Colleges and universities used to be seen as a place apart from the rest of the world where the biggest danger was that you’d party too much and couldn’t make your eight o’clock class. No more.
Inside Higher Ed just published an article about the increasing interest in background checks among colleges and universities. The article […]

The Associated Press story, Background checks on the rise, takes a look at the dramatic increase in background checks starting with the federal government ones.
Already this year, 25 million Americans have had background checks by the federal government, a number that’s risen every year since the 9-11 terrorist attacks. Amid the rise, a notable shift […]

CBS Channel 4 in Denver has broken a story about how people with criminal backgrounds including child abuse, assault, and theft wind up working on group homes around the state. Here’s a substantive excerpt from their story.
“A CBS4 investigation found many of the employees in the state’s group homes have criminal records that might disqualify […]

The Investigative Team at WBZ TV in Boston has turned up an interesting fact. It seems you can become a Notary Public in Massachusetts no matter what kind of background you’ve got. Nobody apparently reads the applications and there are no background checks, even if you admit to convictions for using false documents and writing […]

The Park, Beach and Recreation Commission in the city of Milford, CT is planning to require background checks for all coaches in the city’s recreation programs. The Commission is drafting a revised processing procedure for new coaches.
“‘We hope whatever we give to City Attorney Marilyn Lipton is airtight,’ commission Chairman Daniel Worroll said.”
If by […]

Back in 2005, headlines around the country trumpeted the news that private information on 163,000 people had been stolen from Choicepoint, a data services company. Consumer concerns bout identity theft spiked and Choicepoint was held up as an example of everything that was wrong with data security. That was then.
Today, the company has become what […]

One thing accountants do is look for possible fraud when they’re auditing business’s books. Recently the Journal of Accountancy published an excellent article on spotting fraud in your business. Here’s the lead from that article.
Every organization faces some risk of fraud from within. Fraud exposure can be classified into three broad categories: asset misappropriation, corruption […]

The Fayetteville, Arkansas Public Library has a problem. For the last several months, the staff has been working on a policy that will protect members of the public, especially children, from predators while they’re at the library. How could anyone object to that?
Well, it depends on how you do things. The Northwest Arkansas News reports […]

This is a “man-bites-dog” story about background checks. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel recently carried a story about how charter boat captains are starting to do background checks on their customers.
This isn’t as weird as it might sound. It turns out that those charter boat captains have a good reason. They don’t want to suffer the […]

Maybe it’s because we’ve got older relatives in a nursing home that this story makes me so angry. Here’s how it was reported in the Chicago Tribune.
The Elder Justice Act, designed to combat abuse, neglect and exploitation of older Americans, still gathers dust in Congress. It has been doing that for five years, odd for […]

The News-Tribune in Tacoma, Washington weighs in with a story about the impact of the anti-terrorism background checks on businesses. These businesses are connected with airports like Sea-Tac.
Problems with a new federal background check for potential airport employees could slow baggage delivery, delay cargo shipments and cut the hours of airport vendors at Seattle-Tacoma International […]

Susan Gunn wrote an excellent article that appeared in the September 2007 issue of Dental Economics. Her title: “Embezzlement Wake-up Call.” You have to register to see the whole article, but the registration is free.
She surveyed dental practices and asked them about embezzlements. Then she analyzed the responses.
She found that the embezzler could be […]