be trusted.  That’s why kid-related businesses tend to partner with organizations like backgroundchecks.com who can give them instant access to millions of criminal records to find out how trustworthy their employees really are.  By using backgroundchecks.com, companies like Frosty Treats can take a look at driving records to make sure their drivers will be competent on the roads.  They can also check criminal records from any state with databases like US OneSEARCH and US Offender OneSEARCH.  With so many children running after ice cream trucks this summer, those businesses can’t afford not to hire the best, most trusted drivers possible. 

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://www.wowt.com/news/headlines/Background_Checks_For_All_Ice_Cream_Truck_Drivers_149573115.html?ref=115

In an effort to keep their kids safe, the Lyndhurst township in New Jersey is creating a new ordinance that would require crossing guards to have background checks before being hired or reappointed.  Crossing guards there are already required to give notice of any criminal convictions, but there were no procedures in place to confirm whether or not their records were clean.  The township also plans to stop the accrual of sick days and the clothing allowances crossing guards previously enjoyed.  They decided to review their current position after budget concerns became an issue and before state mandates force them to make similar changes.  And Mayor Richard Dilascio says it’s simply, “a safety issue.”

Crossing guards there are required to be moral and upstanding citizens of New Jersey that do not have any criminal convictions showing moral turpitude.  The background checks will be just one more step to confirm that their guards are actually held to the high standards they have set.  With 37 different crossing guards having daily access to kids, Traffic Officer Nick Coviello believes it’s an obvious move, saying, "The reason is they are working with children. It's common sense to me."

The ordinance will prevent those with criminal histories “involving danger to a person, against family, children or incompetents…arson, burglary, theft, controlled dangerous substances offenses and operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated, offenses against public administration, perjury and other falsification in official matters, obstructing governmental operations, misconduct in office and/or abuse of office.”  These are all crimes the township has defined as involving moral turpitude.  Any current crossing guards who are found to have any of these offenses on their record will not be reinstated in the coming year.

This employment process of verifying information provided by applicant is getting more and more common these days.  Any organization who employs people who will work with children might want to consider following in New Jersey’s footsteps.  They can partner with backgroundchecks.com, which would give them access to multi-jurisdictional database searches covering over 355 million records from over 600 sources.  This information comes from national databases like US OneSEARCH, which checks records in all 50 states, and US AliasSEARCH, which even checks records under alternate names.  When it comes to the safety of our children, we really can’t be too careful, and submitting employees to background checks is just one more way to keep our children safe.

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://www.northjersey.com/news/149954095_Crossing_guards_to_undergo_background_checks__lose_pay_out_for_accrued_sick_days.html

Milwaukie Public Schools are receiving a lot of negative press and got parents concerned, due to the discovery of questionable records of some of their school bus drivers.  While there were a few drivers with driving records that should prevent them from being school bus drivers, a more serious conviction was the main focus.  Melissa Dumas, a school bus driver for the district, had a prostitution conviction on her record from 2005.  When asked about this, the district was shocked.  They said that all of their drivers go through two background checks to look for potentially dangerous crimes.  When they checked their records concerning Dumas, they found that she did indeed go through the background check, but that the conviction in question did not appear.  They agreed that this kind of conviction would have prevented her from being hired to work with kids.

In an effort to control the news, the school district sent out a recorded telephone notice to all parents and Dumas no longer works for them.  Apparently, she failed to report the conviction on her employment application.  When questioned about the conviction by reporters over the telephone, Dumas seemed shocked, saying, “Are you kidding me?” but made no further comment.  While most parents feel slightly more at ease knowing she is no longer working for the district, others are upset that the woman was let go.  Those who disagree with the negative publicity feel she had cleaned up her act and was working an honest job, which she should be commended for.

At the root of the matter though, is the accuracy of the initial background check.  Why didn’t the conviction show up?  It may be because the school only checked for criminal records in a limited number of jurisdictions or that it carried out an instant criminal search from a background screening company that does not continuously grow and update their database, meaning there may significant gaps in their coverage or delays in the updating of new reocrds.  By partnering with reputable companies like backgroundchecks.com though, they would get the benefit of a firm that continuoudly invest in the growth of their database sources and strives to update records in a under a week.  This means the information they would get from a US OneSEARCH or US Offender OneSEARCH will likely be more accurate, thus helping to  potentially vet out more dangerous hires.

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://www.620wtmj.com/news/local/149330215.html

Instead of waiting for changes to state or federal laws, Dayton, Ohio is taking a more blanketed approach to their hiring practices now.  Although they are only required to have about 70% of their city employees background checked before hiring, they have decided to make all positions require that level of vetting.  They are hoping this will alleviate concerns regarding fairness when to it comes to their policy on hiring felons.  No potential employee will be hired if they have a felony conviction on their record.  As of now, there are three positions which have not been background checked.  These positions include the waste collector, administrative typists, and a mechanic.  Once their new policy is officially in effect, these two will be held to the same scrutiny as all other positions. 

Nonprofit agencies are asking for a different policy change though.  They would like to see felons get a fair shot at city jobs.  In fact, PowerNet and LEAD, two agencies concerned with justice in hiring, especially when it comes to former convicts, would like all potential hires to get through the first round of interviews without even having to check the felon box. This way, if they make it to the next round after they’ve proven they are qualified for the position, only then would their criminal history come in to question.  Of course, the city’s current policy on not hiring ex-felons would then have to be changed to allow certain people to be hired if their felony is not related to the position they apply for.

Maurice Evans, secretary and chief examiner for the Civil Service, said they do not know how many ex-felons currently work for the city.  He is sure that there are none working in the departments of police, fire, law, airport, water, and sewer though, because those positions have always included background checks.  Many companies are upping their background check requirements due to the rise in crime and the potential negligent hiring suits they might incur if a crime is committed by a previous offender on their watch and while on company business.  This is causing nonprofit agencies like LEAD though to speak out on behalf of criminals who they feel have paid their dues.  The EEOC is also weighing in the matter.  Whatever policies and laws change in the future, currently, it is more than acceptable for organizations to hire companies like backgroundchecks.com to carry out checks on potential hires.  This gives them access to products like US OneSEARCH and US AliasSEARCH enabling them to find out if their applicants have criminal convictions on their records.

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.daytondailynews.com/news/dayton-news/city-to-add-background-checks-to-hiring-policy-1367254.html

Very often, when you apply for a job, there is a box on the application which must be checked if you have ever been arrested or convicted. This lets employers know if you have a criminal past and to decide whether or not they want a person with that past to work for them. Because of this box, many people with a criminal past are turned away before they have a chance to even interview.

Last year we already wrote an update on our blog about the increasing amount of initiatives that were preventing the use of the box in some way or another. Now, roughly six month later, more and more cities and counties in the US feel that this is unfair, because some of those people may make great employees, but never get the chance. Not only does this make it hard for them to survive, it makes it deters some from giving up illegal forms of making money. This is why most recently Philadelphia adopted their Ban the Box policy for both public and private positions.

The ordinance in that town stops local government agencies and private enterprises from inquiring into their applicant’s criminal history “during the application process,” defined as the time beginning when an applicant inquires about the employment and ending when the employer has accepted an application, or “before and during the first interview. If the person makes it to the next level, then it is appropriate to ask about their criminal past. Moreover, the policy outright prohibits them from asking about, considering, or sharing information regarding non-conviction arrests that are not pending.

Like many other cities and states Philadelphia is hoping the law will give ex-criminals a chance to prove their worth and to explain their past, which may improve their chances when it comes to landing jobs.If companies do not follow the law, they will be fined up to $2000 for each application containing the box.

Employers will still be allowed to perform background checks, but not until after potential hires have passed the first round of interviews. Then, they are free to use organizations like backgroundchecks.com to check for criminal records on national databases like US OneSEARCH and to check previous work history through employment verification

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://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2012/01/13/ban-the-box-law-goes-into-effect-today-in-philadelphia/

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

The Bakersfield Southwest Baseball League teaches over 1600 kids America’s favorite game and has hundreds of coaches who are in charge of those kids.  The league is run by Protecting Our Nation’s Youth, but ironically, hasn’t been following that organization’s required policies when it comes to hiring coaches.  Every coach in the league is required to go through a background check in an effort to ensure the safety of the players.  While most of the coaches have gone through this process, for some reason, 20% of them were hired without the check.

Darren Billesbach, president of the league, is apologizing for the mistake.  He says that they are dedicated to the safety of the children and go through careful processes to make sure they have the safest equipment and athletic programs.  When asked about the unchecked coaches, he responded, “We are working diligently to solve these background check problems.”  In the meantime, parents are letting the organization know they are not happy.  They expect every coach and volunteer to go through a background check to make sure those working with their kids are not felons or sex offenders.

The league will need to make sure they work with a reputable and thorough background check company with experience in screening volunteers and employees in non profit organziation. backgroundchecks.com offers dedicated solutions for this market and could quickly allow them to access over 355 million records from over 600 sources instantly, including US Offender OneSEARCH and US AliasSEARCH if they need to catch up with missed background checks.  Both of these products include all 50 states and can help make sure athletic leagues are aware of criminal records about their applicants

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.turnto23.com/north_river_county/30870704/detail.html

In Kansas City, Missouri, Warren Parker, owner of Silver Star Construction created a false war hero history in order to gain access to potential government contracts worth millions.  When Parker’s business started failing, he set his sights on a government program designed to help companies owned by disabled veterans.  The Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Program gives veterans’ companies contacts totaling $7.5 million in potential contracts.  This was enough to tempt Parker into creating an elaborate story in which he was Vietnam War Veteran with three silver stars, three purple hearts, four bronze stars, and more than twelve other heroic commendations.  Unfortunately for Parker, a background check revealed that he had served only six short months in the National Guard which never left Missouri and his only accomplishment there was an Expert Rifle badge.  This wasn’t exactly the valiant hero he had made himself out to be.

In 2009, the Government Accountability Office discovered fraud in their veteran’s program.  They didn’t say how this was brought to their attention, but because of this, they performed background checks on those in the program and found Parker’s many service discrepancies.  This caused them to investigate Silver Star Construction.  After their investigation, they eventually took him to a court which found him guilty of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, major program fraud, wire fraud, money laundering and making a false statement.  He now faces a $6.8 million judgment and up to 30 years in a federal prison.  His wife and son who also work with his company are also facing charges.

This kind of program fraud is on the rise due to the sluggish economy, and government agencies are having to take closer looks at the companies and individuals applying for funding and other types of assistance.  Luckily, in this case, they decided to perform background checks on their program participants.  When large agencies and corporations decide to award employment opportunities or contracts like these, it’s a good idea to make sure they are awarding their bid to companies and individuals with verified credentials.  By using backgroundchecks.com, they can carry out employment verification, reference verification and license verification searches to be sure the company has the experience they claim on their application.  Additionally, in order to avoid those with a history of criminal behavior like fraud, they can access national databases like US OneSEARCH.

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.eldoradotimes.com/newsnow/x493665083/Mo-contract-pleads-guilty-to-defrauding-program

The US State Department was at first entertaining the idea of requiring host families to undergo background checks in order to protect students, but they have recently decided not to continue with those plans.  Due to budget restraints, the State Department feels it would be too much of an undertaking for states to put host families through checks.  It’s already difficult to find enough families willing to host the 30,000 high school exchange students visiting our country each year.  Adding the background check requirement would likely limit them even more.  Unfortunately though, dozens of cases of abuse, including sexual abuse, have been reported in host family situations.

Some districts do require a local or state background check, but none require a national check and so miss many crimes committed by hosts who have fled their original states.  One sponsor, in fact, was discovered to have a murder conviction on their record.  Many of the organizations who carry out the process of finding host families were found to be in noncompliance, having not gone through the proper procedures like checking references and normally did not offer checks through reputable companies like backgroundchecks.com.

It seems school districts and these organizations both should be concerned with checking databases like US Offender OneSEARCH to make sure a potential host is not a registered offender anywhere in the nation, or even US OneSEARCH which checks for criminal convictions records in multiple jurisdictions across all 50 states.  Although budget concerns are a big priority right now, there are affordable alternative for traditional background checks that can uncover criminal records fast and easy. It would be sad to think that the biggest impression our country leaves on a foreign exchange student might be such a terrible one because we chose not to take any steps to protect them.

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://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/03/14/state-department-background-checks-on-foreign-exchange-hosts-not-feasible/

In Georgia, the House of State Representatives approved a bill last week that will restrict the access to arrest records by the public, a cause heavily supported by the Georgia Justice Project.  Specifically, the legislation includes a so-called “expungement” provision to make it easier and faster to remove records from the public view for people that have been cleared of criminal charges.

The bill would remove such records from public view if the case was never referred for further prosecution by the arresting agency or if the case was referred but later dismissed. Other reasons why the record might get restricted access is a situation where a grand jury not once but twice refused to indict the case. And finally, the arrest records would be sealed too if the person was acquitted of all charges.

Previously, people who had been arrested, but not convicted, were too easily denied certain jobs, because sometimes their background checks showed arrests even though they had not committed any crimes.  In one case, a mother who had been accused of child abuse was cleared after they proved that the child had suffered from an allergic reaction.  In another case, a woman was charged with theft, which also turned out to not be true. The house is hoping this will open up jobs to people who deserve them, instead of wrongfully blocking good citizens from good jobs.

If organizations were using backgroundchecks.com though, they would never find arrest records using criminal record searches of our instant database. The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has consistently held that the use of arrest records as an absolute bar to employment discriminates against some protected groups.  Because we want to protect our employer customers, who generally do not have the resources to carry out such an investigation, backgroundchecks.com has decided not to store arrest records in our real-time database we use for instant searches.

However, if your intent is to verify or find out if somebody that got arrested was also charged and or convicted, you can run a search through backgroundchecks.com for that information and use it for employment decisions. We do include records in our database that may indicate that somebody appeared before a judge and was indicted, charged, tried, and sentenced.

But backgroundchecks.com also believes that removing more expunged criminal records from our industry’s databases will proactively assist people trying to rehabilitate from their criminal pasts. Because of that backgroundchecks.com has been working for over a year with various industry leading criminal record database companies on an expungement clearinghouse, which ensures that more expunged records are removed from their private criminal databases.

This new effort is aimed at assisting job seekers to remove records that may no longer be publicly available but which are still present in private databases. At the launch of the Expungement Clearinghouse, slated for mid-spring, over 800 criminal background check companies will benefit from the information exchange provided by the Expungement Clearinghouse through its members.

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://savannahnow.com/news/2012-03-25/sentencing-reform-bill-provision-would-restrict-arrest-records-access#.T3_xMPttqSo