by Rob Thomson

Caregiver check failed to flag risk

For purposes of the blog, I’ll spare the tragic consequences behind yet another failure to do it right (click above to read).  Key points from the article linked above:

"At the time, Mitchell had three theft convictions in Los Angeles County on her record: in November 2001, October 2003 and March 2006"

"They did do a national criminal history report," Murphy said. "And it did come up clear for Kenya."

"…the faulty background check was due to a(sic) incomplete database."

The last quote suggests that a "complete" national database might exist.  DO NOT risk the safety of your loved ones, employees, customers, or business assets by falling into this trap.

by Rob Thomson

The killer in a much-publicized 2002 Cape Cod rape and murder case has been brought to justice.   Predictably, a $10 million wrongful death civil suit against the guilty man’s employer is now in motion.  At issue is failure to perform a reasonable criminal background check.

Based on the facts reported in this article, the garbage collector appears to have had an extensive criminal history, including significant jail time in Florida, as well as harrassment of multiple women within Massachusetts, and within the 4 years that he lived in Mass. prior to committing the murder in 2002.  The article states the employer "checked references", but makes no mention of any attempt at a criminal background check.

The defense attorney’s clueless rhetoric about how confusing it is to check criminal history suggests he is conceding the fact that the employer shoulders some portion of responsibility, and is pinning his client’s hopes on projecting chaos onto the "system."

The author does not lend clarity to the situation by getting caught up in the red tape of the Massachusetts Criminal Records History System Board (she lost me with that mouthful alone).  This is one of the reasons why criminal research best practices avoid statewide repositories.  Aside from the fact that they can have restrictive access rules, statewide databases are typically flawed with coverage gaps and poor timeliness of information updates.

The National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS), and ANY reputable Consumer Reporting Agency (BIS) will tell you there is a very simple and reliable standard for conducting a criminal background check:  a SSN Trace to obtain a 7 year address history, and court research in each county of residence to research public records.  Unlike the state criminal agency, there are no access limitations in Massachusetts for any employer to research criminal history at the county level.  There is also no condition that the conviction must have resulted in a prison sentence of 5 years or more, as is the case with the MA statewide.  There is little doubt that a county criminal record search would have flagged this individual as a violent offender and prevented this employer from facing this $10 million civil suit.

by Rob Thomson

Here is a summary of an interesting academic study which makes two great points involving employment screening: 1) states, counties, and other legal jurisdictions that are considering sealing criminal records or portions thereof may actually cause more discrimination than they prevent; and 2) an overlooked benefit of screening your employees is that it not only reduces your risk of negligent hiring litigation, it may also reduce your risk of racial discrimination!