EmployeeScreenIQ

Does the City of Boston have a faulty pre employment background checks system?

The Boston Globe recently published an in-depth look at the city's background check policy, which it determined could result in hundreds of people with criminal records working for the city.

During 2005, officials in Boston ruled that only job applicants for positions requiring unsupervised contact with the elderly, disabled or children under 18-years old would have to undergo background checks.

Currently, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco lead the nation in offering opportunities to rehabilitated ex-offenders. The city's reasoning is that these workers do not put the public at risk, as school employees, police, fire, youth, elderly services, technical and financial workers all fall under the background check requirement.

However, Bill Kessler, Boston's assistant director of human resources, told the Globe that about 3,500 city jobs don't require background checks. That includes all positions in public works and many positions in transportation. Kessler said keeping ex-offenders from these jobs would be more likely to increase correction costs than protect the public.

"We look for ways to help people become productive members of society," he said.

Boston's willingness to allow ex-offenders to apply for certain positions has helped garner statewide reform of Massachusetts' Criminal Offender Record Information law. That law allows the state to keep a record of every criminal court appearance in state courts.

The problem with CORI law is that a person is issued a record even if the case is dismissed or the person is found not guilty. Old cases are kept on file for lengthy amounts of time, making it hard for many people to find jobs even long after they have appeared in court.

In addition, Boston's actions have helped other cities and the public realize that ex-offenders can be a great fit for non-sensitive jobs as long as they have the right criteria and experience.

Labels: Pre employment background checks

Employees in one city are taking fault after requiring job seekers to provide social networking information while undergoing criminal background checks.

According to several reports, three city employees in Bozeman, Montana, were recently disciplined after asking potential candidates to provide information regarding their personal social networking sites. As a result, the assistant city manager, fire chief and human resources director were all put on six months probation.

As we reported in a previous post, city officials were asking any job seeker looking to work for the city to reveal all of their login information to social media sites like Facebook, MySpace and YouTube, as well as e-mail accounts like Google and Yahoo. At the time, the city claimed this was part of its normal background check procedure.

But news of the new requirement spread quickly and created a controversy, as many people began wondering if the requirement should be considered a violation of potential employees' right to privacy.

Various reports stated that a news station in Montana was informed about the practice. After the news leaked, city officials began receiving one e-mail per minute about the background check policy.

On top of that, an online poll bringing in more than 5,000 votes found that 98 percent of the respondents thought the policy was an invasion of privacy. Those against the policy also quoted Article 2, Section 10 of the Montana Constitution, which states that "the right of individual privacy is essential to the well-being of a free society and shall not be infringed without the showing of a compelling state interest."

Soon after, the city suspended its requirement pending "a more comprehensive evaluation." In addition, Facebook officials stated that the city's policy was "a violation of Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, which received feedback from users and was ultimately approved in a site-wide vote."

Labels: Criminal background checks

A loophole in the state's background check law could be allowing people with criminal records to volunteer in Rhode Island schools. To learn more about background checks, go to http://employeescreen.com.

According to an article by the South County Independent, students planning to volunteer or intern at the University of Rhode Island were told in September they needed to undergo a background check.

However, those students were turned down by university police, who stopped performing state or national background checks. Students were then turned down by the South Kingstown Police Department. Both of those departments referred students to the state Attorney General's Office in Providence.

The problem with the current system is that the Attorney General's Office only performs state background checks on volunteers, leaving room for people with a criminal record outside the state to secure a volunteer or internship position with the school.

Current state law requires only school employees, police and campus police, court system employees, financial agents, household security providers and massage therapists to submit to both state and national background checks.

In essence, the state is only required to perform FBI fingerprint checks for law enforcement and criminal investigation purposes. That finding is what led university police to stop offering national checks, after which time they were told to send anyone looking for state checks to the Attorney General's Office.

As the loophole in state law could potentially lead to bad hires, the Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch has announced that legislation to require federal background checks on classroom volunteers will be discussed during the next session of the General Assembly.

It seems as though the biggest concern to officials will be the cost of background checks, as there is a $22 fee for FBI fingerprint checks. That means the biggest hurdle could be figuring out exactly who will pay that fee.

Labels: Background checks

The lack of comprehensive employee background checks on teachers is creating problems for some in the United Arab Emirates.

Recently, a former UAE teacher was sent to jail in the United States after being accused of trying to coerce students into sexual situations. That event has caused schools and parents to begin calling for stricter background checks on foreign teachers.

According to an article by The National Newspaper, there are currently more than 16,500 expatriate teachers working in the UAE. However, many of those teachers are allowed to work with children with hardly any criminal background checks.

Many public and private schools offer tax-free salaries to teachers, who are often hired after only undergoing a simple Interpol check to make sure there is no international arrest warrant out for them.

"If a person has committed a crime in their home country and they have a criminal record, there is no way for us to know about that record unless there is an international warrant or the home country lodges their information internationally," Brig Gen Nasser al Minhali, acting director general of the federal Department of Naturalisation and Residency, said in the article.

"We fingerprint all the residents to ensure they do not have a criminal history, but that is only comparable with the data on our system and not everywhere else in the world, of course," he continued.

Many officials claim that it is difficult to enforce thorough background checks on teachers, as many have had extensive international experiences and diverse nationalities, and places like the United States and Canada don't always make criminal records available to other countries.

While schools in the UAE are expected to complete a background check on a new hire, the quality of those checks can greatly vary. Teachers in the UAE must submit a security clearance to the Ministry of Education, which is forwarded to the Ministry of Interior, which then conducts an Interpol check.

Labels: Employee background checks