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A story in the Muskogee Phoenix headlined: “Wanted: Students, not felons” describes how some colleges are now including criminal background checks in their application process. Here’s an excerpt.
Along with their grades and residence status, high school seniors face another important question on their college applications: ‘Have you ever been convicted of a felony?’ And many […]

“Oh, the irony of the background check!” was the headline on a story in the Pocono Record in February. One of their readers offered the following.
A few months ago, I applied for a job at the new distribution center in Gouldsboro. I had the interview, got hired, passed the urine test, then they do a […]

An article in the Colorado Springs Gazette outlines how deferred sentences can let someone convicted of a crime pass your background check. Here’s what happened in Colorado.
Robert Lawrence Psaty worked as a mental health clinician at the Colorado Mental Health Institute. A waiter noticed him slip a pill into his companion’s drink while having dinner. […]

WBNS-TV10 in Central Ohio reports on a really horrific story. It involves an unusual twist on the issue of criminal background checks as part of hiring. Here’s how it goes.
Karen Carter applied for and got a job as business office manager at a nursing home called the Sanctuary at Tuttle Crossing in Central Ohio. According […]

Boy, are they red-faced at the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF). That’s the state agency responsible for making sure that children in the care of the state are treated properly. The agency has been in the headlines before for a variety of problems.
Now the Orlando Sentinel reports that “Florida DCF to screen […]

I confess that when I read the headline, “Livonia schools runs criminal checks on chaperones,” I found myself thinking that some people might be going overboard. But the article reminded me of an important thing about background checks and how you use them. You use them as part of a process of judgment.
You decide whose […]

The Arizona Daily Star ran a story with the headline “Tucson police hope PDA’s make background checks quicker.” Here’s the lead.
Tucson police have turned to palm-sized technology to help its officers and those at other law enforcement agencies conduct background checks and keep track of crime trends. A grant from the Department of Homeland Security […]

According to a headline in the Waco Tribune, “Bus driver charged with assault aced background check”. In the story, the claim is even stronger. “Hillsboro schools Superintendent Jerry Maze said the 64-year-old school bus driver accused of propositioning a 14-year-old student for sex passed the school’s ‘very comprehensive’ background checks.’”
There are people out there who […]

Your mother may have told you not to lie, but evidently some of the people sending out resumes never got that good advice. Several surveys indicate that lots of people lie when they apply for a job.
One screening service used by employers reports that in 2006, 41 percent of their background checks turned up a […]

After telling the story of Jason Winterholler, the Austin American-Statesman offers up the following: “Police said homeowners should do credit and criminal background checks on prospective tenants. They also warned owners to be skeptical of overly favorable deals and resist the urge to skip background checks just because the prospective renters seem nice.”
That advice will […]

Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that purports to know about almost everything, seems to have missed important information about one of its own. The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit arm of Wikipedia.
The Foundation’s now-former COO, Carolyn Bothwell Doran was originally hired after being sent over as a part-time bookkeeper by a temp agency. It’s not […]

During the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, lots of criminals wound up among good people on buses and in shelters. Still others used the occasion as an opportunity to get out of town and not come back. In Texas they think they have a solution for both those problems.
The Houston Chronicle story headlined: “Next […]

HRO Today just carried an article about outsourcing background checks with the title “Staffing Firm Finds a Better Option In Outsourcing Screening Services.” According to the story,
A privately held staffing company based in Seattle, Parker Staffing Service, LLC, provides temporary, contract, and full-time work in administrative, call center, IT, IS, development, QA, healthcare IT, […]

Under the headline “Aviation workers soon to get more criminal checks,” USA Today writes about changes that are coming for workers at America’s airlines.
“More than a million aviation workers — including pilots, mechanics and flight attendants — will begin undergoing more thorough background checks in January as the U.S. focuses on preventing insider terrorist […]

You probably don’t know who Wendy Adcock is, but right now she’s the focus of a lot of attention in Columbus, Ohio. That’s the home of the Ohio State University (OSU) who hired Adcock in 2005 as an accounts clerk at the university libraries.
The OSU student paper, the Lantern, describes the situation in a story […]

The headline for this one pretty much says it all: Background check KO’s police applicant.
Oliver Shea Wright decided he wanted to become a police officer. So he submitted his application to the Newport News, VA police department.
The police department conducted the background check that’s a routine part of their hiring process. It turned out […]

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 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 […]

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 […]

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