You’re responsible for preventing workplace violence
In October, news media carried the story of an off-duty police officer who shot seven people in Crandon, Wisconsin, killing six of them. Normally that would not concern us here because we talk about issues related to the use of background checks by employers and landlords.
Earlier this month, though, organizational development consultant Daniel Schroeder wrote a piece in the Milwaukee Small Business Times answering a question sparked by the Crandon shootings: “What is a reasonable approach for a company that wants to make sure that it does what it can to minimize the chances of a violent act occurring?”
Schroeder points out that, if you’re an employer, you have a legal responsibility to prevent workplace violence. He says, “the Occupational Health and Safety Act (Act 181 of 1993) has a general duty clause that tasks employers with ensuring the health and safety of employees, as follows: ‘Every employer shall provide and maintain, as far as is reasonably practicable, a working environment that is safe and without risk to the health of his employees.'”
He’s got some good ideas about what you should do, but I’m not sure they go far enough. Here are mine.
Make sure you have a specific policy that not only prohibits workplace violence, but makes it a firing offense. You may want to offer mandatory counseling to first-time offenders through your EAP.
Make background checks a part of your hiring process. Pay special attention to violent acts in the past.
Make sure you do the background check on every person […]
Sometimes all you can do is chuckle
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 that Wright was wanted for a crime he allegedly committed last summer. The police arrested Wright instead of hiring him.
I’m sharing this with you for its humor value. You would think that the last place someone who’s wanted for a crime would try to go to work would be the police department. But people can be stupid or brazen. Sometimes I can’t figure out which it is.
If there’s a lesson here, it’s that you have to check on the people who come to you and apply for work or apply to rent an apartment. People with really awful pasts will try to do that. People with evil intent will try to do that. Since you can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys just by looking, you better do those background checks.
Background checks in the ivy-covered halls
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 was part of a report on the annual conference of human resource professionals who work in higher education. Here’s a substantive excerpt.
It probably shouldn’t be surprising in the year of the Virginia Tech murders and the scandal over the Massachusetts Institute of Technology admissions dean who didn’t have the degrees she claimed. More colleges are starting or considering policies to require background checks on potential employees. At the annual meeting last week of the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, sessions on background checks were attracting strong interest — with one so packed that people were sitting on the floor and in the hallway. Several companies that specialize in background checks for the business world were at the meeting as exhibitors for the first time, saying that they were seeing significant increases in inquiries and contracts from colleges.
You can argue that those colleges “coulda, woulda, shoulda” gotten background check religion before the murders at Virginia Tech, but that’s not how human beings work. We buy the alarm system after the house has been burglarized.
Don’t wait for a human or financial disaster. If background checks are not part of your hiring or […]
Background checks on the rise, but do they work?
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 has occurred: More civilians are now checked each year than criminals. And checks on the vast majority come back clean, even as states allot more money for their growing screening operations.
The article is a hodge-podge with an agenda. The article skips from talking about federal background checks to those done by school systems to background checking by churches.
The use of statistics is fast and loose. For example, the writer tells us that “a recent search of state-by-state records found 2,570 incidents of sexual misconduct in public schools between 2001 and 2005, despite background checks of teachers being required in many states.”
Sounds ominous. There are all those offenses happening despite background checks.
But the statistic used doesn’t support that. It’s meaningless because the relevant measure is not the number of incidents but the number of offenders. And it’s irresponsible because the only way to judge is to consider the number of offenders only from the states that mandate background checks.
The writer of the article isn’t explicit about it, but seems to push the agenda of the Ohio ACLU. Deep in the article there’s this quote from Christine Link, executive director of the ACLU of Ohio. […]
Security concerns don’t stop when you hire
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 them from many lines of work, yet they are caring for the Colorado’s most vulnerable population. The CBS4 probe turned up employees with arrests and convictions for domestic violence, assault, shoplifting and drug use.”
That’s interesting, but it’s not much different from a number of stories we see in the news about how convicted felons are employed in sensitive positions because some organization isn’t doing the background checks that prudence and common sense call for. The important lesson for you in this story is buried a bit further down.
“In some cases, the state is unaware of its employees’ criminal arrests and convictions since they occurred after the employees were hired. While criminal background checks are conducted prior to hiring, there are no regular, ongoing checks done after that. Criminal infractions that occur after hiring are generally unknown to the Colorado Department of Human Services, which oversees the group homes.”
Dr. Sharon Jacksi, who manages the group homes for the state, is reported as responding to the station’s investigation by saying: “I am surprised that some of the individuals after hire had issues and did not self-report.”
That’s simply naïve. We’re talking about people who aren’t exactly […]
Checking out the notaries
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 bad checks.
In case you’ve forgotten your civics, “a notary public is an officer who can administer oaths and statutory declarations, witness and authenticate documents and perform certain other acts depending on the jurisdiction.” Here’s what that means in most places in the US.
Let’s say that you have a legal document that needs signing. You visit a local notary. He or she asks you for proof that you’re who you say you are. That can include information like your driver’s license number, social security number, date of birth, and more.
Notaries often make copies of documents for their records. Nobody thinks much about it. That’s why the WBZ story ought to make you stop and think.
The station reports on a woman who received her state license as a Notary even though she had a criminal history including stealing mail, using fake ID, and writing bad checks. In other words, she’s precisely the person you don’t want to have access to people’s personal information.
Evidently the woman checked the box on her application that indicated a criminal conviction and filled in the information about what it was. The application was approved. No one seemed to care […]