Screening process can have its drawbacks
Background information is only as good as its source.

Jill Seifer, Madison Center's human resources director, had a unique perspective on recent news that self-employed social worker Mark Strobel had a history of sexually abusing children.

From 1995 to 2002, her organization employed Strobel as a therapist in its child and adolescent department.
The company won't discuss why Strobel stopped working there, but the timing of his departure correlated with molestation charges he faced in Michigan, charges that ended in an acquittal.

Still, Seifer stands by Madison Center's system for screening new employees, noting the organization pays the Indiana State Police to run in-state criminal history checks and contracts for out-of-state searches if it knows where else an applicant has lived.

Otherwise, Madison Center must rely on state licensing officials, Seifer said.

"It's certainly evident more and more that the information you get is only as good as the source you get it from," Seifer said.

That was an apparent reference to the state's obligation to screen social workers before licensing them. Strobel's past, including a 1987 conviction for sexually abusing an 11-year-old boy in a Chicago foster children's home, went unnoticed by Indiana licensing officials because they do not run out-of-state criminal background checks on social work license applicants.

But a growing number of states, along with employers of all kinds, are running the checks before making licensing and hiring decisions.

Eighty percent of employers were conducting criminal background checks on potential hires in 2003, up from 51 percent in 1996, according to surveys by the Society for Human Resource Management.

Experts attribute the trend to technological advances that have eased the collection and sale of personal information; more media coverage of dishonest job applicants; employers' fears of negligent hiring litigation; and a heightened sense of insecurity after the Sept. 11 attacks. A rush of online data brokers are cashing in, offering services at a wide range of prices.

But accuracy also can vary widely, said Shawn Bushway, associate professor of criminology at the University of Maryland.

"These companies are basically running unchecked and doing what they want, and we don't know how accurate they are," Bushway said.
Checks vary widely
Bushway's study of the industry found 467 companies offering background searches on the Internet. The ones that claim to do national background searches for as low as $10 typically piece together data from a variety of public records sources, including correctional databases, online sex offender registries and county courts that sell their records to data companies.

Other more established firms claim to be professional background screeners and have recently formed an association that has adopted a set of standards in an effort to distinguish themselves. They charge anywhere from $30 to more than $200 for the so-called "gold standard": physically sending runners to courthouses in counties where the prospective employer knows an applicant has lived, Bushway said.
Although these companies are likely more accurate than their bargain rate competitors, even they are suspect, Bushway's study found.

He and his colleagues paid a firm -- he declined to name it -- to search Virginia county courts for the records of 120 current parolees whose names the researchers had obtained from state correctional officials for an unrelated study.

Only 56 names came back showing any criminal record at all.

"There were a lot of false negatives," he said. "We were surprised by the magnitude."

The most accurate checks are run off the state governmental repositories, typically under the realm of state police. But only a few, such as Florida, provide access to the private sector online firms, Bushway said.
In another Society of Human Resource Management survey last year, 54 percent of respondents who run criminal background checks said they always or sometimes find inconsistencies between the record and what the applicant reported.

Bushway said he could offer no concrete way to know whether a search firm is thorough enough.
Data floating about
Tena Friery, research director at the San Diego-based Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, advised employers to look for two things: membership in that new trade group Bushway mentioned, the National Association of Professional Background Screeners; and a declaration that the company abides by the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Although some search reports fail to catch convictions, some cut the other way by turning up false positives -- convictions that never happened, either because of mistaken identity, identify theft or clerical errors at the courthouse, Friery said.

"One of the byproducts of the Information Age is there's a lot of information floating around that's not accurate," Friery said. "We think there should be stricter controls on the companies that sell that information. We've seen firsthand the damage that can result."

For example, Friery said she heard from an individual whose dismissed charge turned up as a conviction on a background check. Another person's long-ago parking ticket was listed as a probation violation.
"Very often people are denied jobs and they don't know why," Friery said. "They may not ever get a copy of their report from the employer."

There are things a job applicant can do to prevent these mistakes from killing a job opportunity. Friery advises job applicants to get a copy of their credit report up front. The Fair Credit Reporting Act also entitles applicants to their criminal background check results, if they request them, Friery said.

An applicant who has an arrest record or has been involved in court cases should go to the county where the incidents occurred and inspect the files to make sure the information is correct and up to date, Friery's group advises. Offenses the individual believes had been reduced in severity -- from a felony to a misdemeanor or a misdemeanor to an infraction -- sometimes do not show up that way in the public record.
Doing all they can
As was discovered in The Tribune's report on Strobel, Indiana licensing officials simply asked him whether he had any prior out-of-state convictions, and they took him at his word.

Kirby Falkenberg, executive director and chief executive officer at the YMCA of Michiana, said his organization cannot afford to run out-of-state background checks on all applicants as a matter of routine.
Falkenberg said the agency is doing all it can to screen potential employees, but he realizes its system is not foolproof.

Like other local social service agencies, the YMCA pays the Indiana State Police $7 to run criminal history checks on job applicants, but that database just covers convictions in Indiana. Like Madison Center, the YMCA sometimes will hire firms to search selected states depending on an applicant's previous addresses and the nature of the job in question, Falkenberg said.

"You have to look at places they've lived and decide how far you want to go," he said. "Sometimes they've lived a lot of places and it gets to be a big burden."

At a conference for YMCA leaders in Washington last year, Falkenberg learned about a pilot program to give a few nonprofit organizations access to the FBI's national criminal database. If and when the program is made available to all nonprofits, Falkenberg was told a search is expected to cost local organizations up to $45.

"How much money do you want to give me?" he said. "We probably hire, with the camps, about 300 people a year. It would probably cost $15,000 to do that, and it doesn't even cover every state."

A background search firm recently solicited the YMCA of Michiana to sell it criminal checks for $3 each. Falkenberg said that sounds like it might be too good to be true, but he has asked the company for more information.

The YMCA, with its facilities often full of children, also must worry about the backgrounds of its members. This year it began cross-checking its list of roughly 8,000 members with Indiana's Sex Offender Registry. One man turned up on both lists, and he agreed to give up his membership.

And YMCA members are about to receive notification that they can no longer take cameras or cell phones into locker rooms and shower areas, to prevent pedophiles from using camera phones to capture images of children and post them on the Internet, Falkenberg said.

"It's more than just the employees. How do you watch all the members? It's not an easy answer, I'll tell you. It's tough."
Caution at home
In addition to organizations, many online background search firms now cater to families looking to hire a trustworthy nanny.

But some parents still believe in doing it the old-fashioned way.

Paul Rarick of Niles recently hired a baby sitter who responded to a classified advertisement he placed in The Tribune. He initially considered paying an online placement firm to match him up with an applicant. Part of the firm's service included a criminal background check.

But he was turned off by the agency's fee and decided against using it.

Instead, he ended up hiring the first applicant to answer the ad because he and his wife liked her so much. She was very forthcoming with references, although Rarick does not put much stock in them because they typically turn out positive.

The Raricks primarily went on their instincts after interviewing the woman. Rarick added that he and his wife work from their home, so they will be close enough to monitor interaction the baby sitter has with their two children, ages 3 years and 9 months.

"I go a lot just by my impression of the person. I've done a lot of hiring over the years and I feel like I'm a pretty good judge of character. In this case I have a very strong feeling," Rarick said. "Normally you get a few red flags when you're talking to a person, but this one just lined up really well with what we were looking for."

Source: South Bend Tribune: http://www.southbendtribune.com/stories/2005/06/13/local.20050613-sbt-FULL-A1-Screening_process_ca.sto