EmployeeScreenIQ Blog

Earlier today, I wrote a post about the importance verifying a candidate’s date of birth before conducting a background check and used the workplace violence incident that took place at Ohio State as an example of what can go wrong.  I pointed out that the applicant gave an incorrect date of birth and that the University failed to confirm the birth date by looking at his driver’s license.

I have since learned that this is not the case.  I have now been told that it was the court where the conviction occurred who had the record filed under the wrong date of birth.  If this is true then no matter what Ohio State and the background screener did, the background check would have been doomed from the start.  Notwithstanding this information, the information we shared about the importance of confirming date of birth are still just as relevant.

Continue Reading

Many employers wonder why they need to provide an applicant’s date of birth in order to perform thorough employment background checks.  This story below, might convince them of the importance of not only providing the date of birth, but also why it is vitally important to verify the given birth date.

By now, many of you have seen the story about the workplace violence incident that took place at The Ohio State University last week which resulted the shooting death of one employee and a serious wound to another.  The first thing everyone asked, and rightfully so: did the university conduct a background check before hiring this employee?  The answer was yes and the background check didn’t reveal the employee’s past conviction where he spent 5 years in prison for receiving stolen property.  The university says that had it known of the record, they never would have hired the individual.

Of course, the media jumped all of the company that performed the background check.  But before you automatically assume that the screening provider botched the check, here’s an important fact to consider and an equally important lesson for employers. It turns out that the employee provided the school with a fraudulent date of birth.

Why is that a problem?

Nearly all courts file criminal records by name and date of birth (some include more information).  In order to conduct a criminal background check, court researchers must search by both the name and date of birth.  If the date of birth is incorrect, the record will not be found.  Originally, both the school and the media seemed to be squarely blaming the background screening company.  However, it appears that the record was missed because Ohio State ran the check using the wrong date of birth.

So hear is the lesson.  Employers must verify an applicant’s date of birth before performing the background check. All you have to do is look at a driver’s license or other government issued ID.  Failing to do so allows the applicant to provide you with fake information which will ultimately derail your efforts to perform thorough employment background checks.  Verifying the date of birth also helps to avoid innocent mistakes or clerical errors. Now, I’m sure my alma mater had the best intentions in mind.  In truth, my guess is that many organizations forget or neglect to do this.  Unfortunately, the results can be deadly.

For more information on what employers can do to combat workplace violence, please download our recent whitepaper, Protecting Your Employees from Workplace Violence.

Continue Reading

There have been a few studies conducted in the United States covering recidivism rates of offenders and ex-convicts. Anything above .0001% is virtually why the employment screening industry even exists. We have written in the past about our own domestic recidivism rates but have yet to post anything outside the US. I found this article discussing these staggering rates in Canada. The Winnipeg Sun is reporting that the re-offending rate in some cases is as high as 100%. The article throws out some incredible, almost unbelievable numbers about recidivism. The author summarizes by saying if Manitoba’s corrections branch is to rehabilitate criminals, they’re not doing a very good job! Do you do background checks on your Canadian applicants? I hope so!!

Re-offending rates are staggering

If the main objective of Manitoba’s Corrections branch is to rehabilitate criminals, they’re not doing a very good job.

At least according to their own numbers released by the Opposition Tories Tuesday, which show the rate of re-offending in some cases is as high as 100% for young criminals.

The most recent data from the last three months of 2007 shows 75% of adult inmates released from provincial jails were charged with another offence within two years of completing their sentence.

The numbers include charges for new offences and for breaching conditions of release.

It’s an astonishingly high number and it confirms what many of us have observed anecdotally for years — our courts/corrections system has evolved into a revolving door of justice where criminals re-offend over and over again.

The 75% recidivism rate for the last quarter of 2007 is the highest in at least five years, according to the data. Which means the problem is getting worse, not better.

The recidivism rates for young offenders during the same period are even more staggering.

In the three-month period from April to June 2006, 100% of young offenders released from youth custody were charged with another offence within two years.

That means every young offender in Manitoba who completed a youth jail sentence between April 1 and June 30 that year was charged with another offence within the following two years.

That’s an incredible statistic and a glaring example of what a massive failure our justice system is.

What’s equally startling is not once has the recidivism rate for young offenders in custody dropped below 75% since 2002.

Most quarters it ranged between 80%-95%. It’s a horrible record.

The stated objective of the Youth Criminal Justice Act is to rehabilitate young criminals and help them transform their lives.

It’s obviously not working. Even in deferred custody cases — where young offenders serve their sentences in the community with conditions — the recidivism rate is as high as 85%-90%.

There are obviously no easy solutions to bring down recidivism rates for adults and young offenders. But whatever our courts and jails are doing now is not working.

More

Continue Reading

Blackwater ‘Reckless, Unsupervised’

Bunker 22 was supposed to be the place where weapons and ammo intended for use by Afghan National Police would be kept.

But for Blackwater contractors in country to train Afghan forces, Bunker 22 became a kind of ATM for pistols and AK-47s — with many weapons withdrawn, some not returned, and some used in bloody incidents that left one contractor partially paralyzed and, later, two Afghan civilians dead.

The Senate Armed Services Committee has been looking into the work environment of the company at the heart of a May 9, 2009, shooting of Afghan civilians that officials say jeopardized U.S. diplomatic relations with the Karzai government. While officially known as Paravant, the contracted company was a wholly-owned operation of controversial Blackwater and was doing business in Afghanistan under contract from Raytheon Technical Services Company. (Blackwater now goes by the name of Xe.)

Former Paravant officials, along with Army officials connected to the Raytheon contract and the Afghan training program, were scheduled to be questioned Tuesday morning by the Senate Armed Services Committee, which has been investigating the shootings. Two Parvant employees, Justin Cannon and Christopher Drotleff, have been indicted by the Justice Department in connection with the May 2009 shootings.

During a press briefing at his office in Washington, committee chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., described an operation that was out of control and without proper supervision, where weapons were checked out without authorization and put into the hands of men unauthorized to carry them, and where one training team’s “wild idea” in December 2008 to practice firing from the back of a moving car resulted in an AK-47 round to the head of one of their own. That contractor was flown to Germany for treatment; he survived but is partially paralyzed.

While Raytheon reported the incident to an Army contracting officer, there is no indication the Army followed up, according to Levin, and so it did not become known “that Paravant contractors were using weapons unsafely, improperly, with inadequate supervision, [and] were carrying weapons that were not supposed to be in their possession at all.”

He also said Blackwater failed to properly vet contractors it hired, saying the two men indicted had poor military records. Court records refer to Drotleff having an “extensive criminal history,” and a “propensity for violence,” according to Levin, who also noted in a written statement a media report that Cannon had gone UA from the Army and tested positive for cocaine.

More

Continue Reading

Last month, we told you that the Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC) search had been temporarily suspended to all third parties, including employers and background screeners.  For those conducting background checks in Canada, this search was supposed to have been the gold standard in criminal searches.  Why?  Because it includes records from the entire country and is deemed to be the most thorough and reliable search available.

The problem is the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are concerned that the identifiers on record, name and date of birth are not enough to conclude that a criminal record belongs to an individual.  I would suggest that those two identifiers are exactly what is needed to confirm that a record belongs to an individual as long as the subject of the search has the ability to dispute the results.

I found the most concise article I have seen on the revisions to the CPIC policies written by Dan Michaluk and I encourage you to check it out if you conduct background checks in Canada.  Here’s the most insightful information I found in the article as it applied to employers.

Response to basic searches highly qualified

The RCMP direction on information provided in response to searches based on name and date of birth only – so called “Criminal Name Index/Criminal Record Synopsis” searches – dictates what agencies can say in response to a request. If, for example, a name and date of birth search does produce a match, the RCMP has directed agencies to respond as follows:

Based solely on the name(s) and date of birth provided, a search of the National Criminal Records repository maintained by the RCMP could not be completed. In order to complete the request, the applicant is required to have fingerprints submitted to the National Criminal Records repository by an authorized police service or accredited private fingerprinting company. Positive identification that a criminal record may or may not exist at the National Criminal Records repository can only be confirmed by fingerprint comparison. Not all offences are reported to the National Criminal Records repository. A local indices check may or may not reveal criminal record convictions that have not been reported to the National Criminal Records repository.

The RCMP says this qualified statement is necessary in order to ensure accurate identification of individuals with criminal records. While understandable, there is currently no expeditious process for verifying a criminal record. The RCMP says its current verification process can take more than 120 days to complete when a criminal record is encountered. Individuals must attend at a local police station or certified fingerprinting agency to start the verification process, but results can be delivered directly to employers.

Read More

As you can see, these new policies make it extremely difficult for employers to conduct a background check through this system.  It’s great for determining if someone does not have a criminal record, but when they do, confirming the record is extremely challenging and time-consuming.  One of two things is going to happen.  Employers will stop using this resource and go back to searching by province or they’ll continue to use the search and not hire individuals when they find that the individual has a possible record.  Both scenarios come with their own perils.

Continue Reading

Utah Representative Jason Chaffetz (R) does not want the Census Bureau to hire anyone with a criminal record.  “Allowing individuals with criminal records to be enumerators, who go out into the public and walk up to people’s homes and knock on doors, can have serious detrimental effects on the American people’s confidence in the census,” Chaffetz said.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz Wants Census to Hire No Criminals

And while I applaud his efforts to protect our nation’s citizens, his proposal will get the undivided attention of the EEOC who is aggressively pursuing employers that impose what they believe are discriminatory hiring practices on job applicants.  They also are trying to curb criminal recidivism to get former convicts back to work so that they won’t turn back to crime.  Their argument is that when conducting employment background checks employers need to look at the crime to determine job relatedness.  They also need to consider other factors such as severity, how long ago it took place, whether the person is a repeat offender, etc.

In my opinion, there are certainly going to be some crimes that the Census Bureau should have a zero tolerance policy on.  There will be others that really won’t amount to much.  Take for instance check fraud in the state of Texas.  Sounds like a pretty serious crime, right?  In actuality, a person is charged with check fraud if they bounce a check for greater than $5.00.  Oftentimes, the individual never knows that they have been prosecuted for the offense and the only thing they need to do to have it taken care of is to make good on the amount of the bounced funds.  Now, in other places, check fraud is a very serious offense.  There are many more instances of convictions like this and it wouldn’t really be practical/fair to reject candidates such as these.

Continue Reading

Last year, the state of New York amended their general business laws to force businesses to consider certain factors in their hiring decisions when their job applicants had criminal conviction records.  (New York State Correction Law Article 23-A, Section 753 “Licensure and Employment of Persons Previously Convicted of One or More Criminal Offenses”.) The law was aimed to help former convicts get jobs.  To comply, businesses that conduct background checks have to follow guidelines set forth in Article 23-A before taking adverse action.  The guidelines focus on the seriousness or severity of crimes, job relatedness of the criminal activity, how old the record was, if the person was a repeat offender, etc.

All has been pretty quiet since the law was enacted . . . until now.  Check out this editorial we found in today’s New York Times.  Clearly, they are prepared to begin enforcement.  If you are interested in learning more about Article 23-A, check out our podcast with Seyfarth Shaw’s, Pam Devata.

Denied A Chance for Honest Employment

Among the leading causes of recidivism are employment policies in the private and public sectors that discriminate against former offenders and too often drive them back to jail. New York State first addressed this problem more than 30 years ago with laws protecting the employment rights of people with criminal convictions. But two investigations by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo suggest that some companies are finding ways around these laws.

Employers in New York can, of course, review an applicant’s history. But they cannot deny an applicant a job on the basis of a conviction without considering whether the offense bears a relationship to the job being sought. New York law also forbids employers from shutting out qualified applicants because of convictions that are sealed or dismissed, minor infractions like speeding tickets or for arrests that do not lead to conviction.

In a recently completed investigation, the attorney general found that ChoicePoint, a nationally known employee screening company, was involved in creating an online job application system for employers that automatically disqualified thousands of applicants who disclosed criminal convictions. Moreover, investigators found that the company had recommended to employers that they disqualify applicants based on sealed or dismissed convictions and legal outcomes that are regarded as violations — not crimes — under New York law. One ChoicePoint client violated state law by withdrawing conditional job offers after information that should not have been taken into account turned up in background checks.

In a separate investigation, the attorney general found that RadioShack also had ignored the law by rejecting job applicants whose violations had been sealed, set aside or deemed to be minor. Both companies have agreed to pay financial penalties and to obey the law, without admitting or denying wrongdoing. But the cases raise the disturbing possibility that the practices they engaged in may be more widespread than supposed in a state that has been a national model in giving former prisoners a chance at honest work.

View Full Article

Continue Reading

According to Tennessean.com, Alive Hospice CFO Missy Bordelan has quit her job after admitting to committing mail fraud at her former employer.  Ms. Bordelan was hired in October while under indictment for 10 federal charges.  “Bordelon admitted to taking more than $192,000 total and entered a guilty plea to one count of mail fraud in September. The conviction carries up to 20 years in prison and a fine up to $250,000 on top of making restitution to the hospital. No sentence or penalty has been set yet, according to court records.”

Alive Hospice says that they conducted a background check and the article infers by that point that nothing turned up.  How is this possible?  I have a theory.

One scenario is that they didn’t conduct a Federal Criminal Record Search. Criminal activity tried in Federal District Courts typically involves violations of the Constitution or federal law. These crimes may include tax evasion, embezzlement, bank robbery, kidnapping, mail fraud and other federal statute violations. Federal criminal convictions do not appear in state or county felony and misdemeanor court record searches, therefore a federal district search is imperative if such records are needed. Each state is comprised of federal districts.

In the article, an expert from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners suggests that pending charges sometime fall through the cracks.  However, if the article is correct that she plead guilty in September, there should have been federal record when they conducted the check in October.

View Full Story

Continue Reading

A Minnesota law student is lobbying hard for changes to her state’s expungement process.  Carly Melin, a law student at Hamline University School of Law, has drafted an amendment to her state’s expungement statute that would give courts the right to not only seal criminal records held by the judicial branch but those maintained at the executive branch (police departments, law enforcement agencies, etc.) as well. 

Law student in lobbying effort to make expungement more meaningful

By Michelle Lore, Minnesota Law – December 11, 2009

A local law student is leading an effort to get lawmakers to go back to the drawing board on expungement procedures.

Expungement is supposed to provide a chance for a fresh start by allowing criminal records to be wiped clean in some instances. However, a narrow statutory expungement mechanism and limits on the ability of judges to expunge nonjudicial records have combined to create a very messy situation for those in search of a clean slate.

Most criminal records — including those maintained by police departments — are held outside the judicial branch. Sealing judicial records provides little benefit when a potential landlord or employer can easily retrieve an arrest record from a local police department during a background check.

Hamline 3L Carly Melin has been working on an amendment to the expungement law that would give judges the power to remove the scarlet letter from a past mistake without leaving the smudge marks. In 2008, Melin and a fellow law student drafted an amendment to the state’s expungement statute that would give courts clear authority to seal criminal records held by executive branch agencies. They weren’t successful during the 2009 session, but Melin is planning to be back again lobbying for the change in 2010.

“I’m trying to get them to clarify the statute so that courts can start to provide a meaningful remedy for people,” she explained. “Right now there is basically no remedy for people who have criminal records.”

More

Continue Reading

Ok, I hate to even write this posting because like many of you; I am a huge Pee-Wee Herman fan!  However, I would be negligent if I didn’t.  Hollywood makes it so easy.  I could spend the rest of my life writing blogs about stories they create!!  Today is no exception.  Pee-Wee Herman is mounting a huge comeback.   “The Pee-wee Herman Show,” opening next month in downtown Los Angeles at Club Nokia theater, cost millions to produce. It boasts 11 actors, 20 puppets and marks the show’s first production since 1982.

What would a background check on Pee-Wee Herman look like?  It wouldn’t be pretty, I’ll tell you that much!  According to Wikipedia:

In July 1991, while visiting relatives, Reubens was arrested in Sarasota, Florida for masturbating publicly in an adult theater while watching a triple bill of Catalina Five-O: Tiger Shark, Nurse Nancy and Turn up the Heat. Detectives would periodically visit pornographic theatres and observe the audience, arresting those engaged in indecent exposure. After having arrested other men, a detective who had been observing Reubens stopped him while he was on his way out. While detectives looked at his driver’s license, Reubens told them, “I’m Pee-wee Herman”, and then offered to do a children’s benefit for the sheriff’s office “to take care of this”. The next day, after a local reporter recognized Reubens’ name, Reubens’ attorney made the same offer to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune in exchange for withholding the story. This was not Reubens’ first arrest in the county; in 1971 he was arrested for loitering and prowling near an adult theater, though charges were later dropped. His second arrest was in 1983 when Reubens was placed on two years’ probation for possession of marijuana, although adjudication was withheld. The night of the arrest Reubens fled to Nashville, where his sister and lawyer lived, and then to New Jersey, where he would stay for the following months at his friend Doris Duke’s estate.

I wish it stopped there, but unfortunately it doesn’t.

In November 2002, while filming David La Chapelle’s video for Elton John’s “This Train Don’t Stop There Anymore”, Reubens learned that policemen were at his house with a search warrant, acting on a tip from a witness in the pornography case against actor Jeffrey Jones, finding among over 70,000 items of kitsch memorabilia, two grainy videotapes and dozens of what the city attorney’s office characterized as a collection of child pornography. Kelly Bush, Reubens’ personal representative at the time, said the description of the items was inaccurate and claimed the objects were “Rob Lowe’s sex videotape and a few 30- to 100-year-old kitsch collectible images”. Reubens turned himself in to the Hollywood division of the LAPD and was charged with possession of obscene material improperly depicting a child under the age of eighteen in sexual conduct. The District Attorney looked at Reubens’ collection and computer and found no grounds for bringing any felony charges against him, while the city attorney brought misdemeanor charges against Reubens “on the very last day” that the statute would allow.Reubens was represented by Hollywood criminal defender lawyer Blair Berk. In December he pleaded not guilty through Berk, who also complained that the city attorney failed to turn over evidence to the defense, which City Attorney Richard Katz countered that prosecutors were not required to do until after arraignment, after which they did; neither side disclosed the contents.

Now just to be clear, we would never, EVER use Wikipedia for background checks, its simply a source.

Mr. Rubens has several offenses in his lifetime.  Criminal recidivism rates for any offender is noteworthy and certainly justifies an employers right to screen employees.  For you screening professionals out there, we understand this opens a quagmire of legal issues under California reporting laws; we can debate that later! Lets hope Pee-Wee (Paul Rubens) is using this as an opportunity to turn his life around!

Continue Reading