Mental health and its use in gun background checks
The shootings at Virginia Tech by Cho Seung Hui have predictably started another debate on gun control. But the Washington Post revealed a new twist. Apparently, existing systems should have been sufficient to prevent Cho from obtaining a gun — if the relevant records had been kept up to date. It seems that since 1968 anyone considered mentally ill by the legal system is not permitted to purchase firearms. And Cho was ordered to receive counseling in 2005. However, in a breakdown all too familiar in the public record system, the court order was never reported to the federal authorities. When Cho requested two handguns, his background check came back clean, and his purchase went through.
There are many depressing aspects to this case, but the worst may be that there seem to have been so many opportunities to prevent this tragedy. Cho was known in the university as being disturbed, and received some intervention. And Congress, apparently, has been aware of the defects in the federal background check database for some time. Congress has twice attempted to pass laws to address the issue:
Under the bill, states would be given money to help them supply the federal government with information on mental-illness adjudications and other run-ins with the law that are supposed to disqualify individuals from firearms purchases. For the first time, states would face penalties for not keeping the National Instant Criminal Background Check System current.
The […]
More background checks for college students
A week ago we posted about the increasing use of background checks for college students. Most of the usage there has been focussed on catching exaggerations that applicants use to get themselves in the door. But now the pendulum may swing back towards the more traditional background check that looks for criminal history. Yesterday, a student at Virginia Tech shot and killed 32 people on campus, in the deadliest shooting incident of recent U.S. history.
Sad to say, violence on campus is not new. In 1991 a physics graduate student at the University of Iowa, Gang Lu, shot six people after losing an academic award. (The memory of this incident is quite vivid, as I was a graduate student in physics at the time.) Horrible as this was, there did seem to be an understandable motive — revenge is a universal emotion. But there are cases of more detached violence, as well. Perhaps the most similar one would be that of Charles Whitman, who killed 16 people from a clock tower at the University of Texas in 1966.
This story is certain to attract a great deal of attention, both in an attempt to explain such a horrifying event (rarely a successful venture), and how it can be prevented in the future. Should guns be banned? Should more people be encouraged to have guns so that sane carriers outnumber the insane? Can psychological screening and […]
Our criminal DNA index
If you have any exposure to the media, you probably already know that the paternity of Anna-Nicole Smith’s child has been determined, thus influencing the fate of the infant and its half-billion inheritance. The identity of the father — not the man Smith was living with — was determined by a DNA test. DNA paternity tests are extremely accurate, as evidenced by the fact that the various claimants to the child immediately agreed with the result (although her grandmother is still fighting for custody).
DNA tests can play an important role in background checks as well. Blood, skin, and various bodily fluids all contain deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), which uniquely identifies the individual to whom it belongs. If any of these are left behind at a crime scene, they can be used to identify — or clear — a suspect. DNA sequences can be stored in computer-friendly form, making it possible to search milliions of entries. Since many crimes are committed by repeat offenders, it was decided to begin collecting DNA sample from certain convicts. In 1990, the FBI began the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) with 14 states. The goal was to provide a national DNA index that law enforcement could use. It has since expanded to include all 50 states and the U.S. Army. The index contains over 4 million entries from offenders. Most significantly, it has provided 45,400 matches, which have assisted 46,300 […]
Background checks for college students
Recently the Wall Street Journal ran a story about the increasing use of background checks for university applicants. It seems that resume inflation begins early these days. Applications to college are at record highs, and some candidates will do anything to stand out. According to the Josephson Institute of Ethics, 28% of high-schoolers stole from a store last year, and 60% cheated. (Even more disturbing, 92% of the respondents were satisfied with their personal ethics.) Padding your list of extracurriculars seems like small potatoes after that.
As a result, the academic system has begun to fight back. They are beginning to use spot checks, or in some cases verifying all accepted students. In a reflection of this interest, Kroll Security Group has launched a division dedicated solely to academic verifications. At SentryLink we have an increasing number of schools who rely on us for a criminal background check. Of course, this is all good news for the background screening industry. As the article notes, the National Association of Professional Background Screeners has seen its membership explode over recent years, with the number of active firms going from about 30 to over 400.
If this student behavior is a predictor of how future job candidates will act — and it probably is — our industry is going to be increasingly important.
Retailers and the FBI join forces to fight crime
The FBI announced today that it has been working with two major retail networks to launch a database that will fight retail fraud. The database is called LERPnet and will provide a centralized repository for information on retail crime, including theft, fraud, and “online auction issues”. The service is expected to launch Monday. It features free access for law enforcement personnel and is only $1,200 per year for retailers. Although it is not officially live yet, LERPnet already has over 40 retailers signed up — some of them very well-known — and over 14,000 criminal incidents entered.
Given the negligible price, it is not surprising that retailers are signing up. Organized crime has long seen retail theft as a low-risk, rewarding activity. The police do not treat these offenses as a priority. At best they are local issues, and it is therefore hard to coordinate a response to a geographically distributed attack. Making information on these incidents easily accessible is a good start. A criminal database can be a remarkably efficient way of preventing threats, for example as used in a background check.
While the retailers would prefer not to be the target of criminal activity, the increase there may actually be good news for the rest of us. Of course retail fraud pushes up prices, but still: remember when drugs were the big issue, and we feared an epidemic of crack cocaine? A […]
Keeping sex offenders safe in Scotland
A while back, we reported on the efforts of the Ohio legislature to label cars owned by sex offenders by issuing special license plates. Some argued that this was too intrusive. However, taking a look at the world situation, it appears the United States is out in front on this issue, at least with respect to Scotland.
The United States offers a free national sex offender registy, supplemented by many state ones, which can pinpoint offenders on a map and paint a color-coded picture of unease across America. In this country s.o. crimes are unique in terms of the registrations required, the ease with which offenders can be located, and the resulting impact on real-estate values. And in general, the U.S. is fairly open with criminal records. A dedicated investigator will find few legal obstacles. Elsewhere in the world, the situation is different. In both England and Scotland, the general public is not permitted access to the s.o. registry. Access is limited to cases where vigilante action is not a likely result. And in Scotland, this has led to the ruling that single mothers cannot ask police if their new partner is on the registry.
Since single mothers with children are probably an s.o.’s most attractive target, a number of experts have objected. The article cited above indicates that a policy review is underway that will probably lead to some form of community notification along the lines of […]