The Background Investigator

CORI Reform Still Allows Private Background Checks

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 00:00:00 -0600

by Kenneth J. Cooper The part of the new Massachusetts law that prohibits inquiring about criminal records on initial job applications leaves an opening for employers to acquire the same information directly from the state or specialized businesses that do background checks. Legislative and public attention to the changes in the Criminal Offender Record Information Act, known as CORI, focused on shortening the periods most convictions are accessible, down to 10 years for felonies and 5 years for misdemeanors. Another provision eliminates the standard question on many employment applications about whether the job-seeker has a criminal history. Activists based in California have launched a national campaign to “ban the box,” as they call it. The goal is to help former offenders who are otherwise qualified get past initial screenings. Studies have shown ex-offenders are more likely to be hired if they actually get an interview, when they can explain their past problems with law in person. The state that pioneered the ban went further than Massachusetts to help former offenders reach the final stages of the hiring process. In 1998, Hawaii became the first state to forbid most employers from asking about convictions on applications. That state’s law also prohibits the consideration of criminal records “until after the prospective employee has received a conditional offer of employment” that an employer can withdraw if the convictions have a “rational relationship” to a job’s duties. The new Massachusetts ban, which takes effect Nov. 4, contains no such restrictions. The state’s employers can ask about convictions in job interviews, as legislators anticipated. They could also winnow the final hiring pool before that stage by running a CORI check of state records or retaining the services of a background screening company. An employer’s right to do a CORI check before interviewing candidates has one significant constraint: An applicant must first sign an authorization form. No prior approval is needed for unofficial background checks by screening companies. The new law “does not preclude an employer from conducting a CORI search,” acknowledged Terrel Harris, communications director for the state Executive Office of Public Safety and Security. “The idea behind the reform is getting the potential employee in the door … preventing an employer from automatically excluding an applicant because he has a criminal record,” Harris added. “The hope, the thinking behind the law is that an employer won’t do a CORI search unless he’s interested in the potential employee, and if he initiates a CORI search, he’ll discuss the finding with the potential employee. At any rate, the new law requires an employer to provide a copy of the search to the potential employee.” Bradley MacDougall, associate vice president for government affairs of Associated Industries of Massachusetts, said pre-interview CORI checks may be possible but businesses are waiting for the state to issue rules and regulations implementing the law. State Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz said legislators had discussed the idea of postponing CORI checks until employers determined which applicants are qualified. The ban adopted, she said, was intended to help applicants with a criminal record “get a foot in the door” so they can tell the “full story” behind convictions. “It’s a common frustration for job applicants to never be able to break through that first level” but instead continually undergo “the dehumanizing experience of never getting a face-to-face” interview with a potential employer, Chang-Diaz said. Massachusetts and Hawaii are the only states with “ban the box” laws that apply to public and private employers, with exceptions for those operating under other legal mandates to check criminal records, such as schools and day-care centers. New laws in Connecticut, Minnesota and New Mexico, all passed this year or last, cover personnel practices at public agencies only. Besides those five states, about two dozen cities or counties have similar bans for their own hiring, including Boston, Cambridge and Worcester. The ordinances in the three Massachusetts cities, which extend to their vendors and contractors, are not superseded by the new state law, Harris said. Hawaii is the only state with long enough experience with the ban to evaluate its impact on the employment and recidivism rates of ex-offenders. Such a study has not been done, according to the National Employment Law Project, which provides technical assistance to state and local governments. A study in Minneapolis, where a ban took effect for city hiring in 2007, showed far fewer applicants were rejected because of past convictions. About 60 percent of applicants whose background checks detected a potential problem were hired, compared to 6 percent previously. As most employers in Hawaii must do, the city of Minneapolis can consider conviction records only after a conditional job offer has been made to an applicant.

N.M. Supreme Court Rejects Limiting Access To Closed Cases

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 00:00:00 -0600

The state Supreme Court has rejected a proposal that would have blocked online public access to closed criminal cases in which there was no conviction. A government watchdog organization and others yesterday applauded the court's unanimous decision as a victory for transparency in government. Michael Corwin, who runs a private investigation and research business in Albuquerque, said the court's ruling "recognizes the public's right to know." Sarah Welsh, executive director of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, said the decision ensured "accurate court docketing records will continue to be available through the online case lookup." A court advisory board had recommended that an online case-lookup system no longer contain records of criminal cases that were closed because the defendant was acquitted or the charges were dismissed or vacated. The panel contended that the change would protect those individuals' privacy and shield them from "social stigma," as well as potential housing or employment discrimination. Opponents of the proposed change said it would have made it harder for employers or others to research the criminal background of potential workers. The justices, in a three-page order, didn't explain their decision but said they had considered "the various competing concerns inherent in issues regarding public access to court records, including openness and transparency in government, accuracy in reporting and record-keeping and the avoidance of unjustifiable harm to reputation."

How Much Does A Bad Hire Really Cost?

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 00:00:00 -0600

by Rich Greenwald Imagine this: You are about to pitch a new piece of business when you turn on your laptop and realize the slides in your presentation aren’t in the proper order, some of the information isn’t accurate and the handouts are missing. Your new assistant blew it. You are embarrassed and unprepared to pitch the client. And you probably just lost out on signing a new client. Did your HR manager conduct a thorough background check on this new employee? Were references checked? What will this mistake cost your company? Myriad factors contribute to the costs associated with a bad hire. They include writing and placing a job ad; screening candidate resumes, phone calls and emails; arranging and conducting interviews; and checking references. If the candidate passes the test, additional costs can be identified. They include training, mistakes made, reduced revenues if the employee is in a sales position or one that generates company revenue, performance reviews and more. Relocation expenses and a signing bonus are other costly additions. Studies show varying costs associated with a bad hire. They range on the low end around 20 percent and on the high end, 200 percent. No matter which end of the spectrum, there are, in all cases, significant costs accrued when a company makes a bad hire. Some companies may see those costs in the short-term, or in the course of a year or two. The bottom line? No matter how you crunch the numbers, there is a negative financial effect. If your HR manager is conducting interviews directly, along with input from other staff members, that’s the first area of lost productivity. If and when that candidate is hired and turns out to be a poor performer, those employees might be the ones putting their responsibilities on the backburners to train the new person, fix work errors and potentially oversee work that must be redone. Poor performance and lost productivity can generate a high amount of lost revenues. For bad hires in a customer-facing position, revenues are lost with unhappy or dissatisfied customers and can potentially result in the loss of those clients. Imagine doing business with a company that recently hired a receptionist that is mean or careless. Are you being treated with respect? Are your messages getting through to the appropriate person? In the case of product development, bad – or unproductive – hires can slow down the process, delaying or passing a deadline to bring a product to market. Another way a bad hire impacts strong employees is by not adapting to corporate change. Good employees understand and respect change, but a bad hire may resist it, thereby distracting those employees who contribute positively. Small-business leaders are often heavily involved in the daily goings on of their companies, so a poorly-performing employee often impacts that leader’s confidence – not to mention stress levels – which typically travels down the management line. Time spent by all management trying to remedy the situation also decreases productivity. Utilities, manufacturers or industrial companies that require physical activity of their employees are also susceptible to lost revenues as a result of a bad hire. Careless employees have higher injury rates, resulting in lost productivity and disability payment. These employees also likely cause more avoidable accidents and may not only injure themselves but others, too. How can you avoid hiring a bad employee? Develop a checklist that includes all aspects of what your company is seeking in a new hire. Such items can include personality traits – How will this person adapt to our corporate culture? – and examples of relevant career successes. Be sure to check all references. Develop a complete list of competencies required by both the job and the company and assess whether the personalities in the new hire’s department will complement those of the new hire. Ask questions about previous employment and reasons for seeking work with your company. Last, but not least, interview the candidates properly and thoroughly and ask relevant questions that will provide insight as to whether the hire will be a sound one.

Snooping On Celebrities

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 00:00:00 -0600

Each time State Department clerk Brooke Reyna logged onto to the federal government’s PIERS database, an automated warning reminded her that the system was for official use only and unauthorized searches were a violation of federal law. Reyna was also informed that her activity on PIERS was subject to monitoring by the State Department and law-enforcement officials. But none of that apparently bothered Reyna, according to a federal grand jury indictment filed earlier this year in New Hampshire. Short for the Passport Information Electronic Records System, PIERS contains consular documents dating back to the 1970s, as well as all imaged passport applications since 1994. Specifically it houses full names, dates and places of birth, phone numbers and current addresses, plus parental and spousal information. Prosecutors allege that Reyna on 300 occasions looked up passport applications for “celebrities, actors, reality-television contestants, television personalities, musicians, models, athletes” and their families. News accounts say the sister of tabloid fixation Lindsay Lohan was among them. “Defendant Reyna had no official government reason to access and view these passport applications,” the indictment reads.

Starting A Business Looked To As A Way Forward For Ex-Inmates

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 00:00:00 -0600

by Marcia Pledger For nearly 10 years, Augustus Turner had a lot of time to ponder an American dream that he refused to believe was out of reach because of a big mistake and a permanent label. Turner was a prison inmate, hoping to run his own business after serving time for drug trafficking. He knew the odds weren't good. Although 97 percent of prisoners are eventually released, only 53 percent find work, and a far smaller share start their own businesses. "What I learned from the streets is how to hustle," said Turner, 39. "You can dream. You can pray. It all starts there. But you have to actively make it happen." And he did. Today, Turner operates Masterpieces, a 10-year-old art studio, tattoo shop and silk-screening business on the West Side of Cleveland. Turner made his dream happen through sheer perseverance, but a growing movement across the country is trying to train released convicts to achieve success as entrepreneurs. Northeast Ohio might be lagging behind the trend. A few people here are trying to make a difference, but no coordinated effort has emerged to help parolees stay out of prison by starting businesses. More than 700,000 people will be released from the nation's state or federal prisons this year. About two-thirds will wind up back behind bars within two or three years. Government, private-sector officials and academics seem to agree that a job helps keep an ex-prisoner from returning to the penitentiary. And nobody disputes the challenges of becoming employed. For instance, studies in Milwaukee and New York found that a criminal record reduces employment opportunities by 50 percent for white people and 64 percent for black people -- at a time when jobs are already scarce. More than 60 percent of employers surveyed in the 2002 Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality (MCSUI) reported that they would "probably not" or "definitely not" hire applicants with criminal history records. The answer might be entrepreneurship, according to a 2007 national report from the Prisoner Reentry Institute at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. "Venturing Beyond the Gates" is considered the most extensive recent study on successful re-entry to society through entrepreneurship. Only a handful of entrepreneur-loan programs exist for ex-prisoners. And communication is virtually nonexistent among them, according to the study. The most notable and biggest prison entrepreneurship program is in Texas, with offices in Houston and Dallas. Former Wall Street investor Catherine Rohr founded the program in 2004 after she toured a prison and decided that executives and inmates had more in common than most would think. Both know how to manage others, and even the most unsophisticated drug dealers understand business concepts like competition, profitability and proprietary sales channels, said David Joekel, executive relations manager at the prison program. Hardened criminals including murderers, thieves, drug dealers and gang leaders from more than 60 jails in Texas are invited to apply each year. Those selected are transferred to one correctional facility, where they learn entrepreneurial skills as well as strategies for finding a job. With private funding, MBA students as mentors, a highly selective admissions process and stringent pre- and post-release programs, ex-prisoners have started about 60 businesses in the program's six years. So far, 600 inmates have graduated. In the last two years, 98 percent of the graduates have found decent jobs within three months of release, with an average starting salary of $10.75 an hour. The program continues to gain momentum and interest from volunteers including business, government leaders and dozens of MBA programs, because of a return-to-prison rate of less than 10 percent for the graduates. The program got a $50,000 grant from the Kauffman Foundation because it made sense economically and contributed to society. The foundation supports entrepreneurial programs worldwide. "When you consider the costs for incarceration combined with recidivism rates, clearly traditional rehabilitation methodologies aren't preparing individuals for a productive return to mainstream society," said Thom Ruhe, director of entrepreneurship at the Kauffmann Foundation. "With employment challenges, creating a job for themselves may be the only viable option for ex-offenders. Why not give them skills to build a business for themselves and others?" At 72, serial entrepreneur Sandra Martin began Reentry Central, a national news and information website focused on entrepreneurial education and funding opportunities for ex-prisoners. Martin said she launched the site because, as a landlord, she increasingly met ex-prisoners telling her they couldn't rent apartments because of felony convictions. After careers in publishing, venture capital and direct mail, the Connecticut businesswoman now spends time trying to get micro-lenders to consider worthy ventures of ex-prisoners.Martin said the difference between an everyday citizen and a felon often amounts to one poor decision. She sees entrepreneurship as an option because it gets around employers who won't hire felons. "The advent of computer search technology has made even the smallest criminal sanction a lifetime sentence and is, day by day, creating a lifelong handicap for thousands of our citizens," she said. "One of the few ways around that is to become an entrepreneur, if you've got the talent and the energy." Anthony DiVincenzo, 41, of Independence is another example of how former prisoners can head down the right path by starting their own businesses. DiVincenzo lost his home and business in 2005 when an all-night cocaine party led to a three-year stint in the Richland Correctional Institution in Mansfield. Before he went to prison, he ran his own autobody shop in Hinckley for four years. "I lost it all," he said. "I filed bankruptcy and had a foreclosure on my 11-car garage business. My wife left me. I could have made it into a country song. "I looked for a job for six months when I was released from prison and nobody would hire me. I had to start my own business. "Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of experience, so I was offered $50,000 a couple times from auto dealerships, but as soon as they found out I had a felony, they couldn't walk me out the door fast enough." For the last two years, DiVincenzo has operated his own business, J.C. Auto Body LLC. He works out of friends' garages, primarily in Cleveland suburbs, often going to homes and businesses for pickup and delivery service. "I took all kinds of life skills and addiction recovery classes and even a computer class [in prison], but there was nothing available for entrepreneurship," DiVincenzo said. "Just about every man I met in prison was thinking about starting their own business when they got out. They know they face more roadblocks and prejudices with employers." Entrepreneurship programs for ex-prisoners are almost nonexistent in Ohio -- despite an apparent need. With one in 25 adults under correctional control -- prison, jail, probation or parole -- Ohio ranks among the nation's five worst states. In 1982, the figure was 1 in 116 adults. The average cost to house an inmate is $79 per day, or nearly $29,000 per year, according to the Pew Center on the States. The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction operates no entrepreneurial programs in prisons -- only educational, vocational, job training and apprenticeship programs. "While there are no specific programs geared solely toward entrepreneurship, if approached by an individual or organization to provide such programming we would be certainly willing to look at the proposal for consideration," said JoEllen Smith, a department spokeswoman. Cuyahoga County has one of only two government-funded re-entry offices in the state. Director Luis Vasquez suspects it's because about 8,000 people are released each year from state prison to this county alone. That's not including federal prison or county jails. But none of the office's programs are geared toward entrepreneurship. Vasquez said he's interested in developing social entrepreneurship programs that would entail partnerships with nonprofits and philanthropic groups. "A substantial number of ex-offenders have reached out to our office seeking help in getting businesses started," he said. "I think it's important that we explore entrepreneurship for a population that historically encounters difficulty in obtaining employment." Greg Jacobs in Akron is one of the individuals who have been trying to fill in for the lack of government programs. He is trying to get government contracts and grants for his nonprofit and for-profit business ventures, both called Felons for Hire. Jacobs created a board that includes businesspeople such as an insurance representative and a physician. His 4-year-old training programs teach felons trades such as installation of drywall, windows and floors; woodworking; carpentry; and catering. About 30 percent of the people in his programs want to start their own businesses, and he helps them get federal ID numbers, workers' compensation, insurance, licenses and bonding. "I show them how to build their credit by being trustworthy and paying their bills and taxes," he said. "A lot of them say they want to start their own businesses, but they don't want all of the responsibilities. You can't have it both ways." Jacobs, 57, served time twice. Once was when he says he was a teenage "common thief." Several years ago, he went back to prison for income tax evasion. That's when he decided to get his life together and help other felons. He didn't want a business name that used the word "hope" in it, because he says the public writes off people who have paid their debt to society. He also wanted felons to know he's serious about helping them get experience to find jobs or create their own. It took him seven months just to get the name registered as a nonprofit organization, he said. "People have said things to me like, 'You might as well have called the business "liars for hire." ' That's because society believes in double jeopardy. But people can change," he said. "You've got to learn how to outsmart the crime," Jacobs said. "I teach people how to fish instead of buying them a sandwich. If the fish ain't biting -- change the bait."

Take Me To Jail, Please

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 00:00:00 -0600

by Brandi Grissom Mark William Ivey really, really did not want to be on probation. He wanted to do his jail time and get on with his life — and his drinking. At his trial in Travis County, where he was charged with driving while intoxicated, Ivey declined to give the jury the option to sentence him to probation. He contended he didn’t need treatment, and despite blood-alcohol tests that showed he was over twice the legal limit, Ivey told jurors he was not too impaired to drive. “Yes, I will drive again with alcohol in my system,” he told the jury. When the judge tried to force Ivey to serve probation time and get substance-abuse treatment, he appealed, and eventually his case went all the way to the state’s top criminal court. Across Texas, defendants like Ivey who are charged with misdemeanor offenses are choosing to spend time in the local lockup rather than endure months on probation. They don’t want to deal with the hassle of probation conditions, and they can’t afford the thousands of dollars in fees that probation requires. People on both sides of the criminal justice system agree the trend is troubling: It means more people with criminal records and overcrowded local jails — and worse, it means that people charged with crimes like driving while intoxicated, possession of small amounts of drugs and family violence are not getting the treatment they would receive on probation. “A misdemeanor, a lot of times, just means that’s the only thing they were caught with,” says Todd Jermstad, director of probation in Bell and Lampasas counties. “It doesn’t mean they don’t have risks and issues that could lead to crime later on that could be stemmed with intervention.” Richard Alpert has been a prosecutor for 23 years in Tarrant County, and for 17 of those, he has led the misdemeanor division. It used to be, he says, that about 70 percent of the defendants charged with DWI would choose probation and the rest would take jail time. “What we currently have going on is just the opposite,” he says. Alpert says the choice that misdemeanor defendants make usually comes down to money. For a first DWI offense, a Class B misdemeanor, the range of punishment includes a $2,000 fine, between three days and six months in jail, and up to 100 hours of community service. Probation for the same offense can last up to two years and requires a monthly fee of $60 to $100. It usually includes some sort of drug and alcohol treatment, along with drug screenings, all at the defendant’s expense. Add it all up and probation costs significantly more than the fine. Then consider that defendants get credit for time served in jail before trial and could be eligible for “good time” credit of up to three days for each day that they work or do other good deeds in jail. In the end, individuals charged with a first DWI face the choice of two years’ worth of fees, drug tests and the authorities in their business or a one-time fine and a few days or weeks in the clink. “To be quite honest, it’s a very rational decision,” Jermstad says. But county jails don’t provide drug and alcohol abuse treatment programs, and they don’t offer counseling to prevent violent behavior. “The problem is (that) these people are not getting counseling, they’re not getting treatment,” Alpert says. All too often, Alpert says, he sees defendants like Mark Ivey who simply don’t want treatment. Ivey was arrested after officers found his blood-alcohol level was 0.165, more than double the legal limit of 0.08. He chose to take his case to a jury, and he declined a provision that would allow them to sentence him to probation. The jury found Ivey guilty and sentenced him to 35 days in jail and a $2,000 fine. But Travis County Judge Nancy Hohengarten decided Ivey needed more treatment than he could get behind bars. She suspended the jury’s sentence — and told Ivey he would have to serve two years on probation, pay a $500 fine, spend 30 days in jail, serve 60 hours of community service and get some counseling. Ivey argued on appeal that Hohengarten didn’t have the authority to override the jury’s decision. A lower appeals court disagreed and ruled that the judge could assign a punishment in the best interests of public safety. And in February 2009, the Court of Criminal Appeals issued a similar ruling, concluding that the judge had discretion. “The trial court could readily have concluded that the appellant was a generally law-abiding citizen who was in denial about an obvious drinking problem,” the Court of Criminal Appeals held in an opinion joined by seven of its nine judges. Prosecutors, probation directors and criminal justice advocates agree that lawmakers must make probation more appealing, at least as an alternative to hard time — especially in DWI cases. Texas law does not allow defendants in DWI cases to get deferred adjudication, which is similar to probation except that the offense is stricken from the person’s criminal record if the terms are successfully completed.

Myths About Crime

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 00:00:00 -0600

Facts and figures about the state of violent crime and punishment in the United States explode many of the prevalent myths. Myth: Violent crime is going down. Despite recent dips in the overall crime rate, violent crime rates remain at historic highs, and more than 10 million violent crimes were committed in 1993. Myth: The threat of violent crime is exaggerated. An American is more than twice as likely to be a violent crime victim as to be injured in a car accident, and as likely to be murdered as to die from AIDS. Myth: Most violent crimes against whites are committed by blacks. In 1993, only 18 percent of the 8.7 million violent crimes against whites were committed by blacks, while about 80 percent of the 1.3 million violent crimes against blacks were by blacks. Myth: Revolving door justice is rare. Barely one criminal is imprisoned for every 100 violent crimes, and about one in three violent crimes is committed by someone on probation, parole or pretrial release. Myth: Prisons are full of first-time drug offenders. Since 1974 more than 90 percent of all state prisoners have been violent or repeat offenders. Between 1980 and 1993, the number in state prisons for violent crimes grew by 221,000, 1.3 times the growth in imprisoned drug offenders (most of whom have long criminal histories). Myth: Persons on probation and parole pose little threat. In 1991, 45 percent of state prisoners were on probation or parole at the very time they committed their latest crimes, and while free, they committed at least 218,000 violent crimes, including 13,200 murders and 11,600 rapes. Myth: Because of mandatory sentencing, most prisoners now do long, hard time. Despite mandatory laws, between 1985 and 1992, the average maximum sentence declined about 15 percent, from 78 months to 67 months, and in 1992, the actual time served by violent felons was 43 months. Myth: More violent juvenile felons are being handled like adults. In 1991, about 51,000 male juveniles were held in public juvenile facilities, a third of them for violent crimes. However, in 1992 alone there were over 110,000 juvenile arrests for violent crimes.

Child Sex Crimes Rising Fast In Korea

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 00:00:00 -0600

Although child sex crimes were committed less frequently in Korea than other major countries, the growth rate here had been higher in recent years, a report found Sunday. According to the Korea Institute of Criminology, which analyzed the official figures in five countries ? Korea, Germany, the U.K., the U.S. and Japan ? the nation’s rate of sex crime against children was 16.9 per 100,000 children in 2008, the fourth-highest. The Korean figure was 6.8 times lower than that of Germany, 6 times than the U.K. and 3.5 times than the U.S., the report said. However, the growth rate in Korea was the highest, with a 69 percent surge in confirmed cases between 2005 and 2008. The U.S. figure increased by just 2.9 percent during the same period, while Japan, the U.K. and Germany saw 29.3 percent, 14.8 percent and 9.6 percent decreases, respectively. Another distinctive feature in sex crimes here was that many of the cases were committed under the influence of alcohol. In Korea, 37.1 percent of the child sex offenders were intoxicated, while the figures in other countries were below 10 percent, the report said, urging efforts to improve the nation’s drinking culture. The report also found that most of the victims were teenage girls, with male victims accounting for 19.4 percent in the U.S., 4 percent in Korea, 3.9 percent in Germany and 2.6 percent in Japan. Meanwhile, most of the offenders were males, the report said. Female offenders made up 3.9 percent in Germany, 1.2 percent in the U.S., 0.6 percent in Japan and 0.4 percent in Korea. The crime rate by an acquaintance of the victim was 69.9 percent in the U.S., 60.7 percent in Germany, 39.4 percent in Korea and 20.6 percent in Japan. That of family members was 20.9 percent in the U.S., 19.3 percent in Germany, 11.9 percent in Korea and 2 percent in Japan. After a series of revision efforts recently, the nation’s strictness of penalties against sex offenders was considered at a similar level with other countries analyzed, the report said. “As many sex crime victims hesitate to report, only one out of 168 cases is believed to be prosecuted currently in Korea. Considering that, imposing stricter punishment would have a limited effect in preventing potential crimes,” said Kang Eun-young, research fellow at the institute who led the analysis study. “Efforts are needed to help more victims to inform their damage, while police investigation should increase its capability of verifying the cases,” she said. Based on the study result, the government plans to take measures to encourage victims to report, such as tightening the duty of report on the victim’s guardians and abandoning the rule that requires a victim’s complaint for a sex crime.

Personal Data Of Korea's Child Sex Offenders To Go Online

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 00:00:00 -0600

The personal information of child sex offenders has become available online, according to government officials. The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family said Monday that adult citizens aged 20 or older can check the information, including photos, addresses and past criminal records at www.sexoffender.go.kr Korea became one of the only countries to implement such a measure, after the United States Most countries provide the information only through police stations or community centers. The information is to be revealed for up to 10 years in Korea. The subjects of the new measure are currently those who were sentenced to a suspended jail term and ordered by the court to have their information revealed since Jan. 1, when the law on sex protection of children and teenagers was revised to allow the public disclosure of personal information. The information of current inmates also will be available right after their jail term expires, the ministry said. “In order to eradicate sex crimes against children, related policies such as prevention, protection of victims, surveillance of criminals and punishment should be carried out properly,” said Gender Equality Minister Paik Hee-young. Reflecting the public’s keen interest in children’s safety after a series of brutal sex crimes recently, access to the website was sometimes denied or slowed down due to the influx of users on the first day of implementation. So far, the information of 401 sex criminals who committed sex crimes between 2006 and 2009 has been provided to their neighbors through police stations nationwide. The information, including that of 364 others who are currently in prison, will be revealed online from September as well, the ministry said. From next year, the ministry also plans to offer the information directly to the parents of children and teenagers via mail. However, the information online is banned from use for further publication, and discrimination based on that information is prohibited.

Prosecutorâ€™s Office Opposes Sealing Of Criminal Records

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 00:00:00 -0600

The Lorain County , Ohio Prosecutor’s Office is opposed to a defense attorney’s request to seal the online docket records of some criminal defendants during their trial process, according to responses filed yesterday. Lorain Attorney J. Anthony Rich requested the online records be temporarily unavailable so jurors or prospective jurors would not be able to access the records during jury selection and the trial. Rich filed the motions on behalf of defendants Anthony Riggins, Brady Phillips, Richar Perry, Billy Gilbert and Gregory Barnes. Riggins is charged with rape, Barnes with kidnapping and rape, and Gilbert, Perry and Phillips face murder and other charges. Rich said he believes Lorain County Common Pleas Court is a “little bit behind the times” in addressing the issues of jurors being able to view and access defendants’ criminal histories online. The prosecutor’s response stated Rich’s request can not be met because not only would it be barring access to jurors, but to the public as a whole. “Preventing access to the defendant’s name on the public docket does not merely affect the jurors; it directly affects the rest of the population, not only of Lorain County but all Internet users worldwide,” the response states. “The general public has a right to look up whoever they choose on a public access website for any number of reasons. Employers, homeowners, people meeting a potential friend routinely check the court docket to see if the person has a criminal record. Restricting that access may jeopardize someone’s safety or permit someone to engage or continue to engage in criminal conduct.” While the prosecutor’s office understands the importance of the right to a fair trial, a defendant can request a more crafted “jury instruction to more accurately reflect today’s technology,” the prosecutor’s office stated.

Calgary Police Warn Of Criminal Record Check Delays

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 00:00:00 -0600

It may take you longer to get cleared to work with a volunteer group or coach a hockey team in the coming weeks. Thousands of Calgarians get a criminal record check every year and that process has changed slightly but has resulted in some workload backups. The checks used to include surname, given name, gender and date of birth, now including only the latter two. Acting Staff Sergeant Scott Boyd says it helps identify those who have changed their name after being pardoned for a sexual offense. He says not only will the public be more aware of the change, but those convicted of crimes are also aware they can't "slip through the cracks". Anyone flagged is subject to fingerprint tests, which means estimated processing time could be anywhere from 21-120 days, depending on criminal file findings. Meanwhile, Straightline International offers Provincial Court searches throughout Alberta (including Calgary). Call 1-866-909-6678

Les Rosen's Corner Employers Should Be Wary of Cheap or Instant Online Criminal Background Checks

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 00:00:00 -0600

Numerous internet sites have sprung up in recent years promising cheap or instant background checks that deliver criminal information on anyone. These sites utilize a so-called "National Criminal database" and vendors of such databases typically claim to have compiled millions of records from every state so users can know if someone is a criminal at the click of a button. These databases appear to offer employers an instant criminal check at a very low price. Although a multi-state records database can be a powerful tool when used by a qualified employment screening firm as part of an overall background check, anyone who thinks they are getting a real criminal check can be in for a rude awaking when they discover that such searches are far from the real thing. Applicants with criminal records can easily be missed, and people without reportable records can be incorrectly identified as criminals, both results carrying negative financial and legal implications for employers. Anyone using these databases, especially for employment purposes, needs to understand the limitations and legal exposure associated with using them. If they don't, employers may find themselves embroiled in litigation. Here are just some of the issues: -Multi-jurisdictional database are NOT official FBI database searches. FBI records are only available to certain employers or industries where Congress or a state has granted access. Searches offered by web sites are drawn from government data that is commercially available or has been made public. -So-called national criminal searches are a research tool only and are not a substitute for a hands-on search at the county level under any circumstances (or the functional equivalent of a county level search). The best use for these databases is to indicate additional places for a background firm to search in case a record is found in a jurisdiction that was not searched at the county court level. -In addition, many states have very limited database information that is available to employers. Examples of states where such databases may have very limited value are California and New York. Texas is another state where database information can be wildly inaccurate. -Databases in each state are compiled from a number of sources. There are a number of reasons that database information may not be accurate or complete. Because of the nature of databases, the appearance of a person's name on a database is not an indication the person is criminal any more than the absence of a name shows he/she is not a criminal. In other words, these databases can contain results that are a "false positive," or a "false negative." Any lack of a match is not the same as a person being "cleared." -Another reason a database search can be inaccurate is the technical nature of how searches are performed. Searches are often based upon matching last name, the date of birth and the first three letters of the first name in order to eliminate computer matches that are not applicable. In some states, there is no or limited date of birth information which means a search of that state will have little or no value. Or, a person may have been arrested under a different first name. -There are also significant legal complications for employers. Any search from an internet site for employment is subject to the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) an often times state laws, which highly regulates employment background checks. There are some instant "criminal sites" that do not bother to make that clear or mention it only in the "fine print." -In addition, before relying on a database search for employment, FCRA Section 613 must be followed. That section requires that if a criminal matter is found that can adversely affect employment, then a letter should be sent to the applicant by the agency providing the information, which many web sites certainly do not do for employers. This option is not even allowed under California law. The other option is to reconfirm all "hits" at the county court level to insure that the information is accurate, complete and up to date at the time it is reported. Also, keep in mind that a criminal record should not be used to automatically disqualify an applicant, without taking into account the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) rules as to what is a job-related criminal offense. Otherwise, an employer may find themselves facing allegations of discrimination. In addition, the use of criminal records for employment is also intensely regulated by many states, and without professional guidance, employers may use information that is impermissible, again exposing an employer. The bottom-line: These do it yourself "criminal "searches are not always as advertised. Unless you are a professional, such a search can easily lead an employer astray or get them into legal hot water. Even for non-employers that want to check out someone, such as someone that wants to screen a potential "date," it is critical to understand that these sites are NOT the real thing when it comes to criminal checks, since in many instances the search can have holes in them the size of Texas.

2010 Pre-Employment Screener's Conference Wows The Crowd

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 00:00:00 -0600

The 2010 Pre-Employment Screeners' Conference happened to be one of the most informative and interesting events held by the Background Investigator and Steven Brownstein, yet. David Cuillier, a journalism professor at the University of Arizona, spent more than an hour explaining usage of freedom of Information, how to interact with court personnel to get the results you want, and even how to save money when ordering copies or buying data. Anyone who performs or has a staff that performs court searches needed to hear Cuillier's words of advice. Steven Brownstein quotes, "I have done many a search and watching (Cuillier) go through his methods of asking a clerk for an answer was not only enetertaining but downright informative." The schools of journalism throughout the USA have helped us in pre-employment screening for years by opening up the courts to our requests. Les Rosen and Cheri Smith- Homa rallied the attendees on with their profound insights into the current status of our industry. Not one, but two keynote speakers rocked the conference. Joe Calloway, a world reknowned speaker, lit a fire under our ambition, bringing home the message of excellence with the topic, A Category of One. Avish Parashar, not only entertained the attendees, but taught us how to use humour to make changes in the workplace and our attitudes. Steven Brownstein then spoke of the importance of knowing your court researchers. He said that many pre-employment screening companies think they are getting one result when they are actually getting someting else. And that could and does cause problems. Dennis Brownstein spent time explaining the mathematical values used in determining turn around time. His low key method of teaching made learning a breeze. The conference could not have been complete without a couple of professional hackers breaking into the hotels' wireless connection (with their approval) and hijacking a few of our E-mails. Their presentation really opened up a bunch of eyes and afterwards they were swarmed with many questions about computer security. Ron Brand gave an update of FCRA rules that would be, in other conferences standard practice, but at Clearwater; Brand's technique was most enlightening. Finally, Michele Stuart, the nation's Social Networking expert, gave a clear picture of the uses of Facebook, etc. for pre-employment screening purposes. For those of you that could not make it your timing could not have been worse. But don't worry, there's always next year.

Online British Vigilante Names And Shames Paedophiles

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 00:00:00 -0600

Chris Wittwer, Britain's 'Facebook Vigilante' has created a Facebook database of nearly 6,000 registered sex offenders. Wittwer, 34, spent two years compiling names, mugshots, newspaper reports, and court records from counties all across Britain, the Telegraph reports. The Exeter warehouse worker has attracted 18,000 followers to his 44 Facebook groups. Although Wittwer's first Facebook group was shut down by local authorities, he explains that he was able to continue after he proved "No hearsay or unconfirmed allegations go on the site. That's how I've been able to continue legally." Wittwer went on to say of his undertaking: "I feel really proud - it's quite an achievement and if it helps people spot sex offenders living in their area, who are a known risk to children, then I've done a good thing. [...] " "But it's not a question of being a hate mob - it's the simple fact that on the national sex offenders register you can access some information but you can't see the faces of those who commit the crimes. [...]" "With my groups you can see the picture of the offender, their name, the date of their offence and where they were resident at the time." He also claims to have ‘secret’ sources passing details from the sex offenders’ register. He said: ‘I feel really proud. It’s quite an achievement and, if it helps people spot sex offenders living in their area who are a known risk to children, I’ve done a good thing.’ However, police and crime experts accused him of acting irresponsibly and putting victims of mistaken identity in danger of revenge attacks. Mr Wittwer was given a suspended prison sentence in May 2007 after being involved in a pub brawl which left the victim with a broken jaw. He also received a three-year international banning order after being convicted of football hooliganism in 2004. The father-of-two, from Exeter, said: ‘I fully admit, I’ve been in trouble in the past – but I’ve turned the corner in the last two years.’

Parents Getting Criminal Records For Allowing Their Children To Skip School

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 00:00:00 -0600

Record numbers of parents are ending up with criminal records for letting their children skip school, newly released figures revealed. More than 8,000 were convicted last year over their child’s truancy – a five-fold rise in eight years. Since tougher sanctions were introduced in 2001, nearly 41,000 parents – mostly mothers – have been convicted over truancy and given a criminal record. Figures released by the Ministry of Justice under the Freedom of Information Act show that in 2009, 10,697 parents in England were taken to court for failing to ensure their children go to school. Of these, 8,330 were convicted. Most – 5,326 – were fined, while 399 were given community sentences and 54 suspended prison sentences. Fourteen were imprisoned for an average sentence of a month. The remaining defendants were given an absolute discharge. The figures show that, on average, 56 parents faced criminal proceedings over truancy every day of the school year. In 2001, only 1,961 were prosecuted and 1,595 found guilty. Margaret Morrissey, of pressure group Parents Outloud, said there was no evidence that jailing parents had cut truancy. She added: ‘If you’ve got a 15 or 16-year-old who doesn’t want to go to school, there’s not an awful lot as a parent that you can do about it.’ Mrs Morrissey said there was ‘no evidence’ that jailing parents had improved the truancy rate in schools. Siobhan Freegard, co-founder of parenting website Netmums, said: ‘In many cases, parents want to help their child go to school but often, particularly if the child is a teenager and physically bigger than the parent, it can be extremely difficult to force them to go. ‘In some cases there are genuine reasons for a child not wanting to be at school and in these situations parents need support - rather than punishment - to help their child resolve these issues.’ She added: ‘Often parents really do care but don’t know what to do. You rarely come across a mum who actually doesn’t care and doesn’t want to do the best for their child. Figures released earlier this year by the Department for Education suggest that unauthorised absences soared under Labour. In 2009/10, the truancy rate - the percentage of school registration sessions missed without permission from parents - stood at 1.01 per cent. While this was down on 1.03 per cent the year before, it marked a rise on 1996/97 levels of 0.73 per cent. The Coalition claims Labour failed to get a grip on the literacy problems that can underpin truancy and the poor behaviour which can lead to bullying. It is expected to unveil a package of reforms next week intended to strengthen classroom discipline. The DfE said the use of prosecution was a matter for local authorities.

Disparity In Record Keeping Causes Confusion In Wisconsin

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 00:00:00 -0600

In certain Wisconsin counties, “Some defendants have serious charges wiped away from the online database if they are dismissed under plea deals and some do not, depending on where they are prosecuted,” reports the Associated Press. In some counties in the state – and the number is not yet known – prosecutors file new charges as part of plea agreements, causing county clerks to remove the previous charges from the online database in favor of the new ones, which are generally less severe. The practice of filing new charges in plea deals and erasing the old ones has become more common “in the last year for reasons that are unclear,” says AP. The result is a disparity between counties. In many, prosecutors don’t erase the old charges after a plea deal but simply amend or dismiss the existing ones, so there is still a record of both the original and amended charges.

California Launches Online Inmate Locator

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 00:00:00 -0600

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has launched a new online database that will for the first time allow the general public to locate each of California’s 170,000-plus inmates who are housed in state penitentiaries. Website: inmatelocator.cdcr.ca.gov The Inmate Locator website is searchable by last name and first name, as well as corrections identification number. For each prisoner, the database lists the person’s age, admission date and the facility in which he or she is incarcerated, and also includes driving directions to the facility. The database is updated weekly. California already put a detailed database online of the 63,000-plus registered sex offenders living in the state; half of the entries include the person’s home address. For each offender, a photograph and a list of known offenses is included. Website: www.meganslaw.ca.gov

Special Thanks To The Background Investigatorâ€™s Management

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 00:00:00 -0600

Steven Brownstein, Publisher of The Background Investigator, wants everyone to know how grateful he is for the fine job done at the Pre-employment Screeners’ Conference. “In case you don’t know,” he says, “my wife, Rhoda, and Faheem Ebrahim, Straightline International’s Hong Kong Manager, played extraordinary roles in providing our industry with the finest quality conference that can be imagined.”

Continuing Brownstein says, “What goes on behind the scenes is remarkable. The two individuals (Rhoda Brownstein and Faheem Ebrahim) are hands down the best in event planning.“ Steven Brownstein, also, reminded us that the next Clearwater event will be in January 2012.

Franklin County, Ohio Municipal Court Records Search

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 00:00:00 -0600

The "Court Access & Search Engine" (CASE) Network is a new project that offers an option to conduct a municipal court case information search that is intended to provide efficient information access. The CASE Network will continue to grow and add new functionality and services to better serve the public into the future. The CASE Network Records Search is intended to improve ease of use, provide efficient information access, and create a more user friendly interface. The case information contained within this beta web site is generated from computerized records maintained by the Franklin County Municipal Clerk of Court, and is deemed to be public information. While every effort is made to assure the data is accurate and current, it must be accepted and used by the recipient with the understanding that no warranties, expressed or implied, concerning the accuracy, reliability or suitability of this data have been made. The Court, Clerk of Court, their agents, and the developers of this web site assume no liability whatsoever associated with the use or misuse of the data contained herein. Further, your assessment of the CASE Network will help to determine if the intended benefits have been realized. On the CASE Network you will find a survey where users may share any feedback, insights, or ideas. We look forward to hearing from you. If your search times out, please provide additional search criteria to narrow your results. The information that is provided is current as of your request. The cases in our system do not include Mayor's Court or any county other than Franklin. However, it may not reflect updates, changes or rulings that have not yet been posted to the system. Please do not hesitate to contact the Clerk's office at (614) 645-8186 (Criminal Traffic), or (614) 645-7220 (Civil) to clarify any information on this site. Website: www.fcmcclerk.com/case

The Real Deal Behind India Criminal Record Searches

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 00:00:00 -0600

Criminal Records History Retrieval - India by Steven Brownstein Briefly (We will use Bangalore, Karnataka as an example): India is divided into states. Karnataka, as an example, is a state in India. Karnataka is divided into Districts (similar to U.S. counties). Each District is comprised of cities, towns, and villages. Bangalore is the capital of Karnataka and the seat of the District of Bangalore. Criminal records are available to the public at many levels. At the end of this tutorial, we will explain the differences and benefits of each type of record search. India Police and Record Keeping Thare are several levels of police in India. From the bottom up: Local police City Police District Police or State Police National Police Local Police Records The most basic search is at the local police. Each local police station keeps its own records. They do not have direct access to city-wide records. They report information to the City Police. Note: Most local India researchers use the local police as their source of information. Most researchers in India call by telephone directly to a local police station for search requests. There is no charge from the local police for this service. Turnaround times vary based on the availability of staff at that police station. They try to determine which police station to check by comparing addresses. One rather large problem incurred by India researchers is the accuracy of the search as local maps are rarely available to pinpoint the correct local police station. City Police Records City Police keep records reported by all the local police stations in the city. These records are available to the public. For example, the Bangalore City Police charge Rs200 (about US$5) for a city wide search. Turnaround time is about two weeks. The results include all records for the city of Bangalore. District or State Police Records Every District has a State Police District Police Department. The District and State level police records are held by the State Police. These records are not available to the public except in some cases of foreigner arrests.

India Courts And Record Keeping Each state has a similar court structure, i.e., a High Court, District Courts, and Magistrate Courts. All court records are public unless sealed by the Court. Cases heard at the District Court are comparable in the U.S. as felonies and serious misdemeanors. The court records are computerised. The records are controlled by each state's High Court. The NIC (National Informatics Centre) based in New Delhi controls the computerisation of these records. All state court records are centralized at the High Court. Computerisation has made this possible. Ideally, one could search all District and Magistrate Court cases at the State (High Court) level. A previous court hardware glitch in the Court's computer system has made integration not possible at all High Courts so some District or Magistrate Courts need to be individually searched. Comparison Between Police And Court Searches The differences between police searches and court searches are glaring. Local Police Record Check vs. Magistrate Court Search Local police department searches focus on arrests made at that police station only. The prosecution of cases from the local police are heard at a Magistrate Court or District Court. Each Magistrate Court hears cases from several or more local police stations. Therefore magistrate court cases cover a wider area than local police and are preferable. City Police Record Check vs. Magistrate Court Search City police department searches focus on arrests made in that city only. Since magistrate courts cover only a slice of a city (or District) city police searches are favorable over a magistrate court search as they cover a wider area. District Court Search vs. City Police Record Check District Court cases cover all cities in the District. They would include all cases of the type most favorable to U.S. pre-employment screening standards. District court cases cover a wider area than city police thereby making this the most preferred search (of all search types) barring future access to sate-wide or national records.

Background Check Firms Find Zero Hit Ratio With Local Police Search In India

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 00:00:00 -0600

One joke in India is you can find a criminal record on any politician but you can not find one on an job applicant or employee. Why's that?

Did you know that most large companies in India will not even do criminal checks anymore?

Why's that?

Simply put - It is the local police check. Local police simply do not have the resources to perform a proper check.

And historically background check companies in India provided local police checks. What is a local police check?

It is a check of that police station's records for an arrest at that station. That's it. No more. But sometimes less.

Some police stations do not have full time staff trained to manage police records.

So the question is:

Why perform a local police check?

Large Indian companies are pretty smart. They are not keen to spending money where there are no results.

But in the defense of India background screening companies; they (the screening companies) say that the large companies will not spend the money on a legitimate check either.

So in the meantime the majority of local police checks being sold are to U.S. companies.

Why's that?

Straightline International Adds Cook County Searches Through Crimefx

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 00:00:00 -0600

"Straightline International is proud to announce a new relationship with Crimefx, a leading internet and hands-on provider of Cook County and Northern Illinois county court records. According to Steven Brownstein, President of Straightline, he feels that this new partnership will open doors to international companies wishing to do background checks on USA based employees and jo applicants. This comes in the wake of a recent press article that many Americans are searching abroad for employment that they can't find in the USA. Cook County is one of the largest court jurisdictions in the world. Brownstein figures that there are over one million records in the Chicago area alone that are now accessible to pre-employment screening companies through their service. Straightline International is offering same day service for Cook County searches. You can contact Straightline at 1-866-909-6678 or by E-mail at orders@search4crime.com"

Criminal Checks Go Overboard

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 00:00:00 -0600

Not content with requiring three different bills with an address, a passport, driving licence, birth certificate, marriage certificate, a letter from your mum and a valid credit card, the big two video rental agencies are now going to require a Criminal Records Bureau check before they will let prospective customers rent DVDs. "It's to protect our assets," said Jack 'Buster' Block, CEO of one of the two DVD rental agencies instigating the policy. "The DVDs cost us two pounds per DVD, we can't be renting them out to any Tom Dick or Harry." Depending on the results of the CRB check, the rental agencies may prevent a customer from renting any DVD or game, however, the customer may just be prevented from renting videos or games that contain children, violence or scenes with vulnerable adults. "We can't be seen to be hiring children's films to known paedophiles," said Block. "This protects us, as well as the consumer." CRB checks that come back indicating that a person has a conviction for theft, piracy, counterfeiting or parking violations will be completely barred from renting videos. "These are the sort of people who will rip us off," said Block. "The sort of people we don't want to rent videos too." Public privacy groups are up in arms at this casual use of the CRB system that has been put in place to protect children and vulnerable adults. "This is a gross invasion of privacy," said Cathy Bean, spokeswoman for Privacy, a non-profit organisation that represents people whose privacy has been invaded. "Most people will come back clean, but that's not the issue. I believe that this is a money making scheme by the CRB, as they charge fifty pounds per check. They should not let just anybody request a CRB, there should be stricter guidelines." "People should think themselves lucky," Block responded. "We were going to insist that all members sign up to organ donation before renting. Just in case they died while in possession of one of our videos so we could ensure we got our late fees by selling off their organs."

Monthly Court Records Fee Dropped In Lafayette, MS

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 00:00:00 -0600

Lafayette County has cancelled a $30-a-month fee to view online records of the chancery court. The county acted after the Mississippi Ethics Commission said it couldn't charge for something people could walk in and see for free. Subscribers would have had access to all court records including land and deed records, child custody matters, divorces, wills and trusts and name changes. Adoption and youth court records are still sealed by state law.

Christmas Season Hiring Update

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 00:00:00 -0600

Seasonal Holiday Hiring Expected To Stay Flat Seasonal retail hiring is expected to stay about the same as last year, with any increases coming in the form of small gains, retail groups said. And some of the most popular stores for holiday shopping, such as Best Buy and Toys R Us, are scaling back their Christmastime workforces. Retailers hire an influx of employees during the holiday season — often doubling their employee counts — to accommodate an uptick in traffic and sales. Many have been quickly recruiting and training new hires during the last few weeks. But this year, with economists and analysts predicting only a modest year-over-year increase in holiday sales, many merchants are hiring conservatively because they don't want to risk an excess of underutilized workers. The growth of online shopping has also decreased the need for hordes of employees in bricks-and-mortar stores. "Over-hiring would be just like getting way too much merchandise on your shelves," said John A. Challenger, chief executive of global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Retailers "are trying to keep their costs down, so I think what we'll see is companies adopting strategies like giving their current workers more hours, having a second call-in workforce that they can call if the traffic is better than their forecasts." That's a reversal from last year, when many retailers swelled their workforces in anticipation of a healthy holiday season, leading to a 27% increase in seasonal hires from 2009, the consulting firm said. This year, Macy's Inc. plans to hire roughly 78,000 seasonal associates for its Macy's and Bloomingdale's stores, call centers, distribution warehouses and online fulfillment centers, about a 4% rise from last year's holiday season. Kohl's Corp. is hiring more than 40,000 seasonal associates nationwide, up about 5% from the same period in 2010 to accommodate new stores that opened this year. After hiring more than 92,000 seasonal team members nationwide last year, Target Corp. is planning to hire "slightly more than that" this year, a company spokesman said. J.C. Penney Co. expects to add 37,000 workers, up from 30,000 last year.

Don't Worry America: China Is Rising But Not Catching Up

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 00:00:00 -0600

by Michael Beckley Most Americans fear that China will soon surpass the US in global power and economic clout. But this widespread view is wrong, based on sloppy analysis and outdated conceptions of national power. People who believe that China is overtaking the US make at least one of three mistakes. As President Obama made clear during his recent tour of Asia, the United States is committed to countering China's rise in the region. But can it succeed? Most people think not, and understandably so. While China's economy grows at 9 percent per year, the US reels from economic recession and political paralysis. US opinion polls consistently show that majorities of Americans believe China is the world's dominant economic power. And according to the Pew Research Center, pluralities in 15 out of 22 countries believe that China will overtake the US as the world's superpower. But this widespread view is wrong, a fabrication based on sloppy analysis and outdated conceptions of national power. People who believe that China is overtaking the US make at least one of three mistakes. First, they confuse growth rates with total growth. Since 1991, China's per capita income grew 15 percent annually, and its military spending rose 10 percent annually. By contrast, America's per capita income and military spending grew at annual rates of 4 percent and 2 percent respectively. Yes, 15 is greater than 4, and 10 is greater than 2. What could be simpler? But growth rates are not comparable. The average Chinese income in 2010 was $7,500. Fifteen percent of $7,500 is actually less money than 4 percent of $47,000, the average American income that year. Despite China's higher growth rates, the average Chinese citizen is $17,000 poorer compared with the average American today than he was in 1991. Over the same time period, Chinese military spending declined by $140 billion relative to America's, even when excluding funds for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. China's growth rates are high because its starting point was low. China is rising, but it is not catching up. Second, many observers rely on flawed indicators to gauge Chinese economic power. For example, some analysts believe that China is the world's "leading technology-based economy" because it exports more high-technology products than any other country. But Chinese high-tech exports are not very Chinese and not very high-tech: Over 90 percent are produced by foreign firms and consist of imported components that are merely assembled in China. These percentages have increased over time, a trend that suggests Chinese firms are falling further behind foreign competitors. Indeed, in any category "research and development, patents, profits" Chinese high-tech firms have fallen further behind their American counterparts over the last two decades.

Another misleading statistic is China's debt-to-GDP ratio, which the Chinese government lists at 17 percent. America's debt-to-GDP ratio, by contrast, will remain above 60 percent through 2020. But most Chinese state spending is not reported in official figures because it is funneled through investment entities connected to local governments. Studies that account for this spending place China's debt-to-GDP ratio between 75 and 150 percent. And things are only likely to get worse for China. Because of the one-child policy, China will soon suffer the most severe aging process in human history. The ratio of Chinese workers per retiree will plummet from 8:1 today to 2:1 by 2040. The fiscal cost of this swing in dependency ratios alone may exceed 100 percent of China's GDP. The American working-age population, by contrast, will expand by 17 percent over the next 40 years. America's fiscal future may not be bright, but it is brighter than China's. Finally, people tend to conflate size with power. China will soon boast the largest economy in the world, and many observers interpret this event as a power transition between the United States and China. But size is not power. After all, China was the world's largest economy during its "century of humiliation" when it was ripped apart by Western powers and Japan. Britain, by contrast, ruled a quarter of the globe in the 19th century but was never, even at its peak, the largest economy. In fact, Britain's GDP was half the size of China's and far smaller than India's when it invaded and subjugated both nations. Of course, China's size makes it an important player on transnational issues, particularly climate change and trade. Moreover, China's military can threaten the United States without catching up, compensating for technological inferiority with asymmetric strategies and a greater willingness to take risks and bear casualties. But China is not an emerging superpower in the mold of the Soviet Union, nor is it a great power like early-twentieth century Germany. It is a large developing country and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Americans, therefore, should not fear China. But neither should they shy away from competing with this rising power for influence in Asia.

Straightline International Leads Industry In Overseas Criminal Record Checks

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0600

For the tenth straight year, Straightline International has led the U.S. and world markets in providing criminal record cheks for foreign searches. According to Steven Brownstein, President of Sraightline International, "This comes as no surprise to me. What Straightline performs can not be outdone by others, especially those that think that by posting a Web Page, a price list, and copy some mumbo-jumbo about how a search is done; those that think that this is the service our industry wants are sorely mistaken." "In fact," Brownstein continues, "no one in the background check industry comes even close to Straightline International's exacting methods of criminal record extraction. Straightline actually has been to and visits regularly scores of courthouses around the world in search of access. This hundred thousand dollar(s) investment pays off in the product that Straightline provides." Over the years Straightline International has put to work hundreds of private contractors around the world. Brownstein adds, "This formula works. We at Straightline end up with a trained researcher that can go around the various courts and places of public record access in major cities of the world. It worked for me at DAC Services setting up the first USA national network of researchers and it's working globally." Interestingly enough, Straightline International, has most recently added researchers in Istanbul, Turkey and Lisbon, Portugal. "When it comes to the workforce, whether it is the employer or job applicant, in this time of trying needs and wants, I want everyone to be clear that Straightline International is going to be there to aid in this process." "That is the secret to our success, ten years running."

Workplace Violence - Learn the Facts So You Can Identify The Signs

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0500

In looking over the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data for the last ten years, assaults and violent acts in the workplace continue as one of the top three leading causes of death of employees. Today’s statistics continue to show this chilling trend: In 2009, an average of 15 employees were killed each week as a result of workplace violence. 75% of workplace homicides occur at the hands of robbers and other assailants. 17% of workplace homicides occur at the hands of coworkers and customers/clients. It is truly distressing to know that every time an employee walks through the doors of their employer, they are at risk of becoming a victim of a workplace crime. For this reason, it’s important for employers and employees alike to take time to learn the facts about violence in the workplace, as well as the tell-tale signs that, when identified and dealt with early enough, can help save lives. According to recent data, the top three occupations with the highest rate of workplace fatalities due to assaults and violent acts are: (1) sales and sales-related positions; (2) management positions, and (3) protective service occupations, such as law enforcement. Aside from the heartless murders, it’s important to remember that thousands of employees are injured as a result of workplace violence every year. The majority of those employees also work in the above high-risk occupations. With robbery being at the forefront of these violent acts, one can understand the risks associated with certain high-risk jobs. Some locations and businesses, such as gas stations and convenience stores are often viewed by criminals as prime sources for cash and other valuables. In such cases, it’s often the business itself that’s targeted, with the employee becoming a victim during the crime. But with shootings, stabbings, and other violent acts taking place in professional office buildings, with employes singled out by disgruntled coworkers and customers, no job is truly safe from violent crime. The majority of employees that carry out violence in the workplace are between the ages of 25 and 45. Approximately 80% of them are men, and many have worked for their employer for several years. They are often described as being “loners” and routinely unhappy employees. It is also very common for them to have problems with authority figures. The profile of an employee that goes on a rampage suggests that they tend to place blame on those around them, never taking responsibility for their mistakes. They don’t adapt to change very well and can become easily suspicious and even paranoid of their coworkers. Many of these disgruntled employees believe most everyone in the workplace is against them and that they are purposely being singled out and overpassed for pay raises and promotions by their supervisors. No one can explain what truly drives a coworker or customer to want to injure or kill an employee. However, experts agree that the angry emotions associated with these heinous crimes are usually evident before the incident. Although the media may lead us to believe that employees who kill are normal people who just “lose it” one day, this is far from true. In just about every case involving a workplace homicide, detectives have been able to identify several signs of the killer being aggravated, angry, and hateful towards their victim(s). Signs often include: -A pattern of harassment. -Rude comments. -Other dehumanizing behaviors that transfer blame onto others. In many cases of disgruntled employees, their negative conduct increases over time and often includes what could be easily perceived as empty verbal threats. It’s very important for employers and coworkers to watch for changes in the employee’s attendance, productivity, personal hygiene, behavior, and social patterns. Experts agree that employees who carry out premeditated violence in the workplace often do so as a result of multiple years of unresolved emotional issues and conflict. Problems with drugs and alcohol, family pressures, and financial difficulties often intensify their negative feelings and interfere with their ability to cope.

Unstable employees are also often triggered into violence by certain workplace events. How an employer handles such an event can either add to or diffuse the escalation of a potentially violent outburst. Common events that trigger workplace violence include:

-Termination of employment.

-Layoff.

-Negative employee evaluation.

-Passing over the employee for a promotion or raise.

In numerous cases, it was one of the above events that caused an already disgruntled employee to carry out a violent act against their employer. Although the offending manager or supervisor is often the prime target, some of these angry employees have been known to go on rampages, injuring and taking the lives of coworkers, customers, and even family and friends.

Workplace violence often involves personal issues and stressors unrelated to employment. Because of this, it’s not an easy problem to resolve. As a result, employers are encouraged to take a zero-tolerance stance on violence among employees in the workplace. Having a system in place that allows employees to vent their frustrations can also be helpful. In addition, all managers and supervisors should be trained on how to identify the early warning signs and what steps to take when an employee is considered a work-violence risk. Like many of today’s problems, awareness, education and communication are the means to reducing the risks associated with workplace violence.

Maine Trial Tests Limits On County Fees For Records

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0500

A trial that will test how much county governments can charge for copies of millions of public records began in Cumberland County Superior Court. John Simpson, general manager of MacImage of Maine, an information technology company based in Cumberland, has sued six counties, contending that under Maine's Freedom of Access Act they are obligated to provide him copies of their registries of deeds databases at a reasonable cost. Simpson wants to create a statewide database of property records and launch a website where real estate professionals, bankers, title abstractors, genealogists and others who need copies of titles and deeds can pay fees and access the information. He estimates that the site would be used by more than 20,000 people each year. Simpson says his attempts to access the property record databases have been denied or put off, and the counties have quoted him enormous fees for accessing the data. Simpson argues that the documents are already in computer databases that "can be copied easily, quickly and almost at no cost," but the counties want to charge him a total of more than $1 million for digital copies. He says he is willing to pay the cost of copying, but Androscoggin, Aroostook, Cumberland, Knox, Penobscot and York counties have quoted fees that no Maine business could afford. Cumberland County, for instance, has offered to make a copy of its database available if Simpson pays its software vendor, Xerox, $300,000. Penobscot County refuses to make a digital copy, offering instead to copy its microfilm for $100,000. The counties say Simpson is entitled to inspect the records, but their registries are not set up to handle such a wide-ranging request without some expense. They also express concern about exposing county records to a security breach or computer virus. "The statute says a person has the right to inspect and copy records. But it's not about having complete access to a county's database," said Bryan Dench, the Auburn-based attorney who is representing Androscoggin County. Dench, who describes himself as a Freedom of Access advocate -- he often represents the Sun Journal newspaper in Lewiston in related matters -- said the issue is more about how a county would accommodate such a massive request. Simpson and his attorney, Sigmund Schutz of Preti Flaherty in Portland, disagree. They say the records in question could easily be made available. Schutz said the records, which once were on paper, have been compiled in digital databases. "It's not just about making a profit," Schutz said. "This case has wide implications for the future of Maine's public record laws." He said the counties are trying to profit from information that is owned by the public. "We feel this case has substantial public interest. If we lose, then the public would lose the right to access electronic records at a reasonable fee," he said. Last year, Simpson sued Hancock County in a similar case and won. Justice Thomas Warren, who also is presiding over the trial in Portland, ruled that Hancock County's charge of $240,000 for a bulk purchase of records was not reasonable, so it violated the Freedom of Access Act. After Warren's ruling, Simpson said, he was allowed access to those records at no cost. Cumberland County's attorneys, Patricia Dunn and Brendan Rielly of Portland, could not be reached Monday. In their trial brief, they say that "Cumberland County's Registry of Deeds does not have the capacity to provide the type of bulk download that Simpson seeks. The registry is configured to handle recording, not database management and certainly not bulk electronic copying and transfer." Dunn and Rielly said Simpson should not be allowed to dictate the means by which the county responds to his request. They argued that there is no requirement in state law that the county reconfigure its hardware and software to satisfy an individual's needs. "This would waste incredible amounts of time and money," they wrote. Dench said Androscoggin County, which has 2.7 million property records, is asking that Simpson pay $315,000 for access to its records. Currently, anyone who wants to copy county records can access Androscoggin's registry for an annual subscription of $350. A person can look at the records online for free, but there's a fee for copying documents. "The problem is, that system doesn't give Mr. Simpson what he wants. He wants them all and he wants them all at once," Dench said. Schutz calls the case precedent-setting. Although six counties were named in the lawsuit, Schutz said that if his client wins, all 16 counties in Maine will likely comply with the judge's ruling. Several counties were dropped from the lawsuit because it would have been awkward to have so many defendants represented in court. "We've got a situation where the counties are trying to monopolize public records," Simpson said. "This information should be viewed as a resource to private business. Isn't that what government is there for?" Dench says Simpson is not considering factors such as exposing a public records database to a virus, or the manpower and expertise needed to accommodate his request. "If people start plugging their hard drives into the county's computers, who knows what could happen," Dench said. "I'm sympathetic to allowing public access to these records, but sometimes it's not that simple."

The Background Investigator Goes To Saipan

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0500

In a continuing series, The Background Investigator, is sending its attorneys to various countries around the world to explore the justice systems and bring back to you their findings. This month the Background Investigator's publisher, Steven Brownstein, visited Saipan. Here is his report: Doing Searches in Saipan: What You Need To Know In Saipan, there is one main court- the Superior Court. All criminal, traffic, and civil cases are filed at the superior Court. That makes it relatively easy for the researcher. Except there is no public access computer so all searches are done by the clerks. And there is a court fee imposed on the search. There is no opportunity to see the search being done on the clerks desk as it is performed from behind a counter. This creates problems. The mindset in the Saipan is that if a traffic case is disposed (completed) it doesn't count.But there are two types of traffic cases - payables and those that require a court appearancez. DUI's and reckless driving are two types that require a court appearance. They are also classified as misdemeanors. The problem is the clerk often overlooks the type of traffic case (payable or appearance required) and will clear the search. They will also overlook traffic cases where warrants are outstanding. By pre-employment screening standards this is unacceptable. We need DUI's and reckless driving charges. We need to know when warrants are oustanding. That's where a good researcher who is in front of the clerk performing the search is worth his salt. In Saipan, there is never too many cooks in the kitchen In Saipan, it is a necessity

Criminal Law And Punishment

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0500

One of the most fundamental distinctions between civil and criminal law is in the notion of punishment. In criminal law, a guilty defendant is punished by either (1) incarceration in a jail or prison, (2) fine paid to the government, or, in exceptional cases, (3) execution of the defendant: the death penalty. Crimes are divided into two broad classes: felonies have a maximum possible sentence of more than one year incarceration, misdemeanors have a maximum possible sentence of less than one year incarceration. In contrast, a defendant in civil litigation is never incarcerated and never executed. In general, a losing defendant in civil litigation only reimburses the plaintiff for losses caused by the defendant's behavior. So-called punitive damages are never awarded in a civil case under contract law. In a civil case under tort law, there is a possibility of punitive damages, if the defendant's conduct is egregious and had either (1) a malicious intent (i.e., desire to cause harm), (2) gross negligence (i.e., conscious indifference), or (3) a willful disregard for the rights of others. The use of punitive damages makes a public example of the defendant and supposedly deters future wrongful conduct by others. Punitive damages are particularly important in torts involving dignitary harms (e.g., invasion of privacy) and civil rights, where the actual monetary injury to plaintiff(s) may be small. One can purchase insurance that will pay damages and attorney's fees for tort claims. Such insurance coverage is a standard part of homeowner's insurance policies, automobile insurance, and insurance for businesses. In contrast, it is not possible for a defendant to purchase insurance to pay for his/her criminal acts. While a court can order a defendant to pay damages, the plaintiff may receive nothing if the defendant has no assets and no insurance, or if the defendant is skillful in concealing assets. In this way, large awards for plaintiffs in tort cases are often an illusion. The notion that the threat of punishment will deter criminal conduct is based on the principle that human beings are rational. In practice, criminals are either impulsive (i.e., not rational) or believe that they will not be caught by the police. Therefore, the threat of punishment does not deter criminal conduct, as one is reminded every day by reading reports of journalists. Legal theory considers the possibility of loss of freedom (i.e., incarceration) as much more serious than merely paying damages to an injured plaintiff. As a result of this high value placed on personal freedom, legal dogma is that criminal litigation is more serious than civil litigation, therefore criminal defendants have more rights and protections than civil defendants, as explained later in this essay. The economic reality is that most people would prefer to spend, for example, one year in prison, than pay a million dollars from their personal assets.

Pizza Hut Loses Suit, Must Pay Millions

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0500

A San Diego Superior Court jury awarded a mother and her adult daughter $10.8 million in damages for the injuries they suffered in a car crash with a Pizza Hut delivery driver in Clairemont. The jury said that Shari Novak, who was 62 when the November 2008 collision occurred, should receive $8.6 million for medical and noneconomic damages. She suffered permanent brain damage and can no longer take care of herself on a daily basis. Her mother, Olena Novak, who was 87 when the crash happened, suffered a broken neck and other injuries and was awarded nearly $2.2 million by the jury. The Novaks were driving on Clairemont Drive near Ute Drive when a car driven by Nicole Fisk crossed into oncoming traffic and slammed into their car. She was 18 at the time. Lawyers for the Novaks argued that Pizza Hut was responsible for the collision because they hired Fisk, who had a driver’s license for only three months and had a history of suffering blackout spells and staring episodes. The company should have done more to check her background and assure that she could work safely as a driver, argued John Gomez, the lawyer for Shari Novak. But James Yukevich, a lawyer for the California-based Pizza Hut Inc., said that the company should not be to blame because Fisk had a valid license, insurance and was subjected to a background check. Yukevich said during the trial that Fisk was not formally diagnosed with epilepsy until after the accident, and that the crash occurred when she suffered an unforeseeable medical emergency. Such a sudden medical emergency can be used as a defense to a negligence lawsuit under state law. But jurors rejected that claim. After the verdict, juror Joshua Pingel said that he believed Fisk should have known she could have a blackout episode because of her medical history. Fisk, who suffered minor injuries in the collision, was initially named in the personal-injury lawsuit but was later dropped from the case. Gomez said the money awarded by the jury will take care of Shari Novak’s past medical bills and provide for her future needs. He said the verdict should send a signal to other companies “to be a little more careful when hiring professional drivers.” Yukevich did not know if the company would appeal the verdict.

DOT Launches Pre-Employment Screening Program To Improve Safety

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0500

The Department of Transportation's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration recently launched a program aimed at improving the safety of commercial vehicle drivers. The Pre-Employment Screening Program allows commercial motor carrier companies to electronically access driver inspection and crash records as a part of the hiring process. The program offers access up to five years of driver crash data and three years of inspection data regardless of the state or jurisdiction. By using driver safety information during preemployment screening, officials said commercial carriers will be able to better assess the potential safety risks of prospective driver-employees. The program also gives drivers additional opportunities to verify the data in their driving history and correct any discrepancies. The agency noted that driving records will be protected in accordance with federal privacy laws. "Safety is our highest priority," said Ray LaHood, secretary of the DOT. "The Pre-Employment Screening Program sends a strong message to commercial carriers and drivers that we are serious about having the safest drivers behind the wheel of large trucks and buses." Anne S. Ferro, administrator of the FMCSA, said the Pre-Employment Screening Program will be populated monthly by the agency's Motor Carrier Management Information System, which is comprised of driver performance data, including inspection and compliance review results, enforcement data, state-reported crashes, and motor carrier census data. "The Pre-Employment Screening Program raises the safety bar for the motor carrier industry and helps to make our roads safer for everyone," she said.

Parents Spared Criminal Checks

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Parents will no longer need criminal record checks to help at their children's schools as the Home Secretary dismantles Labour's health and safety culture. The government will also place greater restrictions on when unsubstantiated allegations and hearsay held on police files should be given to employers vetting prospective staff. The moves are the intended outcome of a review of the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) ordered by Home Secretary Theresa May, who is concerned about the ‘overuse' of vetting and wants a common sense approach. Senior Home Office sources said May was "irritated by the health and safety culture" inherited from Labour and had ordered a "radical shake-up". At present, parents who go into schools to help with reading or games lessons must have a CRB check. It is understood the review will do away with this requirement.

Mistaken Identity Over Incest Claim Was 'Devastating'

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0500

By Chris O'Brien and Andree Withey A grandfather from the Darling Downs in southern Queensland who was wrongly accused of rape and incest says his family has been devastated by a case of mistaken identity. The Child Safety Department has apologised to the 64-year-old, admitting there was wrong information in his file, confusing him with another man convicted of sex crimes. He says his local MP, Kerry Shine, and Child Safety Minister Phil Reeves refused to help him when his application to care for his grand-daughter was declined. The man who cannot be identified for legal reasons says it has been an 18 month ordeal which only ended when he went to the media. "When things really blew up three hours after that, they found one mistake," he said. "They rang me and apologised and I said look that's not good enough. "I said the whole file is wrong and she said 'well we'll have to go right back through it then' and that's the last I've heard of them." The man was forced, at his own expense, to prove he was not a rapist by providing a DNA test and getting a certificate from the police that he had no criminal record. He had been mistaken for another man jailed for fathering his own grandchild. Mr Reeves has told Queensland Parliament he has ordered a review to ensure there is nothing incorrect in the case file. "For the stress and offence that this mistake has caused to those members of the family, I sincerely apologise," he said. "While child safety is very difficult and a stressful environment for officers, this should never have happened and there is no excuse." DCS acting director-general Betty Kill confirmed earlier today it took 18 months for the department to correct its file. Ms Kill apologised to the man, saying it was very unfortunate. "We had an email which was wrongly placed onto his file," she said. "I deeply regret that this error occurred and on that basis I apologise profusely to him."

Opposition spokesman Jack Dempsey says the case should lead to changes. "What we need to do is have proper legislation that respects the rights of the child, the parents, as well as the hard-working child safety workers," he said. "[It] makes it more open and transparent and that is easy to do. "What it needs is the momentum - we can't keep going on the same pathway."

Criminal Check Grounds Paramedic With Same Birthday As Criminal

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Layton Selzler was due to fly out of Saskatoon last week to start his new paramedic job in northern Alberta. But since he shares the same birthdate as a Canadian criminal, he’s grounded in Saskatchewan. Changes made by the RCMP in July to the vulnerable sector search, required for those who volunteer or work with the disabled, elderly or children, mean that simply having a birthdate and gender that matches a criminal record is enough to require applicants to send fingerprints to the RCMP-run Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC) in Ottawa to prove their identity. "When they tell you you’re flagged, you almost get the feeling that you’ve been accused of something or that you’re guilty," said Selzler, 31. Selzler got the news he was flagged on Sept. 9. He had to pay an additional $35 to the RCMP for the fingerprinting and he’s been told it could be three weeks to 10 months to get the results back from Ottawa. His employer is holding the position for the time being, but if the results aren’t back soon, Selzler says there’s no way the job will still be there, leaving him to find another way to support his family. "This is going to make the next little while a bit more difficult. We definitely anticipated the paycheque," he said. "I gave notice at my job about a month ago — obviously I didn’t anticipate the issues. Now I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place." Selzler is troubled that nobody he has spoken to, from the RCMP to Saskatoon police, seems to know why the change was made or why no prior notice was given. RCMP acknowledge they are casting a wide net, but they say the change is necessary to help them flag convicted sexual offenders who have changed their names. "The reason behind that is there are many provinces where people with sexual offences criminal records do not have to report to anyone for a name change," said RCMP spokesperson Sgt. Julie Gagnon. Alberta and British Columbia require that fingerprints be provided before a name can legally be changed, except for a name change due to marriage, but rules in other provinces are less stringent. "Before this, they could show up for a vulnerable sector check with a different name, the same date of birth and gender and it wouldn’t show up as a match. Sex offenders were falling through the cracks and were able to work with kids again," Gagnon said. The CPIC website says it can take more than 120 days to process fingerprints, but Gagnon says it should only take that long if the fingerprints provided matched a criminal’s prints on file. But if the RCMP had thought a little harder about the search parameters, Selzler says he wouldn’t have to be waiting in the first place. "With no foresight to see that they could have cross-referenced it with the social insurance number, or cross-referenced it with something else, it just blows me away." Selzler is also frustrated by the lack of communication about the change. "You’d think a change this dramatic would have been put out there. They should have notified people who work in vulnerable sector. As a paramedic, I’m subject to vulnerable sector checks quite frequently, but if there’s 25,000 people in the registry, the odds of you having the same birthday as someone are pretty high." In fact there are a lot more records than that. About 4.5 million Canadians possess a criminal record, according to RCMP statistics. The changes have had a drastic effect. Since the search criteria were broadened, about 200 people a month in Saskatoon are flagged and required to send fingerprints to CPIC, out of more than 1,000 applicants, says Saskatoon police spokesperson Tisha-Rae Stonehouse. Before, it was only an occasional occurrence — less than 10 a year, she said.

Tale Of Two Calvins: One Keeps Going To Jail For Other's Offenses

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0500

by Cynthia Hubert Calvin Ward is nearly 6 feet tall and African American. Calvin Phillips, according to records, is about 4 inches shorter and Caucasian. But Sacramento County seems to think the two Calvins are the same person, and that has become a major problem for Ward. Twice last year, Ward was wrongly jailed under the name Calvin Phillips, and as a result his modest upholstering business has been decimated, he claims in a civil rights lawsuit. But Sacramento County seems to think the two Calvins are the same person, and that has become a major problem for Ward. Twice last year, Ward was wrongly jailed under the name Calvin Phillips, and as a result his modest upholstering business has been decimated, he claims in a civil rights lawsuit. The suit was filed in Sacramento Superior Court by the law firm led by civil rights attorney Stewart Katz. It names as defendants the county court and Sheriff's Department, the city Police Department, and several city and county law enforcement officers. According to the suit, Ward's problems began in June, when city police arrested him for riding a bicycle under the influence of alcohol. At the county jail, Ward pointed out that his paperwork erroneously identified him as Calvin Phillips, even though he had presented a driver's license that listed his true name. Deputies "ignored his protestations," the suit says, and he spent two days in jail. In July, he appeared in court and found that no charges had been filed against him in the matter, according to the complaint. But he was arrested again, on allegations that he had violated probation in another case. Deputies handcuffed him and took him to jail under the name Calvin Phillips. Ward remained in jail for an additional three days, after which a judge recognized the case of mistaken identity and ordered him released. By that time, the suit alleges, Ward's upholstery business was in shambles, as he had missed appointments with a major client who then dropped him and refused to recommend him to others. Ward has no criminal record, only a misdemeanor and a traffic offense, both of which occurred years ago, records show. In an interview, Ward, 59, said he is trying to rebuild his business but has had to take temporary jobs to pay bills. He applied for a position with the U.S. Census, he said, but was rejected when his alter ego's name popped up during a background check. He said he now is getting bills intended for Phillips from the county revenue department. "I'm worried that this thing could follow me for the rest of my life," he said. Guy Danilowitz, Ward's attorney, said he is uncertain how authorities confused his client with Phillips. Ward said he has never met Phillips, never used his name as an alias. The Bee's efforts to contact Phillips were unsuccessful. A check of criminal records confirmed that the county was still linking the two men, nearly a year after Ward's initial arrest and despite various attempts to correct the problem. But after a reporter's inquiries on Wednesday, the information was corrected. Nevertheless, Ward has suffered major repercussions and the lawsuit will continue, said Danilowitz. The government has yet to respond to the complaint, said Danilowitz.

Ontario Police Check Backlog Frustrates Many

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0500

When Kate Jarencio applied for a police check in July, she was told it would take eight to 10 weeks. But now, at the beginning of November, there’s still no sign of it. And her work placement, which requires a police screening, is supposed to begin in less than two weeks. “I sent it express, and I still haven’t heard anything,” the first-year Ryerson-George Brown early childhood education (ECE) student said. A four-month long backlog on background checks from the Toronto Police has left students in programs like ECE and nursing stranded. Vulnerable sector verifications, which screen applicants for past criminal offences and pardoned sexual offence convictions, are required by health and childcare agencies for placements, and students need to complete enough hours in the field in order to be able to pass their courses. “It takes way too long,” said Zubida Mohamed, a second-year nursing student. “If you miss your placement for two weeks in three weeks then you’re out. Your semester is wasted.” According to Const. Tonyo Vella from Toronto Police Services, the hold up is caused by a new RCMP process implemented four months ago. Previously, the criminal database was only checked for a close match to the surname and date of birth of applicants. If this doesn’t bring up a hit, the new system now checks for matches to the sex and birthdate of the applicant only. If there’s a match, finger prints have to be sent to the RCMP. “The reason behind that is because some provinces don’t link previous criminal records to a name change,” said Marc LaPorte, a spokesperson for RCMP Ontario. “It’s a more rigorous check.” But students are worried the longer process could affect their ability to get a placement. “I’m just really relying on the school and trusting they’re going to find a plan for us,” said first-year ECE student Zyrelle Endozo. Vella said the wait time is now down to about seven weeks, but could take longer if fingerprints are required. He said Toronto Police Services is working to move the process ahead faster, emailing electronic fingerprints instead of sending them by mail. According to Patricia Reto, field education coordinator at the school of ECE, courses that involve placements require students to be on location about eight hours a day for 22 days. “We don’t have allowances for make-up days,” she said. If a student misses a day at their placement, they have to make it up on their own time. Barb Pimento, first-year ECE coordinator for Ryerson-George Brown students, said the school only became aware of the problem in September and is working to make accommodations. The school sent out a letter to childcare agencies asking them to accept students’ proof of application for a police check along with a police declaration signed by the students stating they don’t have a criminal record. “They’re not left alone with children,” she added. “It’s not like we’re putting children and families at risk.” Some students are worried that they won’t be able to complete their course requirements on time and will have to stay in school longer. Pimento said the backlog mostly affects first-year students. Most other students have police checks from the year before which the agencies will generally except, even if they are expired. At least one upper-year student had to postpone their placement until the spring.

Is An Employment Background Check Ever Too Invasive?

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0500

By Ashby Jones Generally speaking, the government can ask for background checks for employees of defense contractors. But are there limits to what the government can ask? At what point — if at all — does a government query into the drug use history of a low-level employee violate that employee’s constitutional right to privacy? An interesting question, and one that eight Supreme Court justices were called upon to ponder today down at One First St., N.E. (As Solicitor General, Justice Kagan weighed in on behalf of the government; thus she has recused herself from hearing the case as a justice.) According to this account by the LA Times’s David Savage, the justices gave a “skeptical hearing” to the 28 Caltech scientists challenging the government’s use of background checks. Caltech runs the Jet Propulsion Laboratory under a contract with NASA. Click here for the transcript of the arguments. The scientists won at the Ninth Circuit, which held that questions violated their constitutional right to privacy. According to Savage’s story, the justices all (with the possible exception of Justice Sonia Sotomayor) sounded as if the were inclined to uphold the background checks. That said, they explored the limits of what the government should be allowed to ask. Justice Antonin Scalia, staying true to his “textualist” method of constitutional interpretation, said there was no such privacy right. “I don’t see it anywhere in the Constitution,” he told Dan Stormer, a Pasadena lawyer who represented the Caltech employees. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito said they would not close the door to all such claims. “Isn’t there some right to tell the government: ‘That’s none of your business’?” Roberts commented. Alito said he questioned whether the government could ask people to fill out forms revealing what they ate, what they read or whether they smoked cigarettes and to describe their sex lives. “Is that OK?” he pressed Neal Katyal, the acting U.S. solicitor general. Probably not, Katyal agreed, but he urged the justices to rule that the government can ask open-ended questions of its employees and contract workers.

The Public Record Update From BRB Publications, Inc.

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Ability to Verify SSN Number Will Change as of June 2011 The Social Security Administration currently provides a table, updated monthly, which shows the assigned states and issuance range for the first five digits of the SSN. These numbers are known as the High Group List. Effective on or about June 25, 2011, the High Group List will no longer be updated. On that date all SSNs will be assigned on a purely random basis. While the High Group List will remain online, after that date the potential exists for any possible SSN to be assigned at any location across the country. This randomization will also affect the Enumeration and Entry applicants and the Railroad Retirement Board - all applicants will receive a number at random from the entire range of SSNs. For more information go to www.ssa.gov/employer/randomization.html. The reasons given for this discontinuation of the High Group List are to fight ID theft and because the SSA is running out of numbers. In this author's eyes, this is unfortunate because the verification of the validity of the first five digits of an assigned SSN is an extremely useful tool to those professions and entities who are fighting fraud and false IDs. Also, the validation of a SSN prior to an offer of employment (opposed to after the hire) has been an integral part in today's employment screening process. The SSA will still provide opportunities for direct name based SSN verification. Internet based verification services include the SSA's Social Security Number Verification Service for employers, eVerify, and the SSA's Consent-Based SSN Verification Service. There are stipulations. For example, the cost for this latter service is $5,000 to sign-up and $5.00 per verification. Federal and State Agencies will continue to have several SSN verification systems available to them such as those outlined at www.ssa.gov/gix/eprojects.html.

Forthcoming Changes to UCC Name Searches The joint sponsors (the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, the American Law Institute, and the American Bar Association) of Uniform Commercial Code 9 recently announced approved and recommended Amendments to UCC 9. UCC 9 promulgates a uniform law for non-real property collateral, which the states then adopt. Most record searchers know that the core of UCC 9 is an electronic debtor name system for filing and for searching creditors' financing statements in states' secretary of state filing offices. A copy of the amendments, which were approved by the sponsors in July 2010 and are now under consideration for enactment by the states, may be viewed at www.law.upenn.edu/bll/archives/ulc/ucc9/2010am_approved.htm New Edition of Manual to Online Public Records Released This month marks the release of the new Secord Edition of the Manual to Online Public Records. This 544 page manual reveals how public records and public record searching websites are not created equal, and gives an information edge on how to evaluate sites and also on the best sites to use based on topic or record category. Discover advanced strategies to search Social Network sites for hard-to-find public information. Over 13,000 government and vendor online resources are described. The book is available at BRB Publication's Bookstore .

Should Employers Check Job Applicantsâ€™ Credit History?

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0600

By Ruth Mantell With the national unemployment rate at 9.6%, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is concerned about employers using job applicants’ credit history as a screening tool. The commission met to hear testimony from various groups about employers’ practice of checking credit reports. The meeting is part of a longer-term examination of barriers to employment. “An ever increasing number of job applicants and workers are being exposed to employment screening tools, such as credit checks, that could unfairly exclude them from job opportunities,” said Jacqueline Berrien, chairwoman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. It’s legal for employers to obtain personal information about job seekers and workers, including consumer reports that measure credit worthiness. But some say using credit history as a screening tool has a disparate impact on some groups. “Numerous studies have documented how, as a group, African Americans and Latinos have lower credit scores than whites,” said Chi Chi Wu of the National Consumer Law Center. “If credit scores are supposed to be an accurate translation of a consumer’s credit report and creditworthiness, that means these groups will fare worse when credit history is considered in employment.” Democratic Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Illinois, chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, said in a statement last month that there is the potential for a “subconscious bias” against those with more negative data in their reports. “You simply cannot tell a person’s character, integrity or how well they will perform their job by looking at their credit report,” Gutierrez said. “The fact that someone has a credit report that is not superior to another job candidate does not make them less able to do the work at an office or a factory nor does it make them more or less likely to steal from their employer.” The subcommittee recently held a hearing on a bill that would amend the Fair Credit Reporting Act to prohibit employers, with certain exclusions, from using a consumer report for hiring or firing if the report contains information about creditworthiness, credit standing, or credit capacity. Worker advocates also voiced concern that consumer reports may not accurately reflect or predict whether a job seeker will succeed in the workplace. And some questioned whether credit checks should be used for workers outside of certain levels or functions. Employers are required to let applicants know whether their credit report was used against them. The idea is to give applicants the opportunity to dispute any inaccuracies. But Wu said many employers are not making the necessary disclosures. While using credit checks is a controversial practice, for some employers checks are essential. Take, for example, the federal government. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management investigates federal applicants, employees, and contractors, whether or not the position requires a security clearance. According to OPM, “a search of the records of commercial credit reporting agencies is an integral part of almost all background investigations.” According to a report from the Society for Human Resource Management, 13% of organizations conduct credit checks on all job candidates, 47% on some candidates, and 40% do not conduct credit checks at all. SHRM said that “only specific credit information,” such as pending debt lawsuits and accounts in debt collection, are likely to affect employers’ decisions to extend a job offer. Finally, according to SHRM, employers “overwhelmingly” use credit checks at the end of the hiring process, not to screen out applicants up front. “SHRM research shows that the top reasons why organizations conduct credit background checks are to limit theft and embezzlement in the workplace, reduce liability for negligent hiring, assess the overall trustworthiness of the job candidate, and comply with applicable state laws requiring a background check for particular positions,” according to SHRM testimony Wednesday. Michael Eastman, executive director for labor law policy with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said employers use credit-history checks for employees with direct access to funds and sensitive information, such as workers in human-resource functions. He added that it’s a “common misperception” that employers specifically consider credit scores when examining credit history. “Simply put, I have found no employer that considers credit scores. It is my understanding that employers typically do not even receive credit scores as part of the credit report,” Eastman said. “It is important to emphasize that the factors that would go into an employment decision based on a credit report can differ rather significantly from the factors that would go into a decision to lend credit,” he said. “A credit score of 550 or 700 may convey important information to potential lenders, but the number, standing by itself, is meaningless to employers.”

The Background Investigator Goes To Argentina

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0600

In a continuing series, The Background Investigator, sends its attorneys to various countries around the world to explore the justice systems and bring back to you their findings. This month Fred Frankel visited Buenos Aires, Argentina. Here is his report: Argentina has 3 levels of laws and resulting courts to enforce them. There are the Federal, Provincial and Local levels. There is only one Federal set of laws and courts and it takes precedence over all other levels. The Federal law generally deals with disputes of the country, agencies, or between different provinces. In addition, cases dealing with drugs, foreigners and companies are heard in the federal courts system. The problem (especially for pre-employment screening companies) is that the jurisdiction of the Federal courts mirrors at times that of the local courts and their laws and jurisdiction so that a case may be heard by either the Federal or local court and there is no real guidance of how to know which court the case was sent to or ended up at. The Courts follow a hierarchy of the lower or common court and Superior, or the Supreme Court of Justice. The Supreme Court of the federal system is the ultimate authority over all cases. There are lower federal criminal courts through out the country as well. The Criminal Forum as it's called has 2 parts. First, the instructional phase of the process, this is like the indictment phase here in the US, a single judge decides if the case should proceed to trial in the Criminal Camara. This phase (Criminal Camara) is made up of 3 judges who sit over the trial and issue their decision of guilty or innocent. The procees in the criminal courts moves quickly and there is minimal witness and evidence. The Provincial criminal courts are set up the same as the Federal, except the prosecutor in the Provincial is independent of the judge in the first phase of the trial. In the Federal, the prosecutor is more of an assistant to the judge, and at the Provincial the judge is more the director and the prosecutor is the investigator. So the at the Province the judge or the prosecutor starts the ‘instruction’ and then they continue to trial in front of the tribunal, Camaras del Crimen (Criminal Court). The decision can be appealed to the Provincial or Federal Supreme Court by the process called casacion or revocation. Records are separate for each province. Each province is autonomous and there is no record sharing. The federal system is one system through out the country but the system is new and not sophisticated yet to have included all courts. Therefore, if you were to be looking for a criminal record the first place would be the province the person was in. Although the case may have gone to the Appellate or Supreme Court of the province, it would have started at the local court. There are 23 provinces and most have only one court. The larger cities, such as Buenos Aries, have many.

Stretching the Truth To Get The Job

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0600

Nearly one in five Canadians (19%) would exaggerate previous responsibilities in order to land a job, according to a poll released by ADP Canada Co. (ADP Canada). The ADP BackCheck poll also revealed that Canadian employers are not always diligent in screening or conducting background checks of prospective candidates. Nearly six in 10 of those surveyed (59%) said they had obtained a job without the employer checking references. Additionally, poll findings reveal that a large majority (84%) would feel frustrated if they knew someone had been promoted or hired at their workplace because they had lied on their résumé. When faced with this knowledge, colleagues are on the fence about what to do: nearly half (49%) would report them. With respect to their boss though, fewer (20%) would blow the whistle if they discovered dishonesty; most (59%) would simply think less of them. "Hiring the wrong candidate can be costly for employers, in both time and money, and can cause stress within the workplace," said Mark Kohler, Director of Marketing for ADP Canada. Results of the ADP BackCheck poll show that job-seeking Canadians who stretch the truth fall under one of five "Tall Tale" types: Paycheque Pretenders: would exaggerate their current or previous compensation (27%). Eager Embellishers: would gloss over relatively inconsequential details such as the duration of a job, or gaps of time between jobs (15%). Time-Will-Tells: would lie about skills they don't have, like speaking German or operating a forklift - gaps that would eventually become evident (17%). Fact-Fudgers: would exaggerate current or previous job responsibilities (19%). Phonies in Disguise: would falsify credentials key to the field or position (12%).

Wisconsin Courts Told To List All Charges Online

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0600

Wisconsin courts are being told to list all charges against defendants in the state’s online court records – including those dismissed in plea deals. A committee that manages the online database has ordered the move. That’s after the Associated Press found that some counties, but not all, were deleting charges that were substituted in plea bargains. The chief information officer for the database, Jean Bousquet, said there should be a uniform statewide policy on posting court information. And by keeping dismissed charges out of the system, she said it looks the government is hiding something. But Milwaukee County Clerk of Courts John Barrett wondered whether listing all charges in a case would exacerbate what he called the “Scarlet Letter factor” – in which employers and landlords reportedly shy away from those charged but not convicted of crimes. Other members said the public has the right to know what’s going on in their courts, and listing all charges tells the full story about a case. Bousquet said her staff plans to separate dismissed charges by making viewers click on links to reach them.

Pima Sheriff's (Tucson) Dept. Has Many Reports Available Online

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0600

The Pima County Sheriff's Department has made it easier for people to get incident and accident reports from their home computers. Now anyone with a case number can log on to the Sheriff's Department's website and pay $5 for an electronic version of the report, said Frank Gonzales, manager of the agency's records department. Half of the charge goes to PoliceReports.us, a contractor that hosts the reports online because the Sheriff's Department software can't, Gonzales said. The other $2.50 goes to the department's general fund. When people request a report in person, they also pay $5, Gonzales said, all of which goes to the Sheriff's Department's general fund when the request is made at its offices. Most reports with basic information that people need for insurance claims or court purposes can be downloaded using this system, but requests on homicides or arrests still must be submitted and processed in person, said Deputy Jason Ogan, a department spokesman. The records department received 11,000 requests for records in October from the public, state Child Protective Services, media outlets and other law-enforcement agencies, Gonzales said. "So this system is going to make it easier for all those requests to come in without people having to do it in person," he said. The records clerks redact and scan records as they are requested, and then send them to PoliceReports.us because the department doesn't have an online database, Gonzales said. A person requesting records must provide an e-mail address where the report will be sent later. The Oro Valley Police Department also contracts with PoliceReports.us and has records available for request online for the same fee. The Tucson police records department scans reports as they come in, so they are available instantly on the Tucson Police Department website at no cost, Sgt. Matt Ronstadt said. People also can go directly to PoliceReports.us to ask for records from the Sheriff's Department or the Oro Valley police.

Computer Glitch Stalls Orleans Parish Civil Case Listings

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0600

The pace of real estate transactions in Orleans Parish (New Orleans) has slowed to a crawl because of a computer glitch in the Civil District Court clerk's office. The problem, which has been traced to a failure in the hard drive, has kept researchers from the online data they need to complete a 30-year check on residential and commercial property to make sure that every piece of land for sale isn't burdened by such obstacles as liens, judgments and lawsuits, Clerk Dale Atkins said. "It's a killer," said Sharall Grissen, chief operating officer of Stewart Title of Louisiana. "The real estate business is already tough. This is incredible." The problem was detected Oct. 26, Atkins said, and a series of information-technology experts have been at work since then to recover the data. "The original real estate records HAVE NOT BEEN LOST," Atkins said in a written statement. As of now, online records were available through Aug. 26, 2008, she said, and data through all of 2009 could be available soon. Despite the panic that a computer malfunction can cause, property searches and title searches can still be performed by poring over heavy books, Civil District Judge Rosemary Ledet said. "It's inconvenient to do it through a manual system, but before the indexing system was computerized, that was how property searches were done." But what makes this job especially onerous, title attorney Andrew Treuting said, is that when the computer malfunctioned, the indexing was lost. Consequently, for information about the period that hadn't been recovered, "we have no idea how to find it," he said. "We're holding up tons of closings -- 30, 40," said Joyce DuSaules, Stewart Title of Louisiana's manager. "It's kind of like when Katrina hit. We couldn't do anything. We had to wait." Because of the havoc that the storm caused, Atkins' office had hoped to prevent future snafus by hiring a company called i365 to back up the data regularly. But, Atkins said, all that information wasn't being backed up. When the problem was first detected, "we were told it was a system failure, and they could get us up and running," Atkins said. "I don't think the court was made aware of the severity of the problem until recently." In a statement cited on a New orleans television station, FOX8, an i365 spokeswoman called the situation "unfortunate" but said the company will try to make things better. "We're hoping to resolve amicably with them," Atkins said, "but we can't rule out litigation." After a Houston firm said that it couldn't help, two hard drives, including one from the court's information-technology office, were sent to Data Recovery Technologies in Duluth, Ga. The company confirmed that it can get data from that hard drive through last year, Atkins said. That "is our hope," Ledet said. "My office is making arrangements to put in the information through 2010 if we have to, but the company hasn't told us that it will not be able to do it." But even if all the computer files are restored, researchers will still have to lug heavy, dusty books around because the records weren't computerized until the late 1980s. Civil Court records, which would contain lawsuits, went online in 1985, Atkins said, followed four years later by mortgage and conveyance files, which could contain information about liens, court judgments and mortgage problems.

Crime Affects Record Number Of Children In Turkey

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0600

A record number of minors have been accused of crimes or otherwise caught up in criminal activity in Turkey over the past year and a half, a recent report has revealed. According to the report by the Lifelong Learning and Development Association, or HEGEM, 1.124 million minors were affected by crime during the period studied. “We have failed to protect these [minors]; the families, the schools and other institutions failed to do their duty,” HEGEM Chairman Adem Solak said at a recent press conference in the Black Sea province of Trabzon. The figure of 1.124 million was very high, even considering that there are 25 million minors in Turkey, as many as in six neighboring countries, Solak said. The report also included a crime map of the country that showed the 10 Turkish provinces where the number of minors affected by crime is highest: Eskisehir, Izmir, Manisa, Balikesir, Aydin, Kayseri, Isparta, Erzincan, Usak and Edirne. Prepared by 10 researchers over a period of two years in all of Turkey’s 81 provinces, the report provides for the first time comparative data for each province about the number of minors who committed crimes or became victims of crime, Solak said. The section of the report dealing with how children are affected by crime reflects data on minors between the ages of 12 and 18 who lives in cities, the HEGEM chairman added. Solak also said the research was based on seven main factors, including the number of court cases opened against minors; the rate of minors accused and suspected in crimes in relation to their total population; the number of accused minors compared to adults; the overall number of cases compared to the total population of minors; the rate of unsolved murder cases; and the rate of minor crime victims compared to the overall minor population. Existing legislation protects minors who commit crimes Noting an increase in the number of repeat offenders among minors, Solak attributed the change to the lack of sufficient rehabilitation services in the country and added that the law on protecting children that came into force in 2005 called for minors who have committed crimes to be sent to rehabilitation centers rather than prisons. “As rehabilitation centers [offer insufficient services], the law has turned into one that protects minors who commit crimes, thus turning them into crime machines,” the HEGEM chairman said. Solak also said criminality had been exported from already worrisome regions to those that had typically not seen much crime in the past. “As minors are not sent to jail for their crimes, they move to other cities, exporting criminality,” he said, calling for the relevant ministries to undertake thorough research on the issue. Solak also called for an end to the prejudice that crime is primarily a problem in the eastern parts of the country, noting that the majority of minors affected by crime live in western provinces. “The family structure suffers from crucial problems,” he said, adding that as parents demonstrate violence at home, children escape to Internet cafes, where they virtually kill people while playing online games. “The relevant ministries must take joint action to solve the problems of children,” Solak said.

Half Of All Businesses Never Erase Sensitive Data: Survey

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0600

Although 49 percent of businesses say they employ some sort of policied data erasure system, 75 percent of those do not erase data securely, finds Kroll Ontrack in their new global survey. The poll on data wiping practices found fewer than 50 percent of businesses regularly use a process of erasing sensitive information from old computers and hard drives. Most of the businesses that do deploy some type of data erasure do not do so securely, Kroll found. This exposes most organizations to data breaches, which affect businesses at least once per year, according to another Kroll study, the 2010 Kroll Ontrack Annual ESI Trends Survey. In recent years, a handful of researchers have reported that breaches of this kind can cause enterprises to spend millions of dollars on repairs, litigation, and lost productivity. The survey queried more than 1,500 respondents from 12 nations across North America, Europe, and the Asian Pacific rim regarding their data wiping procedures. The report also found that 40 percent of businesses gave away their hard drive to another person, and 22 percent say they do not know where their old computer went. Deleting files from a hard drive only categorizes the files to be rewritten, which does not necessarily happen, says Kroll executive Jim Reinert. "Furthermore, reformatting the drive only removes the entries in the index or table of contents that point to the data," he notes. "And, physically destroying a drive is not a guaranteed method of protection, as Kroll Ontrack has been recovering data from severely damaged drives, such as the Columbia space shuttle, for more than 25 years."

Finding Crooks? 'There's An App For That'

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0600

University of Nebraska researchers are developing software to alert police to locations of registered sex offenders, parolees, known gang members and other offenders. The project, funded by a grant from the National Institute of Justice, will combine Geographic Information System data, which maps crimes and addresses, with Global Positioning System data, which uses satellites to track locations. The result will be a program that alerts an officer, for example, to people with outstanding warrants or parole violations and instantly creates maps based on the officer's specific location. Lincoln Police Department officers will test the app once it is developed. Researchers want the program to be available for laptops, iPhones and Droid smart phones. The project is the department's latest using "push technology, which feeds information to users.

Domestic Violence Is A Workplace Issue, Say Law Firms

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0600

Domestic violence is a serious problem that can sometimes affect the workplace, regardless of industry. Although there have been cases of abusers killing their victims at their workplace, the abuser does not actually need to be present at the office in order to cause a disruption, according to a recent domestic violence and the workplace seminar held by Kilpatrick Stockton in Atlanta. During the seminar, participants discussed how employers can help domestic violence victims. For example, human resources directors should be on the lookout for potential signs of abuse such as disruptive phone calls, sudden performance changes, or missed work. The employer's first concern in a situation of suspected abuse should be to help the employee keep their job, because financial independence can help the survivor get away from their situation. Unfortunately, supervisors and co-workers are often hesitant to intervene if they suspect someone is being abused because they do not know how to help. However, speakers at the seminar encouraged participants to ask co-workers if they feel safe in their home should they think abuse may be a factor. Participants were also asked to connect employees with community organizations that can provide the counseling and support. Several people suggested putting pamphlets in both the men's and women's bathrooms with contact information for domestic violence aid organizations, so people in abusive situations do not have to draw attention to themselves when looking for resources. Another option is to host lunch-and-learn programs on the subject of domestic violence.

Prescription-Drug Use An Issue For Employers

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0600

Employers are struggling to find ways to address their employees' growing use of prescription drugs that could cause safety problems in the workplace. According to an analysis of more than 500,000 drug tests by the workplace drug test provider Quest Diagnostics, the number of employees who tested positive for prescription opiates between 2005 and 2009 increased by more than 40 percent. But many employers have not addressed prescription drug use among their employees, even though they could be held liable for industrial accidents, defective products, and on-the-job injuries caused by a worker who abuses prescription drugs, said Mark de Bernardo, the executive director of the Institute for a Drug-Free Workplace. One reason why many employers have not addressed prescription drug use is that it can be difficult to prove that a worker is impaired by a prescription drug. Although employers can ask employees who work in positions where safety is important to notify them about their prescription drug use, they cannot be certain that they will do so. It can also be difficult to develop policies governing the use of prescription drugs because the Americans with Disabilities Act forbids companies from asking their workers about their prescription drug use unless they are seen acting in ways that could be unsafe or in ways that show that they cannot perform the duties of their jobs for medical reasons. But experts say that companies can protect themselves from the problems caused by prescription drug use by establishing thorough and consistent policies that describe which drugs workers can be tested for and under what circumstances. In addition, supervisors should be trained to look for signs that workers are impaired by prescription drugs so that they can legally be tested. "

Businesses Unsure How To Protect Cloud Data: Survey

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0600

The cloud is still a virtual no man's land when it comes to the security of the information stored there. That is the conclusion of Courion's first annual 2010 Access Assurance Survey, which found that one in seven companies admit they recognize there are potential access breaches in their cloud platforms, but they do not know how to locate them. The survey also revealed that there is widespread confusion about who is in charge of securing information in the cloud, with nearly 80 percent of respondents unable to identify the chief entity responsible. The worldwide survey of 384 business managers from large companies—86 percent of which had 1,000 or more employees—indicated that cloud security controls are not keeping up with the rapid pace of cloud adoption. Furthermore, the dearth of knowledge about which platforms or applications workers may access is actually on the rise, up nearly 10 percent from 2009. Close to half of the respondents said they believe a compliance audit of their cloud-based applications could reveal some unauthorized access by users. An additional 15.7 percent confessed they are cognizant of the existence of potential access violations, but they do not know how to find them. Although more than 65 percent said that the company from which the data originates, the application provider, and the cloud service provider are all accountable, an additional 13 percent expressed uncertainty. Businesses are less confident this year than last year that they can deter fired employees from accessing one or more information technology systems. "These results show that many organizations are not currently doing the proper due diligence to ensure that sensitive data is being accessed by the right employees on-premise, not to mention when data is housed by a third party provider," the report states. "The responses indicate that the problem is getting worse, and is only being exacerbated by the increasing use of cloud-based applications, which creates more access violation risk."

Winnebago County , IL Improves Online System

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0600

A new and improved online system went up allowing you to look up Winnebago County (Rockford, IL) criminal records, civil lawsuits, traffic tickets and other court filings. Officials say a public-records search is one of the many functions made available by the $6.9 million court case management system. The system allows the instant updating of court files and easier data sharing among police, courts and corrections officers. It eventually may allow for the electronic filing of lawsuits and guilty pleas. The bottom line, Circuit Clerk Tom Klein said: FullCourt Enterprise allows the county’s court functions to work more expediently and efficiently, which will save employees time and taxpayers time and money. FullCourt is also more intuitive and user-friendly than the Clericus Magnus system — installed in 1999 by Jano Data Systems — it replaced. “We were using software in 2010 that was developed in the 1970s,” said Gus Gentner, chief information officer for the county’s IT department, who oversaw the installation of the system. “This system is very easy to use. We have an instruction guide online, but you probably won’t need it. If you know how to use Windows, you can figure this out.” Operational glitches have delayed the launch of the system since April 5. “Will there still be some bumps moving forward?” Getner said Monday. “I expect there will be, as there is with any project of this size.” Getner’s team had to convert 1.8 million cases from the Jano system to FullCourt to make them electronically searchable. Cases as far back as 1950 can be searched electronically, although more complete records are available for criminal files since 1980; civil files since 1988; and ordinance violations, traffic citations, DUI cases and conservation case since 1996. Getner said the system will be good for at least two decades. “Will there be some hardware upgrades that we need in the meantime? Probably.”

With No Laws Against It, Workplace Harassment Takes A Toll

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0600

Workplace bullying is a growing concern throughout the U.S. A recent study by Zogby International found that 53 million workers, or 35 percent of all employees, had been directly affected by a bully in the workplace. The study also found that nearly two-thirds of bullies are men, and that 58 percent of employees who are bullied are women. In addition, the study found that when women are bullies, they target other women 80 percent of the time. Much of this bullying usually takes place because the bully is jealous of his victim's accomplishments and work ethic, said Gary and Ruth Namie, who co-founded the Workplace Bullying Institute in 1997. Although workplace bullying can have severe effects on victims, including suicide, heart attacks, and depression, victims often have little legal recourse to stop the bullying. That is because workplace bullying is not illegal so long as it does not fit the legal definition of harassment and as long as it is not based on discrimination. As a result, victims of workplace bullying rarely win lawsuits against their employers. While a workplace bullying victim could always tell his employer about the problem, doing so could backfire by causing the bullying to be intensified. That means that workplace bullying victims must simply cope with the bullying, take time off work, or look for another job. However, some states are considering legislation that would define an "abusive work environment" and would make both bullies and employers liable for any harm to workplace bullying victims.

Staff Vetting Leaves 70m Bill

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0600

Staff vetting in the health and social care sectors ran up costs of almost £70 million last year, figures have shown. Campaigners claimed the rules requiring Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks for carers working with vulnerable adults were a waste of money. They said it costs millions of pounds, adding that the money would be better spent elsewhere on delivering improved public services. The call comes after a Government review was recently launched into the vetting of people working with vulnerable adults. The review will also look at the criminal records regime. Home Secretary Theresa May pushed for a "common sense" approach to brought in, with the Government saying current procedures were "not a proportionate response". Ken McLaughlin, co-author of the report Carers or Suspects?, said: "Official policy vastly overstates the vulnerability of adults receiving health or social care. This is just a licence for the state to interfere in caring relationships." Co-author Josie Appleton, director of the Manifesto Club which campaigns against the hyper-regulation of everyday life, added: "As well as wasting public money, over-cautious rules mean that carers cannot do their jobs in the way they want to - for example, they can't be alone with an elderly person in a car, or can't help an old lady to the toilet." The total cost for CRB checks for those working with vulnerable adults has reached £164.7 million since 2004, including £69 million in 2009/10 alone, the report found.

Bruce Berg Comments On 2010 Clearwater Screeners' Conference

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0600

Congratulations to Steve Brownstein and Phyllis Nadel for their NINTH annual conference. If you are not aware, it was this conference where the seeds for NAPBS were planted. Without this conference there may have never been an NAPBS. Regarding attendance, I have to quote Mike Hovorka (Orangetree) who put it in this way: “This is an intimate group.” There were less than 100 people in attendance, but I have to say, the quality of this conference continues to be very good. Furthermore, as an exhibitor, I had the opportunity to demonstrate our Dexter product (real-time, direct-to-the-court criminal search) to nine people who had not been responding to phone calls and emails. So, the face-to-face time actually led to three accounts signing up and six others being very interested. And the people attending were, for the most part, not the same people we see at the NAPBS conference. Social and Networking: The Sunday evening cocktail party was a big hit, as always, with a lot of networking and great conversations. The networking continued in the lobby, the bar and even into the city of Clearwater Beach. Note: the vendor exhibits were not part of this cocktail party because they were going to be open all day Monday and Tuesday so there was time at the cocktail party for the exhibitors to just schmooze and plenty of time over the next two days for the attendees to visit the exhibits. There were plenty of opportunities in the bar over the next three nights to network some more. Some people even made it to the hot tub. Presentations: The sessions I was able to attend were mostly well done, informative and germane. Les Rosen gave another excellent and concise presentation on best practices and legal trends. Guest speaker Joe Calloway gave a very good presentation on “Becoming a Category of One.” Another presentation was regarding how to secure your computers and network. They showed how easy it is to break in and take your data, without you even knowing!! Michelle Stuart gave another great presentation on websites to use while doing investigative work (she also told some great stories from her youth, which I dare not repeat here). Cheri Homa, from KPMG, talked about the results from her industry survey regarding the state of the market for background screening. Key challenges reported by background screeners include: Compliance and regulatory changes. Finding good sales people. Slow-paying customers. Strong competition and pricing pressure. Companies are looking to expand offerings to increase revenue. 8 of 17 companies surveyed said they expect 2011 to be their best year ever. Les Rosen gave another presentation, this time on the use of Social Media. Can the employer be sued for negligent hiring if they don’t search social media? There may be some court cases coming on this issue. Facebook EULA says it cannot be used for commercial purposes. Sometimes a search returns TMI (race, religion, marital status, age, etc.). Legal issue. Is off-duty conduct applicable to the job? Privacy. People still have a reasonable expectation to privacy, even on-line. What is real and how does this need for verification fit with sec 607b of the FCRA? [Whenever a consumer reporting agency prepares a consumer report it shall follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of the information concerning the individual about whom the report relates.] If this is an FCRA search, how would the FCRA apply (e.g. adverse action notice)? Caution about pretexting (creating a Facebook page that is fake or posting fake information onto an existing Facebook account). Suggestions: Tell clients to do their own research. Do it post offer, pre-hire. Documented training on what to look for. Have a well-written job description. The person doing the search should not be the person making the hiring decision. Have objective matrices. Some Key Lessons: If you are thinking that everything is under control, you aren’t going fast enough. Capture and use new ideas. If you are waiting to do something “as soon as I get time,” it will never happen. Action, Action, Action, Take Action. You don’t get to the top of the mountain by falling on it (Douglas Henry) Thanks to all for the “in-the-exhibit-hall” Frisbee fun and to Brownstein and Nadel for truly quality conferences over the past nine years.

The Public Record Update A Service from BRB Publications, Inc.

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0600

More CA Regulations on Consumer Reporting Agencies

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0600

With California Governor Schwarzenegger's recent signature of SB 909, more regulations will be placed on consumer reporting agencies (CRAs). Although the provisions of the bill do not take affect until January 1, 2012, CRAs may need to take time to prepare. A CRA will be required to must post its privacy practice policies on its Internet site or be prepared to mail a written copy of the policy statement to consumers upon request. Also, the consumer must be provided a separate section in the privacy statement that includes the name, mailing address, email address, and telephone number of the CRA's representatives who can assist a consumer with additional information regarding the CRA's privacy practices or policies in the event of a compromise of his or her information. Perhaps more importantly is a new requirement that demands a CRA to inform a consumer if the consumer's personal information is transferred to third parties outside the United States. This "third party" is defined but, not be limited to, a contractor, foreign affiliate, wholly owned entity, or an employee of the CRA. A CRA will be liable for any security breaches that occur overseas with their third-party to the extent of the actual damages caused by the breach of security plus attorney fees. If you read the bill - or the law - you will note the use of the term Investigative Consumer Reporting Agency throughout. California does not use the definitions established by the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). What California defines as an Investigative Consumer Reporting Agency is actually what the FCRA defines as a Consumer Reporting Agency. And the FCRA has a different definition for what constitiutes an entity as an Investigative Consumer Reporting Agency. The legislation amends California Civil Code §1786.16 and §1786.20. View the legislation at www.leginfo.ca.gov (click on Bill Information and then enter SB909).

Fee Increasing for Obtaining CA Birth Certificates

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0600

Per California Assembly Bill AB 52, effective November 1, 2010, the current fee for certified copies of birth certificates will increase by $2.00 at both the county and state level. The law does not set the fee level, but merely passed along a $2.00 increase to exisiting fees. For example, Monterey County increases from $14.00 to $16.00, Solano County fee from $19.00 to $21.00, and Sacramento County from $17.00 to $19.00. The fee at the State Department of Health Services increases from $14.00 to $16.00.

Henry County GA Places Superior Court Dockets Online

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0600

The Superior court in Henry County Georgia docket index is now searchable online at https://hcwebb.boca.co.henry.ga.us/SuperiorCMWebSearch/. Search by name, associated party, or by case number. The DOB is rarely shown, thus it is hard to identify subjects with common names.

Follow-up to NY Tax on Information Services

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0600

As we reported last month, effective 09/01/2010 the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance issued a memorandum to supposedly clarify the types of information services it considers taxable. The Department has interpreted the law to mean that title companies and their vendors are required to collect sales tax on abstracts of title, tax searches and municipal searches. However, the language used was very ambiguous and has caused many information companies to consult attorneys. For example the Department also mentioned ''investment reports and services," "Internet-based data services,'' and "survey results" as being taxable. Thanks to the Government Affairs Committee at NPRRA, we are able to pass along several documents that may be useful for those interested in this situation. An informative article written by Attorney Timothy P. Noonan is viewable to the public, click here. The New York Law Journal published an article by Stephen Saler. "Title Companies Must Collect Sales Tax: How it Works, Are Attorneys Next?" may be viewed at the author's blog at http://blog.langdontitle.com

Les Rosen's Corner New California Bill To Regulate Offshoring Of Background Checks Overseas

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0600

On September 29, 2010, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law California Senate Bill 909 (SB 909), which appears to be the first law in the nation that addresses the issue of personal information being sent offshore (outside the United States or its territories). SB 909 - authored by State Senator Rod Wright (D - Inglewood) - amends the California Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act (ICRA) that regulates background checks in California. The bill requires that a consumer must be notified as part of a disclosure before the background check of the web address where a consumer "may find information about the investigative reporting agency's privacy practices, including whether the consumer's personal information will be sent outside the United States or its territories." If a background screening firm does not have a web site, then the background screening firm must provide the consumer a phone number where the consumer can obtain the same information. The background screening firm's privacy policy must contain "information describing its privacy practices with respect to its preparation and processing of investigative consumer reports." Specifically, background screening firms in California (and firms that do business in California) must have a statement in their privacy policy entitled "Personal Information Disclosure: United States or Overseas" that indicates whether the personal information will be transferred to third parties outside the United States or its territories. The bill defines "third parties" as including, "but not being limited to, a contractor, foreign affiliate, wholly owned entity, or an employee of the investigative consumer reporting agency." The bill also requires a "separate section that includes the name, mailing address, e-mail address, and telephone number of the investigative consumer reporting agency representatives who can assist a consumer with additional information regarding the investigative consumer reporting agency's privacy practices or policies in the event of a compromise of his or her information." In the event a consumer is harmed by virtue of a background screening firm negligently sending data offshore, the bill provides for damages to the consumer. The bill goes into affect January 1, 2012. This will presumably allow time for background screening firms to provide new releases to employers, or to modify the language on online systems. The full text of California Senate Bill 909 can be found at: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/09-10/bill/sen/sb_0901-0950/sb_909_bill_20100929_chaptered.pdf.

EEOC Meets To Discuss Credit Reports And Job Applicants

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0600

The EEOC held a public Commission meeting on Wednesday, October 20 to hear testimony from representatives of various groups, social scientists, and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on the growing use of credit histories of job applicants as selection criteria during employment background screening. The EEOC Chair commented that the discussion provided important input into EEOC's work to ensure that "the workplace is made free of all barriers to equal opportunity." She also said that as a result of high unemployment forcing more people into the job market, an increasing number of job applicants are exposed to employment background screening tools such as credit checks that could unfairly exclude them from job opportunities. The Commission heard from a diverse set of experts, including one from the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) who expressed concerns that the use of credit histories creates a "Catch-22" situation for job applicants during the current period of high unemployment and high foreclosures, both of which have negative impacts on credit. Others explained using credit histories for employment purposes can have a disparate impact on protected groups, including people of color, women, and the disabled. Representatives from the business community - including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (USCC) and the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) - told the Commission that the use of credit histories is permissible by law, limited in scope, and predictive in certain situations of reliability. A recent survey from SHRM revealed that 13 percent of organizations conduct credit checks on all job candidates and another 47 percent consider credit history for selected jobs. Also, it is the experience of SHRM member companies that few organizations utilize credit histories for every job opening. However, an industrial psychologist said that there is little research exploring the implications of using credit checks in the employment context and - given the potential for discriminatory exclusion - he concluded that it would be wise to use an applicant's credit history only within the context of a thorough

New Int'l Criminal Record Suppliers Simply Resellers

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0600

Beware! by Steven Brownstein Several new advertisments have reached my desk selling international criminal record searches. They have reached my desk because the subject of concern is the amount of mis-information these companies provide. One "cloud computing company' I had the 'dis-pleasure' of negotiating with to put Straightline International criminal records on their system. By the end of the negotiations I felt that they would use the information we would provide as if it were their own. I passed on the deal. They proved the point recently, now offering, directly through them, international criminal records. Here's the problem. Here's your problem. A computer cloud company does not know a thing about record searches. They have never seen the inside of a court house for purposes other than attending. And let alone international! They've got to be kidding. The cavaet is yours. Straightline International spends tens of thousands of dollars travelling to and learning the record systems of countries to provide the best resource and information possible. When all a company has to do is publish or in this case, re-publish, some worn out and misused, possibly out dated information on the Internet - add a 'click here' button to order - and call themselves an expert - who do I feel sorry for?

I Had To Prove I Wasnâ€™t A Criminal

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Michael Ray Brown of Tennessee is not a criminal, but was recently denied a part-time job after a background checking company determined he was. Brown's background was delved into by a USA pre-employment screening company used by temporary agency Pro Logistics to check for possible criminal histories of prospective employees. Brown had applied for a job at Rich Products Corporation and got curious when no one called him back about the job. "I had applied through the temp to hire company and happened to call the gentleman back when I hadn't heard anything about the job for a while and he told me that I had failed my background check," said Brown, who is 34. "I said, no, that can't be possible because I've never been in any kind of trouble." Brown at first thought someone had stolen his identity, but by digging further found out the man the screening comapny determined to have a criminal history actually had a different social security number and birth year than him — they shared the same name and month and day of birth. "What they (the pre-employment screening firm's representatives) were telling me was that I had gotten in trouble in Memphis," Brown said. "I contacted the (Shelby County) court clerks office and they said they had a Michael Brown in the system. They checked my social security number and date of birth against the one in their system and it turned out to be an entirely different person — that Michael Brown was born in 1958." Brown, who was born in 1976, also got help with his problem from the Rutherford County Sheriff's Office, according to a sheriff's report. Detective Steve Brown reported that he ran an "FBI Criminal History" check on Michael Brown and found he had no red marks on his record. "My investigation shows that Michael Ray Brown (of Bell Buckle) has no criminal history and has not been arrested anywhere in the United States," the detective wrote in a report. But when Micheal Brown called the pre-employment screening firm back to inform the company of the information he had uncovered, he said they refused to talk to him over the phone. "They said they couldn't talk about anyone's personal information over the phone," Brown said A news reporter contacted the company about the issue and the company's Vice President of Regulatory Compliance told the newspaper the company would launch an investigation into the problem with Brown's background check. Soon after, the company had discovered how the error occurred and was in the process of correcting the erroneous information it previously provided to Pro Logistics concerning Brown. The error occurred according to the pre-employment screening firm because background searches conducted by the company only utilize the prospective employee's name and date of birth. In Brown's case, another person existed in Tennessee who shared his name and date of birth and that person had a criminal history. "That might lead some to ask why we don't use social security numbers when conducting these searches," the company's Vice President of Regulatory Compliance said, adding it is done to protect the identities of clients. "Identity theft is a huge issue all across America and ... this is an effort to protect individuals' identities." The company's Vice President of Regulatory Compliance confirmed Brown contacted the screening firm after he learned of the error with his background report. The company would have told him they could not discuss personal information via telephone, the company's Vice President of Regulatory Compliance added. "He (Brown) contacted the screening firm and was given the right instructions to correct the problem," the company's Vice President of Regulatory Compliance said. "We will not release information over the telephone. We ask clients to fax us a copy of a photo ID so we can start the process of fixing any possible mistake." The company said it asked Brown to fax a copy of his license, but that it never received Brown's fax. "Michael said he sent it, but we don't have a record of receiving it," the company's Vice President of Regulatory Compliance said. "He said he received a fax transmittal verification, but I've sent faxes myself where I got one of those but someone tells me later that they didn't get it." The company's Vice President of Regulatory Compliance could not confirm how often such a mistake occurs at the screening company, but did say the company performs somewhere in the range of 100,000 background checks per week. "It happens, but generally when the report goes back to the client, the individual says it's not me and we are generally, within a day or so, able to clear it up if the individual is telling the truth." The company's Vice President of Regulatory Compliance said Brown's issue was unfortunately delayed because of the process the company has in place to ensure someone wasn't trying to steal his identity. Brown told reporters he was thankful that the company fixed the problem, but he believes all companies that run background checks should use more identifying information when conducting their background searches, especially when a common name like Brown or Smith is involved. "There has got to be a better way for a private company like that to retrieve information about somebody," Brown said. "I think in a situation like this, if I provide a potential employer with my social security number and they want to do a background check, then the social security number should be used so there is no mistake." Brown said he also wonders how many people have been denied a job due to false information in a background check. "There has to be a better way to go about all of this," he said.

UK Shutting Down Courts

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

The UK government has revealed that 93 magistrates' courts are to be closed in England and Wales. Justice Minister Jonathan Djanogly also said the government would shut 49 county courts, as part of its deficit-reduction programme. These figures are slightly down from 103 magistrates' courts and 54 county courts previously marked for closure. Mr Djanogly told MPs the current system was "unsustainable", but Labour accused the coalition of "crude cost-cutting". In a statement to the Commons, Mr Djanogly said changes to the court system would mean a "better, more efficient and more modern" system of justice, with premises modernised. There are some 300 magistrates' courts, which deal with most minor crimes, crown court committal hearings and licensing applications. County Courts deal with most cases brought under civil law. These include divorces and family disputes, business cases, housing issues, accident claims and small claims.

Criminal RCMP Background Checks Taking Forever' In Canada

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

With the holidays coming up, Janet Adams was looking to supplement her income from her part-time job. So she landed a second gig driving a taxi. Or so she thought. Ms. Adams learned that the criminal information request she had to have processed by Durham police to qualify for the job would take several weeks to complete, meaning she'll miss out on the potentially lucrative opportunity. "I thought I'd supplement my income over the holidays, but guess what? I can't start working until January," she said. "The criminal checks are taking forever." Ms. Adams isn't alone. Enhanced criminal record checks implemented by the RCMP mean the waiting time for clearance has increased from two weeks to five weeks and more in Durham. People who need the checks done to start jobs or do volunteer work are in some cases finding themselves in a bind. It's an issue Durham police are aware of and are working to address, said spokesman Dave Selby. "We feel badly about the people being caught up in this," he said. "We're doing a lot of things to try and bring that length of time down." Improvements can't come quickly enough for Roy Williams, whose Blue Line Taxi company is short drivers because new employees are held up waiting for the checks, which are required by the City of Oshawa. Mr. Williams, Ms. Adams and just about anybody you could talk to agree that the premise behind the checks is sound: They're designed to identify people with criminal records that would make them unsuitable for positions of trust, including working with vulnerable people such as seniors, the handicapped and children. Durham police search data banks for prior criminal charges and convictions listed on the Canadian Police Information Centre system, and if an applicant has lived in the region for less than five years, will make an inquiry with police in the jurisdiction the subject has moved from. But the process has become significantly more cumbersome with changes implemented by the RCMP and imposed on municipal forces such as Durham police. Local police forces are now required to flag an applicant in the event there are matches to a list of the nation's 14,000 pardoned sex offenders, said Susan Cardwell, records manager with Durham police. A match could occur in two ways: if the applicant's name and date of birth match someone on the list, or if their gender and birthdate are a match. Should there be a match, the applicant must have fingerprints taken by local police and sent to the RCMP for analysis before a clean record can be confirmed. That added layer of security means the number of people having to go through the second step has increased greatly, from fewer than 100 a year to as many as 3,000, Ms. Cardwell said.

Another new RCMP rule -- that applicants must have their search done in the municipality in which they live -- has increased the number of CIRs coming in to Durham police. People in Durham had previously been able to go to other jurisdictions, such as Port Hope, where the system was less burdened and the checks could be completed within days. "Within the first week, we realized there were going to be difficulties," Ms. Cardwell said. While the days of two-week turnarounds for the checks are probably gone for good, Durham police are moving to trim the amount of time the process takes, Ms. Cardwell said. She hopes enhanced technology, including real-time checks of criminal records -- doing checks while applicants wait and identifying any potential issues right away -- will help. There may also be opportunities to electronically obtain and send off fingerprints to the RCMP for quicker comparisons. In the meantime, Ms. Cardwell urges people requiring checks to be cognizant of the time they may require. And she urges organizations to consider whether or not criminal records checks are necessary for all workers or volunteers. "This is affecting police services from coast to coast," Ms. Cardwell said.

Straightline International Offers Free Services Online

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

You can get Straightline International’s pricing and turn around times online—and it’s free! Most likely, the industry’s most accurate calculation of search turnaround times, Straightline International uses strict parameters to provide their customer with unparrelled results. Dennis Brownstein, Chief Operating Officer, of Straightline, professes the belief that once customers start utilizing this free service, a truer understanding of the international marketyplace will arise. Turnaround times are based on a true 90 day average; not just your ordinary add ‘em up and divide them’ type average, either. It pays to take a look at this ingenious Site. Free of charge. Be our guest at: www.straightlineinternational.com/prices/europe

Half Of Large Canadian Companies Hit By Employee Fraud Attempts

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

A recent survey finds that 48 percent of executives at large Canadian companies said that workers have attempted to defraud their organizations, while only 35 percent of mid-sized corporate executives said they, too, have experienced insider fraud. Regardless of company size, employees who attempted fraud were very likely to get caught, according to the results of a SAS/Leger Marketing survey of more than 1,000 Canadian executives carried out earlier this year. Only 4 percent of executives at large companies said workers who carried out fraud got away with it, whereas 10 percent of those unscrupulous workers at mid-sized companies escaped undetected, according to executives. More than two out of three fraudsters were tracked down after the heist occurred--74 percent and 69 percent, respectively, for large and mid-sized companies. In roughly one out of every six cases, the company spotted the fraud attempt and stopped it before it happened. Customer fraud, which encompasses anything from insurance scams to credit card and mortgage fraud, was also a greater concern for large companies, with 47 percent of executives saying they had been impacted, versus 30 percent for mid-sized firms. At large organizations, 7 percent of customer fraudsters got away scot-free versus 12 percent at mid-sized companies, the respondents said. The financial, food/retail, and government sectors were the biggest targets of customer fraud attempts, with 60 percent of food/retail executives, 59 percent of finance executives, and 44 percent of government executives saying they have been the victims of customer fraud.

Firm Fined 5,000

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

A Canadian federal court judge is ordering a credit agency to pay a man $5,000 for wrongly giving him a bad credit report, the first time damages have been awarded under Canada's privacy law. TransUnion told RBC that Mirza Nammo had bad credit. But the report was actually for a man with a similar name who lived on the same street where Nammo used to live. Nammo had applied for a business loan and RBC turned him down. Federal court Judge Russel Zinn ruled TransUnion broke Canada's privacy laws by collecting wrong information about Nammo, not quickly correcting the mistake and not sending the corrected information to the third party. It's the first award under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, a law passed in 2000.

Ohio Governor Prohibits Offshoring For Public Services

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Ohio Governor Ted Strickland has issued an executive order that prohibits the expenditure of public funds for services provided offshore and beyond the boundaries of the United States and its territories - a practice known as Offshore Outsourcing or "Offshoring" - a move that is a reaction to public outcry after a El Salvadoran call center was used for Ohio's appliance rebate program, according to a report on Cleveland.com. A press release on the Office of the Governor website at Governor.Ohio.gov reveals that the state's Department of Development awarded a $357,300 contract to a Texas-based service provider in March 2010 to assist with the agency's implementation of the $11 million federal stimulus-funded appliance rebate program which rewarded consumers with federal stimulus dollars when they bought energy-efficient appliances. Despite state procurement requirements designed to restrict service providers from using public funds for offshore labor - in particular, an Ohio Department of Administrative Services (DAS) directive that requires agencies to ask potential vendors to list all locations where the services will be performed - the contract was awarded to a company that practiced "offshoring" and used offshore labor. The company in Texas never told state officials in Ohio it would use a foreign call center, and the state did not require the information with bids. State officials learned about the call center from an Ohio resident who asked a call center employee where the operation was located, according to the press release. "Ohio's policy has been - and must continue to be - that public funds should not be spent on services provided offshore," Strickland states in the Executive Order. "Throughout my Administration, procurement procedures have been in place that restrict the purchase of offshore services." In June 2008, Strickland signed an executive order (E.O. 2008-12S) that implemented Think Ohio First practices promoting economic development by maximizing the use of Ohio businesses when agencies conduct purchases. Banning the practice of offshoring where public funds are concerned - like the governor of Ohio issuing an executive order prohibiting use of public funds for outsourcing - may seem like a no brainer to many, but according to a blog on The Economic Populist the use of taxpayer dollars to offshore outsource jobs happens every day, from food stamp and unemployment support to large software design projects. The controversial practice of "offshoring" has come to the attention of other states as well. As reported earlier on the ESR News Blog, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently signed into law California Senate Bill 909 (SB 909). While SB 909 does not prohibit offshoring when it comes to background checks, the law will require a disclosure in the privacy statement of the background check firm's website, as well as a link to that privacy statement.

Cities, Counties Can't Stop Federal Immigration Checks

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Officials in a number of jurisdictions are criticizing Secure Communities, the federal government's immigration enforcement program. Under the program, the fingerprints of those arrested in participating jurisdictions are checked against Immigration and Customs Enforcement's database in order to determine whether the suspects are eligible for deportation. If ICE finds that the suspect is eligible for deportation, either because the suspect is in the country illegally or because he holds a green card that has been voided by a previous conviction, it can then begin proceedings to bring the individual into federal custody for possible deportation. Some officials say that they do not want their jurisdictions to participate in the program because they are concerned that immigrants will no longer cooperate with police out of fear of being deported. But while participating in Secure Communities has been characterized as voluntary, jurisdictions cannot decide that they no longer want to take part in the program, according to a memo released by ICE in August. However, the memo also goes on to note that local officials can request a meeting with ICE so that both sides can discuss any problems with Secure Communities and come to an agreement about whether or not the jurisdiction will continue to participate in the program. However, local officials who have been critical of Secure Communities say that ICE has never agreed to such meetings. As a result, it remains unclear whether or not there is any way for jurisdictions to stop participating in Secure Communities, critics of the program say.

Intrusions At Large Companies Were Up Sharply In 2010, Study Says

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

More than 66 percent of enterprises say they have encountered system intrusions in the past 12 months, a significant increase from the 41 percent that reported such intrusions in 2009. VanDyke Software's Sixth Annual Enterprise IT Security Survey finds a noticeable increase in the proportion of large companies reporting a breach of their user machines, office networks, and/or servers. Between 2005 and 2008, the percentage of large enterprises reporting an intrusion ranged from 51 percent to 58 percent, VanDyke says. This year's 67 percent is the highest reported level in five years. For small- and medium-sized enterprises, the percentage reporting an unauthorized breach remained fairly steady between this year and last. Among mid-size companies between 1,000 and 4,999 employees, the proportion reporting a breach was 57 percent in 2009 and 59 percent this year, according to VanDyke. Among companies with 100 to 999 employees, the percentage reporting an intrusion was 45 percent in 2009 and 43 percent in 2010. Among micro-size companies with 99 or fewer employees, the proportion reporting an intrusion was 25 percent in both 2009 and 2010. Fourteen percent of survey respondents blamed hacker/network attacks as the cause of their intrusions, while 12 percent blamed lack of adequate security policies. Malware was listed as the biggest risk for intrusion by 25 percent of respondents, while 17 percent listed hacking and 12 percent mentioned employee error or carelessness.

How to Handle Employee Drug Use in the Workplace

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

by Bill Clifton When an employee reveals that he or she has a drug or alcohol problem, employers have a number of options. If the drug use is current and self-reported, the employer may terminate the employee, or place that person on a leave of absence to obtain treatment and return to work as a "last chance assistance agreement." Such an agreement usually requires the employee to enter a substance abuse treatment program, at his or her own expense. If the drug use is found through a positive test rather than self-reporting, the employer may choose automatic termination of employment, an easier option that involves no discretion. Such a rule may have practical implications, however, such as losing a prime employee when the drug use may be a one-time occurrence, or accusations of discrimination if exceptions to this rule are made. Rather than immediate termination, employers may choose progressive discipline, ranging from verbal or written warning, to suspension, and finally to termination. In cases of positive drug tests, a last chance assistance agreement may also be a viable option. U.S. Department of Transportation procedures contemplate such an action for certain federally regulated safety sensitive positions.

In Accepting Mobile Payment, Merchants Face Higher Fraud Risk

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Merchants accepting mobile phone payments had the highest card-not-present fraud volume in 2009, according to a Javelin Strategy and Research survey. The survey found that, on average, retailers faced about 3,400 attempts to perpetrate fraudulent transactions per month. Because of this high volume, 38 percent of counterfeit transactions go through undetected, says Javelin analyst Alan Ruperto. Fraud losses as a percentage of total revenue were 1.13 percent for mobile merchants, versus 0.83 percent for online-only merchants, and 0.86 percent for merchants with both online and brick-and-mortar outlets. In spite of the higher fraud risks, 25 percent of retailers in the Javelin poll said they planned to start accepting mobile payments within the next year, according to Jim Rice of LexisNexis Risk Solutions. The Javelin survey found that the bulk of consumer card fraud occurs on existing debit and credit card accounts, with credit and debit card fraud respectively accounting for 65 percent and 28 percent of all existing card fraud last year. Merchants say they are fighting fraud by increasingly outsourcing transaction and customer profile databases to third-party risk management providers. They also are increasingly using point-of-sale authentication devices, Internet protocol address detection, rules-based filters, and tracking tools and online-purchase authentication systems.

Six Enterprise Security Leaks You Should Plug Now

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

There are several security vulnerabilities that commonly exist on corporate information technology networks. One such vulnerability exists in employee smartphones that use Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and GSM wireless. According to consultant Robert Hansen, a hacker could use a Bluetooth sniper rifle to read a phone's Bluetooth signal from a mile away, which in turn would allow him to access the phone's Wi-Fi signal and the corporate network. Hansen said that companies can protect themselves from this and other types of attacks that target smartphones by only allowing approved devices on their networks. Another common vulnerability exists in network printers, which can be equipped with Wi-Fi capabilities as well as 3G access and telephone lines for faxes. Hansen notes that hackers could break into corporate networks through one of the printer's open ports. He says that in order to protect against such attacks, companies should disable the wireless capabilities on printers or close all ports on a printer to prevent unauthorized access. Other security weaknesses of note include custom-developed Web applications with bad code, social network spoofing, workers downloading illegal movies and music, and SMS text messaging spoofs and malware infections.

Online Access With A Fingerprint

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

University of Southampton researcher Sara Alotaibi has developed FingerID, a system that allows the identities of owners of Web accounts to be verified with fingerprints rather than user names and passwords. Users provide their fingerprints for FingerID during a one-time registration process. After they register, users will be able to use their fingerprints to gain access to various online accounts. Alotaibi plans to expand the system to authenticate users with palm prints and facial expressions. The FingerID system's two main constituent elements are the Web site and software. "We propose a cost-effective, convenient, and secure authentication solution for undertaking secure dealings over the Internet," Alotaibi says. "It will allow Internet users to authenticate their identity in a hassle-free manner and go about their activities in a secure environment without the fear of loss of identity and money."

The Background Investigator Goes To Argentina

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

In a continuing series, The Background Investigator, sends its attorneys or experts to various countries around the world to explore the justice systems and bring back to you their findings. This month Steven Brownstein visited Buenos Aires, Argentina. Here is his report: Argentina has 3 levels of laws and resulting courts to enforce them. There are the Federal, Provincial and Local levels. There is only one Federal set of laws and courts and it takes precedence over all other levels. The Federal law generally deals with disputes of the country, agencies, or between different provinces. In addition, cases dealing with drugs, foreigners and companies are heard in the federal courts system. The problem (especially for pre-employment screening companies) is that the jurisdiction of the Federal courts mirrors at times that of the local courts and their laws and jurisdiction so that a case may be heard by either the Federal or local court and there is no real guidance of how to know which court the case was sent to or ended up at. The Courts follow a hierarchy of the lower or common court and Superior, or the Supreme Court of Justice. The Supreme Court of the federal system is the ultimate authority over all cases. There are lower federal criminal courts through out the country as well. The Criminal Forum as it's called has 2 parts. First, the instructional phase of the process, this is like the indictment phase here in the US, a single judge decides if the case should proceed to trial in the Criminal Camara. This phase (Criminal Camara) is made up of 3 judges who sit over the trial and issue their decision of guilty or innocent. The procees in the criminal courts moves quickly and there is minimal witness and evidence. The Provincial criminal courts are set up the same as the Federal, except the prosecutor in the Provincial is independent of the judge in the first phase of the trial. In the Federal, the prosecutor is more of an assistant to the judge, and at the Provincial the judge is more the director and the prosecutor is the investigator. So the at the Province the judge or the prosecutor starts the ‘instruction’ and then they continue to trial in front of the tribunal, Camaras del Crimen (Criminal Court). The decision can be appealed to the Provincial or Federal Supreme Court by the process called casacion or revocation. Records are separate for each province. Each province is autonomous and there is no record sharing. The federal system is one system through out the country but the system is new and not sophisticated yet to have included all courts. Therefore, if you were to be looking for a criminal record the first place would be the province the person was in. Although the case may have gone to the Appellate or Supreme Court of the province, it would have started at the local court. There are 23 provinces and most have only one court. The larger cities, such as Buenos Aries, have many.

Firms Lose More to Electronic Than Physical Theft: Kroll

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

The risk consultancy company, Kroll Inc., has released a report on fraud trends around the world. The report found that for the first time ever, the electronic theft of data is more common than the theft of physical assets. According to the report, which surveyed more than 800 senior executives around the world, electronic and information theft represented 27.3 percent of total fraud losses, while physical theft comprised 27.2 percent of losses from fraud. In addition, the report found that fraud cost businesses around $1.7 million per billion dollars of sales, up from $1.4 million per billion dollars of sales last year. The increase may simply be the result of better fraud protection and awareness. The report also found that fraud is usually carried out by a company's employees, particularly junior employees and senior members of management. However, customers were the most common perpetrators of fraud in Latin America, the report found. Finally, the report noted that China had the highest levels of fraud among the world's emerging markets, with 98 percent of businesses impacted by the crime.

Lincoln Nebaska Police Say It's So But We Have Our Doubts (Best Criminal record Source)

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

The most comprehensive criminal history record in Nebraska is the record maintained by the Nebraska State Patrol. (Now here come the caveats) This is a listing of arrests by any law enforcement agency in the State when the person arrested was fingerprinted, and the fingerprint card was submitted to the State Patrol. This should include most arrests for felony crimes, and some arrests for misdemeanor crimes. It would not include, however, many misdemeanor crimes for which the person was not fingerprinted. Cases where the defendant was issued a citation and released after the arrest would be unlikely to appear. It would also not include cases where the prosecutor filed the charge, and the defendant made a voluntary court appearance but was never arrested and fingerprinted. So, all in all, there’s a lot to be missed using their records.

Work After Prison - One-Year Findings

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

by Joyce Foundation More than 2 million people are incarcerated in the United States, and around 700,000 are released from prison each year. Those who are released face daunting obstacles as they seek to reenter their communities, and rates of recidivism are high. Many experts believe that stable employment is critical to a successful transition from prison to the community. In 2007-2008, more than 1,800 men who had recently been released from prison were assigned, at random, to a transitional jobs program or to a program providing basic job search (JS) assistance but no subsidized jobs. Both groups are being followed using state data on employment and recidivism. Random assignment ensures that if significant differences emerge between the two groups, those differences can be attributed with confidence to the different types of employment services each group received. This is the first major report in the TJRD project. It describes how the demonstration was implemented and assesses how the transitional jobs programs affected employment and recidivism during the first year after people entered the project, a period when the recession caused unemployment rates to rise substantially in all four cities. Key findings include: The TJRD project generally operated as intended. The TJ programs developed work slots and placed a very high percentage of participants into transitional jobs. About 85 percent of the men who were assigned to the TJ programs worked in a transitional job, reflecting a strong motivation to work. On average, participants worked in the TJs for about four months. The TJ group was much more likely to work than the JS group early on, but the difference between groups faded as men left the transitional jobs; overall, the TJ group was no more likely to work in an unsubsidized job than the JS group. The programs provided temporary jobs to many who would not otherwise have worked, but at the end of the first year, only about one-third of the TJ group — about the same proportion as in the JS group — was employed in the formal labor market. Overall, the TJ programs had no consistent impacts on recidivism during the first year of follow-up. About one-third of each group was arrested and a similar number returned to prison. Most of the prison admissions were for violations of parole rules, not new crimes. In one site, the transitional jobs group was less likely to be reincarcerated for a parole violation. These results point to the need to develop and test enhancements to the transitional jobs model and other strategies to improve outcomes for former prisoners who reenter society. They also raise questions about the assumed connection between employment and recidivism, since there were no decreases in arrests even during the period when the TJ group was much more likely to be employed. This is not the final word on the TJRD project; both groups will be followed up for another year, with two-year results available in 2011.

Alabama Cracks Down on Fishing Violations

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Alabama is casting a net over saltwater fishing violations with a new program that allows the public to anonymously report such violations via text message. Launched by the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (ADCNR) Marine Resources Division in mid-November, the program enables cell phone users to text “coastwatch” to the number 847411 to report saltwater fishing violations. People who witness saltwater fishing violations are encouraged to provide as much information as possible about the violators, such as the name and description of the suspects, a vehicle or boat description, license plate number, boat registration number, time of observation and the area where the violation occurred, according to the Marine Resources.

Navy Vet Sues City Over Info On Criminal Record

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

The city of El Paso faces a multimillion-dollar lawsuit that alleges the Police Department mishandled records and personal information of a man who could not get jobs as a result. According to the suit filed in district court, disabled Navy veteran John Shelby is suing the city for $7.5 million, alleging that he has lost or been denied several jobs that required background checks because the crimes of another man using his name as an alias were incorrectly attributed to him and placed on his criminal record. According to the suit, Shelby was arrested in 1991 on suspicion of criminal trespassing, which was dismissed. The suit alleges that Jason Newton was arrested twice in 1997, once for robbery and a second time for burglary of a vehicle and evading arrest. The suit says that both times. Newton identified himself as John Shelby. On both occasions, the El Paso Police Department released Newton despite the fact that he was wanted in connection with an attempted murder in Mc Kinney, Texas, the suit alleges. Newton is now serving a life sentence for his part in that crime, the suit says. Shelby's personal information, including his Social Security number and place of birth, was filed on the arrest records made under Newton's alias of John Shelby. Due to these mistakes, Casey argues that Newton's criminal record was essentially attributed to Shelby and, as a result, Shelby has failed a series of background checks since 1997, making him virtually unemployable. Shelby has made several attempts to clear his record over the years and was eventually able to get Newton's criminal history expunged from his record in 2009. "He's basically had to be a pizza delivery driver or work in a seedy bar for the last de cade or more," Casey said. "This has been the focus of his life, trying to get this corrected." The suit charges that Shelby's privacy was violated and that he was defamed by Police Department records.

Background Check Boss Fires Herself

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

It was a tough choice for Lola Gonzalez to make, but it actually helped save her company Accurate Background Check. The boss, Lola Gonzalez, gave herself a pink slip. Lola Gonzalez, says she couldn't bear to fire employees who have worked there for years. So she stopped paying herself a six-figure salary and got a job for less than half the pay as a social worker.

Internet Profile Aggregators

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

People use web profile aggregators to see what your Internet profiles are, There are many of these services out there, including the following. These are a few (thanks to recordsbackground.com): -Ziki -Lijit -Namyz -Spokeo -ClaimID -Find Me On – Slogan -Profilactic -Profile Linker

The Public Record Update A Service from BRB Publications, Inc.

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Arkansas AOC to Add More Circuit Courts to Online Access The online system for the Arkansas Circuit Courts that is managed by the Arkansas Administrative Office of the Courts has plans to add three more counties to their free online access program to court docket information. The three county Circuit Courts to be added, perhaps as early as today, include Faulkner, Searcy, and Van Buren. The three current participating county Circuit Courts are Garland, Hot Spring, and Pulaski counties. More counties will be added over time. One may search the Circuit Court Docket Index, including judgments, by name or case number. There are several cautionary points to consider: The system contains no records from the county's District Court - the lower court. The search allows one to search by name with DL or DOB, but results do not show a DOB or DL. So if a DOB or DL is not known, there can be a problem with the true identification of a subject. See https://arep2.aoc.arkansas.gov/cconnect/PROD/public/ck_public_qry_main.cp_main_idx

Follow-up on Diploma Mills and Fake Degrees

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Diploma Mills issue fake degrees and diplomas for fraudulent purposes, such as obtaining employment, promotions, raises, or bonuses on false pretenses. There have been recent news stories about diploma mills and fake degrees. The Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter, through an agreed order from the LaPorte Circuit Court, halted two Michigan City businesses engaged in the sale of imitation high school and university diplomas via the Internet; a sheriff in Montana was caught providing a false high school diploma; and a news story surfaced that the Stanford Who's Who organization recently recognized a Reverand Dr. to their ranks who earned a Doctorate degree in Humane Behavior from Almeda University in 2003. You can purchase the same degree from Almeda for your dog, which people have done. Almeda is a popular Diploma Mill. Many people promote their Diploma Mill degrees at Linkedin. A recent search on Linkedin found someone identifying himself as involved in the security industry and a Chapter Chairman from ASIS and who mentions on his profile that he has a degree from Almeda. How do you spot a Diploma Mill? One of the world's leading experts, if not the leading expert, on Diploma Mills, is Accredibase. They provide the world with extensive information and related links regarding this topic. See their site at www.accredibase.com. Also, the Wisconsin Educational Approval Board has an excellent web page that includes a list of evaluation questions to help determine if an institution is a Mill; see http://eab.state.wi.us/resources/diplomamills.asp

Winnebago County IL â€˜s New Online System for Court Records

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Winnebago County, IL recently replaced their very old, antiquated public access system with a new enhanced program. Criminal case files are available from 1980, civil cases from 1988. Traffic citations, DUIs, and ordinance violations are available for 1996. Court calendars are also available. The web page offers an excellent User's Guide that fully explains how to use the system. The access site is found at www.cc.co.winnebago.il.us/caseinfo.asp?P=I.

Les Rosen's Corner SHRM Defends Use of Credit Reports

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

According to a news story on the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) website - "SHRM: Credit Checks Are Legitimate Screening Tool" - a representative for SHRM told the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) during a public hearing on October 20, 2010 that the federal government should not eliminate an employer's use of credit histories to help make decisions about job candidates. The representative, in prepared comments, said that "SHRM believes there is a compelling public interest in enabling our nation's employers - whether that employer is in the government or the private sector - to assess the skills, abilities, and work habits of potential hires." In addition, the representative said credit history is one of many factors - including education, experience and certifications - that employers use "to narrow that applicant pool to those who are most qualified." The SHRM representative pointed out Human Resources (HR) typically conducts a background check on the job finalist or group of finalists before making a job offer, and that background check might include checking personal references, criminal history, and credit history depending on the employer and the position to be filled. Citing the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) of 1970 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the representative said SHRM believes "employees already have significant federal protection for the misuse of background checks." Recent SHRM Research Department data on the use of employer background screening practices was also referenced at the meeting. Among the findings: -Just 13 percent of employers surveyed conducted credit checks on all job candidates while another 47 percent consider credit history for candidates of select jobs. -Employers generally conducted credit checks only for certain positions, including jobs of financial or fiduciary responsibilities (91 percent), senior executive positions (46 percent) and positions with access to confidential employee information (34 percent). -Among employers that used credit checks, 57 percent initiated them only after making a contingent job offer and 30 percent initiated them after the job interview. -Four out of 10 employers surveyed did not conduct credit checks. The EEOC heard public comment from SHRM and others to determine the extent of the practice of using credit checks during the background screening of job candidates, the effectiveness of its intended purpose, and its potential impact on different populations. More information about the EEOC public meeting can be found at: http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/meetings/10-20-10/index.cfm. "

Contract Workers and Background Checks

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

A story from Greenwood County, South Carolina shows why background checks should be run on all workers with access to schools, including contractors and sub-contractors, and not just full time employees. According to a report on the News Channel 7 website at WSPA.com, a contract worker at a Greenwood County, S.C. school was arrested for disorderly conduct when he allegedly yelled and cursed at police after students complained about his behavior. According to a police report, students at the school claimed the accused man made sexual gestures and asked the children to give him a hug. The 22-year-old man - a subcontractor working at the school - was charged with public disorderly conduct for allegedly cursing at deputies and school officials while they kicked him off campus. In their report, News Channel 7 learned that, according to a South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) background check, the man had been accused with sexual misconduct with a child under the age of 16 and sexual misconduct with a child under the age of 11. Although not convicted on those charges, the man had been convicted of aggravated assault. To ensure a safe workplace (which can include schools), employers following best practices guidelines should run background checks on all employees - from full-time to part-time and from contractors to sub-contractors.

Straightline International Leads Industry In Overseas Criminal Record Checks

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Ukraine: Access to Information Law Adopted

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

The Ukrainian parliament has adopted an Access to Information Law following a campaign by ARTICLE 19 and partners over the past two years. ARTICLE 19 welcomes the new law, adopted by a large parliamentary majority, and will continue to check that it is properly implemented to improve transparency and the free flow of information in the country. “We are delighted that after a sustained campaign Ukraine has adopted a law to realise the people’s right to information. Once properly implemented, the Access to Information Law will increase transparency, good governance, efficiency and participation in public affairs,” says Dr Agnès Callamard, ARTICLE 19 Executive Director. “The new law contains several progressive provisions supported by ARTICLE 19, including a broad definition of public information, and a legal responsibility of holders of information who fail to publish,” Callamard continued. The new law also requires public bodies to promote open government and publish certain types of information without any individual request. The regime of limitations adequately limits non-disclosure only to situations in which the revelation of such information risks more harm than benefit to the public. Disclosure of information on wrongdoings or information concerning a serious threat to people’s health and safety or to the environment are protected too. The law will go into effect after being signed by the President Yanukovych who has already expressed his intention to give assent.

Important Notice From Scotland Disclosure

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

There are many attempts by USA companies through UK screening firms to order online Basic Disclosures. This is quite improper as The Scotland Discosure Web Site is quite explicit: "You can only apply online, if your current address is in the UK and if you have been living at this address for at least twelve months. If you do not satisfy these criteria, you will have to apply using a paper application form." http://www.disclosurescotland.co.uk/apply-online Note: Straightline International always uses a paper application when performing Scotland Disclosures. Do you?

Background Check Firms Find Zero Hit Ratio With Local Police Search In India

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

One joke in India is you can find a criminal record on any politician but you can not find one on an job applicant or employee. Why's that?

Did you know that most large companies in India will not even do criminal checks anymore?

Why's that?

Simply put - It is the local police check. Local police simply do not have the resources to perform a proper check.
And historically background check companies in India provided local police checks. What is a local police check?

It is a check of that police station's records for an arrest at that station. That's it. No more. But sometimes less.

Some police stations do not have full time staff trained to manage police records.

So the question is:

Why perform a local police check?

Large Indian companies are pretty smart. They are not keen to spending money where there are no results.

But in the defense of India background screening companies; they (the screening companies) say that the large companies will not spend the money on a legitimate check either.

So in the meantime the majority of local police checks being sold are to U.S. companies.

Why's that?

USA Federal Court Backs

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

A federal appeals court has ruled in favor of Con-Way Freight in Poplar Bluff, Mo., and its unwritten policy of denying employment to applicants with theft-related convictions. The court ruled that a woman could not pursue a racial discrimination lawsuit against the company because her prior theft convictions disqualified her from being hired.

Steven Brownstein And The Creation Of NAPBS

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

by Les Rosen, ESR The chronology: 2000: There is no national trade association, industry standards, or definitive publications on background screening. Steve Brownstein, Publisher of the Background Investigator, holds the first ever background check industry conferences in Long Beach, California and then larger events in Tampa, Florida. Employment Screening Resources (ESR) founder and President Lester Rosen is the keynote speaker at these first industry conferences. 2003: As a result of the Tampa conferences, momentum builds for a professional trade association for the background screening industry. ESR President Lester Rosen serves as the chairperson of the steering committee that founded the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®), a non-profit trade association representing the interests of background check companies, and serves as the first co-chair. NAPBS seeks to “…promote ethical business practices, promote compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act and foster awareness of issues related to consumer protection and privacy rights within the background screening industry. The Association provides relevant programs and training aimed at empowering members to better serve clients and to maintain standards of excellence in the background screening industry.”

Straightline Provides Document Retrieval In Saipan And Guam

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Steven Brownstein provides the fastest and the only local public record access service to Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. Based in Saipan, with easy access to Hagatna, Steven Brownstein provides all public record services through Straightline International (www.straightlineinternational.com) When you are ready to order your records search, public document, or filing service in Saipan or Guam contact Steven directly. 1-670-256-7000 1-866-909-6678 steveb@search4crime.com info@straightlineinternational.com

NAPBS Announces Slate Of Directors Nominees

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

The nominated individuals have been reviewed by the Nominations Committee and met the qualifications for their nominated positions. There are four regular director positions and one associate director position to be filled. The slate will be voted on by primary regular and associate members during the Opening Ceremony on Sunday, March 20, 2011, in conjunction with the Annual Conference in Denver, CO. Regular Member Directors Angela Bosworth (2013)
OPENonline Scott Hall (2013)
FirstPoint Information Resources Don Owens (2013)
Prime Information Center Inc. Melissa Sorenson (2013)
Verifications Inc. Christine Cunneen (2012)
Hire Image Dawn Standerwick (2012)
Applicant Insight Associate Directors Ben Peacock (2013)
Lighthouse Information Services LLC Dean Carras (2012)
Innovative Enterprises Inc. "

Scott Friedman As Keynote Speaker At 2011 NAPBS Annual Conference

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Friedman, Scott Categories: Customer Service | Humor | Sales | Entrepreneurship Bio: Scott Friedman is two-time past president of the Colorado Chapter of the National Speakers Association and has earned the CSP (Certified Speaking Professional) designation by the National Speakers Association. He serves on its board of directors as president-elect.
After graduating from Southern Methodist University in 1982 with a degree in Marketing and a minor in Psychology, Scott Friedman worked as.... More>> This speaker's set fee places him/her within the range of: $7,500 and under Travels From: Colorado

The Real Deal Behind India Criminal Record Searches

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Getting Things Done -Public Access To Court Records

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

by Steven Brownstein Getting Things Done -Public Access To Court Records "You can't do that." I still hear those words. Since 1989. "Can't do that. Not there. It's not public access." I didn't heed those words. Instead, I became a pioneer in public record access. Today we all agree it is a matter of fact - "can do that." Why? Because I trusted my ability. I believed in the system. I knew it could be done. Now public access is being taught in universities. Why? Because it can be done.

Man Couldn't Find His Own Record In Waco, TX

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

A man who allegedly broke into a McLennan County Courthouse January 23 in Waco, Texas, damaged an office inside and urinated over the balcony, has raised serious concerns about security. The McLennan County chief deputy said an alarm went off, but it did not notify all of the deputies. A county employee made the call about the break in. Deputies said the 35-year-old suspect used a two-by-four piece of wood to bust into the courthouse just after 5 a.m. The suspect shattered the glass on one of the doors, then broke into the mental health court services office on the second floor. “He basically turned the office upside down by tearing up equipment to include computers, scanners, copiers, and other items throughout the office,” the chief deputy said. The suspect also reportedly urinated over the balcony onto the bottom of the rotunda. Waco police arrested the suspect shortly after he left the courthouse when they caught him urinating in public. He is charged with disorderly conduct, and burglary of a building.

Texas Company Violates Drug Testing Policy

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Just as ST Aerospace faces a $1.025-million civil penalty proposed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) against its subsidiary in San Antonio, Texas, the maintenance, repair, and overhaul giant finds itself the subject of a television expose questioning its business practices. The FAA alleged January 20 that ST Aerospace violated U.S. Transportation Department Workplace Drug and Alcohol Testing program procedures between March 27, 2007, and May 8, 2008. During this 14-month period, FAA charges, the subsidiary brought 90 employees on board without properly testing them for drug and alcohol use and let more than a quarter of them perform safety-sensitive tasks before receiving the results of any tests.

German Data Privacy Act And Background Checks

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0600

by Steven Brownstein A recent correspondence from Straightline International and the office of The German Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information provided some interesting insight about when background checks are acceptable. Dr. Michaela Schultze, spokesperon, said,"According to German labour law principles, an employer is only
entitled to ask about an applicant’s previous convictions if they are a matter of consequence for the tasks owed under the employment contract." In addition, Schultze added, "Any verification by access to court records is not accounted for in the German Federal Data Protection Act (FDPA)."

Justice Denied - Illegals In The USA

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

By Stephanie Czekalinski Being in the United States without the government's permission, such as after a visa expires, is a violation of civil - not criminal - immigration law that can result in deportation. But sneaking into the country is a crime - a misdemeanor. Sneaking back in after being deported is a felony. When Anel Gonzalez was 13, her mother brought her to the United States from Mexico on a six-month tourist visa. Instead of leaving when the visas expired, the family stayed, said Gonzalez's mother, who asked not to be named for fear of deportation. In August, a police officer caught Gonzalez, now a 21-year-old mother, driving a speeding car. She did not have a license and was not wearing a seat belt. She faced deportation as a result. Rather than locking her up, ICE gave her a date to appear before an immigration judge and released her to care for her 8-month-old daughter, according to ICE. But she spent four days in the county jail for the traffic violations waiting for a court-appointed interpreter and then for ICE to decide whether to take her into custody or release her with a court date. Although federal agents say they target illegal immigrants who have committed crimes, many of those taken into custody are not criminals. About half of the more than 390,000 people deported nationally in fiscal year 2010 had no criminal record, according to ICE. Between 2002 and this past March in Franklin County (Ohio), more immigrants were arrested and turned over to ICE for driving without a license than for any other violation, according to one analysis of Franklin County jail booking data. The second reason was drunken driving. ICE said that partnerships with local authorities are essential to its mission: Deport all illegal immigrants, starting with those who are a threat to national security or public safety. Critics say that ICE's quotas - 400,000 in 2010, according to an ICE memo - cause agents to focus resources on easy targets - illegal immigrants who have broken minor traffic laws but who quietly live in the country. "They're supposed to be looking for rapists, murderers, criminals. But in reality, they go after low-hanging fruit," said David Leopold, a Cleveland immigration lawyer and president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Officials deny that goals influence how they choose whom to deport or how they operate. "If they've been arrested by a local or state agency, we're still going to interview and take appropriate action," said Corey Price, assistant director of the local ICE field office. "Not because of a quota, (but) because that's what we're tasked with." A witness cooperating in a murder trial was deported from central Ohio because ICE and local officials got their signals crossed. On Christmas Eve 2009, police found the body of 22-year-old Miguel Martinez-Vargas riddled with bullets in a bar parking lot. They also found a key witness: an illegal immigrant. Prosecutors dropped the charges against a U.S. citizen charged with the killing after ICE deported Daniel Mercado back to Mexico. Word that any contact with authorities - even as a witness or victim of crime - can land immigrants in deportation proceedings has spread through the Latino community. "They're going to be very reluctant to step forward as a witness," said Ruben Herrera, an immigrant-rights activist. "They feel like they're putting themselves at risk."

Identifying 'Juan Doe' Two people wanted by police were given a free pass after a man with the same name was arrested in early 2009 for driving without a license and later deported. Authorities determined that 24-year-old Mauro Perez, of Nationwide Boulevard (Columbus, Ohio), also was Mauro Perez of Beacon Hill Road and Mauro Sanchez Perez of Caleb Drive - both of whom were wanted for failing to show up for court to resolve traffic cases. There were no fingerprints to compare, no photos of the other two men, and none of the men's stated birth dates matched. But the court stopped looking for the other two men when Perez was deported. "The problem is that it's difficult to ID illegal aliens," said Baker, the city's chief prosecutor. Illegal immigrants can't legally get Ohio driver's licenses or ID cards. They don't have Social Security numbers that can be used to confirm identity. And few carry ID from their home countries. Some give police fake names or birthdates to avoid trouble when stopped. "There might be 23 active warrants, and we have no way of knowing it," Baker said. Sometimes officials arrest the wrong person for a crime because of confusion about identities, said Beth Owens, identification supervisor with the Franklin County sheriff's office. "If they use each other's IDs and names, and they do, then you're dead in the water." The lack of reliable ID makes it difficult for authorities to know whether they're dealing with a young mother living in the country illegally or an illegal immigrant who came to sell heroin. From 2002 to March 2010, 43 people identified as Juan Doe or Jose Doe - the Spanish equivalent of John Doe - were booked into the Franklin County jail, according to a Dispatch review of jail booking data. None was turned over to ICE. And confusion can still occur even when people give their real names. Police, court clerks and jailers struggle with Latino names because they often have two first and two last names. Names are sometimes hyphenated, reversed, merged, Anglicized, misspelled or simply entered incorrectly into the court database. That's a likely explanation of how three different men named Mauro Perez morphed into one. Immigration authorities deported a man who identified himself as Raul Villa-Guerra after he was convicted of a heroin-related charge in 2000 in New Mexico. Nine years later, Columbus police arrested 29-year-old Daniel Ortez Soto in Clintonville on a similar charge. Both cases involved heroin and an illegal immigrant from Mexico of the same age. But one link wasn't coincidence: Villa-Guerra and Ortez Soto have the same fingerprints. Federal authorities determined they are the same man. And they charged Villa-Guerra with coming back into the country after deportation, which carries a maximum of 20 years in prison for people convicted of aggravated felonies. He'll serve about 31/2 years for sneaking back in. Then he'll be deported again. But he won't be tried for any charges related to heroin trafficking. His municipal case was dismissed, including $87 in court costs. And he was never indicted in county court, according to records. This year, federal immigration authorities launched a program in eight Ohio counties, including Franklin, in which will help federal agents identify more illegal immigrants when they land in county jails. A standard fingerprint search will now check both an inmate's criminal history and immigration status and will notify ICE if the inmate is in the country illegally. Nationally, the percentage of people with criminal records who are in ICE custody is growing. In the first months of 2010, the percentage of people with criminal records detained by ICE was more than 40 percent, compared with roughly 25 percent in 2009, according to a report by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, an organization that gathers and analyzes data from federal agencies. The government is tight-lipped about what kind of criminal histories those immigrants have, said Chishti, of the Migration Policy Institute. "It could be anything from grand larceny to running a stoplight," he said. Statewide (Ohio), it's difficult to know exactly whom ICE removes and for what. ICE provides very few details about its activity in Ohio, usually citing immigrant privacy. In August, a rumor circulated in the Latino community that ICE agents entered a Columbus home without a warrant early one morning and took several people into custody. ICE confirmed that agents made five immigration arrests and said residents let agents into the apartment. But they wouldn't explain whom they sought, whom they found or what threat, if any, the immigrants posed to the public. Whether they were quietly living their lives like the young mother Anel Gonzalez or dealing drugs like Raul Villa-Guerra is unknown. ICE declined to explain.

Canadian Courts Grapple With CPIC Data

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

An Ontario judge’s ruling has disclosed what one Crown prosecutor calls a “major problem” with criminal record files held by the Canadian Police Information Centre that are routinely out of date and have been backlogged for periods of up to a year and a half. The ruling by Ontario Court Justice David Fairgrieve, highlighted in the Law Society of Upper Canada’s Ontario Reports publication comes amid continuing controversy surrounding the pardon and criminal record status of a convicted sex offender. Fairgrieve’s ruling reveals that records of 11 convictions and sentencing decisions for John Horne going back to October 2007 hadn’t yet been entered on CPIC by the time Horne pleaded guilty to three more criminal charges last year. The decision in R. v. Horne also notes that the Crown attorney who prosecuted Horne would likely have proceeded by indictment instead of summary conviction on the three driving offences he faced as well as a fourth charge of possession of a stolen vehicle following a police chase near Toronto in February 2009 had the full CPIC record been available. The possession charge was withdrawn after Horne entered guilty pleas on the other three charges. Fairgrieve was so outraged by the missing CPIC entries that he rejected a joint submission from the prosecutor and Horne’s lawyer that would have had Horne serve one day in jail after nearly six months in pre-sentence custody. Instead, Fairgrieve gave him three consecutive sentences of six months each based on the three summary convictions and a fourth sentence of six months less a day based on a guilty plea Horne entered at the same time for a separate 2008 charge of possession of a stolen vehicle. Horne was free on bail on that charge when he tried to evade police in the second allegedly stolen vehicle in February 2009. Ottawa lawyer Doug Baum says the ruling illustrates a CPIC lapse that’s “a fairly common experience among lawyers who have been in court where, either because things have happened too fast or too recently, CPIC is not updated.” But Baum, president of the Defence Counsel Association of Ottawa, adds that “normally the Crowns are aware of the prior convictions through the police. . . . They have a way to find things out.” Nevertheless, a Crown prosecutor who doesn’t want to be identified said that CPIC continues to be unreliable, with outdated information among its entries. “This is a major problem in Toronto,” he says. “They are about two years behind, and we rely on TPS [Toronto Police Service] case tracking. I don’t know what the problem is, but the situation impacts daily on our ability to make good decisions in bail court, in plea negotiations, and in sentencing hearings.” Baum, however, isn’t blaming CPIC. “There’s no way the RCMP could go out and data mine that information from the various provincial databases or police forces as far as I know,” he says. Horne already had a record of 57 separate criminal convictions going back to 1999 aside from the 11 convictions that hadn’t been entered on CPIC. A Crown prosecutor discovered the 11 convictions in court information that had been transferred to Toronto from Halton and York regions in the period between Horne’s guilty pleas and Fairgrieve’s sentencing decision. The circumstances of Horne’s latest pursuit and capture, in which he drove a stolen van into oncoming traffic while evading police, clearly offended the judge. “In my view, there is nothing in this case that, had the Crown been properly informed and exercised appropriate judgment, could have justified a total sentence of less than three years in a penitentiary,” he wrote. “In my view, that should have been regarded as the rock-bottom minimum appropriate to this case, even after giving appropriate weight to the guilty pleas. “While in our adversarial system, the defence cannot be faulted for taking advantage of an unwittingly mistaken position adopted by the Crown, I think that the suggestion that there is a judicial obligation to perpetuate the error and ignore the truth would indeed cause a loss of public respect for the justice system, at least in serious cases, like this one, where the accused’s conduct clearly threatened public safety.” Fairgrieve repeatedly admonished the unreliability of CPIC information, noting the Crown acknowledged a backlog of more than a year and a half’s worth of data awaiting entry into the computer system maintained by the RCMP. “In the meantime, Crown attorneys and, ultimately, sentencing courts are left without some of the most important facts needed to make appropriate, informed decisions about the cases they must deal with,” Fairgrieve wrote. RCMP Sgt. Greg Cox, a spokesman for the Mounties at their Ottawa national headquarters, says the force relies on other police services across the country to enter convictions and sentencing information into CPIC that they must get from their court systems. But he didn’t respond to a request for a description or assessment of the CPIC backlog to date. The issue comes as public attention focuses on the CPIC system due to a controversy over a pardon given to Graham James, a convicted child molester and former hockey coach. Part of the concern stemmed from a public perception that the pardon would erase James’ convictions for abusing two of his former players. Another report also highlighted how the RCMP is clamping down on access to CPIC and thereby making it harder for employers and organizations to do criminal record checks. But Cox provided a lengthy description of the pardon system, including the fact that the criminal history of an individual convicted of a sexually based offence is retrievable by law enforcement agencies after a fingerprint match has been conducted for the purposes of a “vulnerable sector” search on behalf of institutions such as daycare centres doing background checks on job applicants. The federal minister of public safety must consent to the disclosure. The individual also has to allow disclosure to the organization that requested the search. The statement from Cox included a description of a policy directive the RCMP issued last December 2009 that reiterates strict conditions under which police services may disclose any criminal record data from the CPIC system, including requirements for fingerprint matches to confirm identities. “The RCMP was made aware (then) that certain police agencies are disseminating criminal record information obtained via the CPIC system that was in direct contravention of the Criminal Records Act, the Youth Criminal Justice Act, the ministerial directive on the release of criminal records, and CPIC policy,” the statement said.

Rhode Island Truants Who Offend Magistrates Are Sent Straight To Jail

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

By Lynn Arditi For years, magistrates for Rhode Island Family Court’s truancy program have imprisoned students who misbehave during hearings on their attendance, despite a state law created to keep the government from locking up juveniles for noncriminal offenses. The magistrates, who run the weekly truancy court in classrooms, cafeterias and school offices around the state, have declared youths as young as 12 in criminal contempt of court for not answering their questions, swearing, slamming a door on their way out of the room or otherwise showing “total disregard for authority,” according to court documents and interviews. Once inside the state’s juvenile correctional system, the youths are forced to undergo strip searches, urine and blood tests. They wear prison uniforms and, for a night or two, mix with teenagers accused of drug dealing, robbery, weapons possession, assault and other violent crimes. Juveniles who skip school –– like those who drink alcohol or violate a curfew –– are considered “status offenders” because their transgressions would not be considered crimes if they were adults. Rhode Island law states that no child should be detained at the state Training School for a status offense. But since 2005, the magistrates have sent at least 28 youths from truancy court to the Training School, records show, under an exception in the state law for criminal contempt of court. Few if any have been represented by a lawyer prior to their detention, as is their constitutionally guaranteed right. The proceedings are closed to the public, and the records are private. “These are blatant violations,” Rhode Island Public Defender John J. Hardiman said. “There’s no ‘this is a gray area of the law.’ It’s clear you can’t detain [in] these cases.” More than 6,100 students entered the Family Court’s truancy program from 2005 through 2009, according to data the state reported to the federal Department of Justice. The Journal confirmed that at least 28 students were detained during those years, a small fraction of the total who participated in the program. But juvenile-justice advocates and a former U.S. Justice Department official say that even one detention of a status offender is troubling. John J. Wilson, a lawyer in Washington, D.C., who worked almost 31 years for the Justice Department, wrote the federal regulations for compliance with the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974. The act provides money to states, including Rhode Island, if they abide by federal protections for youths in the justice system. To incarcerate juveniles for noncriminal offenses, even for one night, Wilson said, violates the basic premise of the federal act. “We don’t punish adults for doing things that are not criminal,” he said, “so why in heaven’s name would we punish children for doing things that aren’t criminal?” For Rhode Island to use its criminal-contempt statute to lock up truants, Wilson said, is “an abuse of judicial authority…. And it’s a practice that should be stopped.” The state’s detention of these youths, Wilson said, could jeopardize Rhode Island’s eligibility for federal funding. But the detentions have gone largely unnoticed because the state has failed to report them to the federal justice officials who monitor state compliance with federal regulations. Annie Salsich, director of the Youth Justice Program at The VERA Institute of Justice, a national nonprofit with offices in New York and Washington, said some judges resort to locking up juveniles because they see it as the only option. “These are often young people who are in crisis, and they do need assistance and support and, often, services,” she said. “The judges often feel exasperated, like their hands are tied, with parents who are often exhausted and at the end of their ropes and asking for help. And the judges feel like they need to do something.” But research shows that locking up these youths isn’t the answer, she said, and may even create new problems. “Mixing kids who are low risk with the kids who really do pose a risk to public safety,” Salsich said –– “they learn skills we don’t want them to be learning.” Public defenders normally learn that a juvenile from these programs has been locked up only if someone alerts them or if they spot the cases on a list of detainees coming from the Training School into Family Court for a hearingAccording to Hardiman, "Their goals may be excellent goals: to try to get kids to go to school to better themselves to be more productive citizens,” "But taking a shortcut and sending a kid to the Training School without due process, you just can’t do it…. They’re violating the law…. And it’s wrong. And they should know better. And they do know better.”

Background Check Companies Required To Register In Franklin County Muni Court

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Background Check Companies may use the Computers located on the 4th Floor in Room 4B for all Background Checks. Background Check Companies are required to register and show proper identification, i.e. Driver’s License and Company Business Card to the 4th Floor Administration in order to use the computers. 4B will be available between the hours of 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m., Monday thru Friday. If you have any questions, please contact Marilynn Stephens, 4th Floor Administration at 614.645.8006. A copy of the memorandum may be found at: www.fcmcclerk.com/news/pdf/Background_Check_Companies.pdf

Label' Em Criminals

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Finnish Immigration Affairs Minister Astrid Thors says that statistics on crimes committed by foreigners in the country should include more detailed data nationalities. This, she said, could prevent any single group from being labelled. Thors noted that more detailed statistics would give a clearer picture of criminal activity by foreigners. She noted that crimes are often too easily ascribed in public to individual groups, for example as being committed by Romanian Roma. "It is well known that crimes are carried out as assignments by perpetrators from nearby countries, It would be good if there were better statistics, so it would be known what would be the right action to take," said Thors.

Japan Crime Rate To Hit 23 Year Low

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

The number of crime cases detected by police in Japan in 2010 looks set to total below 1.6 million for the first time in 23 years, according to a preliminary report compiled by the National Police Agency on Thursday. In the report that totaled data from January to November, 1,465,223 cases were reported during the period, down 6.9% from the same period a year before and the annual number looks certain to mark the eighth straight yearly decline. The annual number of crime cases has been on the decline since 2003, after the number had increased and reached a postwar high each year between 1996 and 2002, when it surpassed 2.85 million. The number of murder-related crimes including murders, attempted murders and murder preparation, is also seen hitting a fresh low this year after marking a record low since the end of World War II last year, as it came to 988 cases as of the end of November, down 2.8% from a year before. However, the agency said that even though the overall crime figure has been decreasing, many citizens do not perceive that to be the case due to recurring heinous incidents. It also said the number remains high compared with an annual 1.2 million level seen in the late 1960s. Of all the criminal cases in the first 11 months of the year, the rate of those cases in which police made arrests or questioned suspects was 31.8%, down 0.5 percentage point from the same period a year before. The number of thefts, white-collar crimes and heinous crimes such as murder, rape and burglary decreased from a year before but moral offense cases, including indecent assaults and illegal gambling, increased by 7%, totaling 10,157. Osaka, which hsd the highest number of purse snatching cases for 34 years in a row, may see the record snapped as Chiba had exceeded Osaka’s number as of November.

Hawaii Suspends Court Search Fee

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Hawaii is waiving a fee that it charged to review court records. The state judiciary said that the $5 fee will be suspended because of concerns that it could diminish access to court records. Administrative Director of the Courts Rodney Maile wrote in a letter that all state courts will suspend collection of the search fee for onsite documents while the judiciary reviews its rules. Judiciary spokeswoman Marsha Kitagawa says eight other state courts have the authority to charge fees to access court records. Maile says the courts should be as accessible as possible, and that the fees were never intended to deter retrieval of records. Instead, he said the fee was imposed to help defray court costs.

One India State Has Bright Idea About Criminal Database

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Uttar Pradesh Police will soon compile a comprehensive database on criminals to keep a check on crimes in the state, a senior government official has said. The comprehensive database with profiles of each offender would provide instant access to information, State Additional Director General (Law and Order) Brij Lal said. Addressing a press conference, Mr. Lal said the database would consist details such as names of offenders, methods of operation, property details, previous cases, police station jurisdiction in which the criminals resided, details of arrests and weapons used to commit the crimes. The data, which would help in tracking suspects in the event of a crime, will also help in prevention of crimes, he said. It will be stored in the crime records bureau of the state police wing, Mr. Lal said.

Alcohol And Crime Go Hand In Hand

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

A report funded by the Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police shows an upward trend in the correlation between alcohol and crime within the state and county. Of Laramie County's 1,852 total arrests last year, 1,301, or 70.25 percent, involved alcohol. The report also showed that about 47 percent of domestic violence arrests and 37.5 percent of assault arrests involved alcohol. Driving under the influence arrests accounted for about 43 percent of the total.

Requesting a North Dakota Statewide Criminal History Record Check

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

A “non criminal justice request for criminal history record information ” form is available at: http://www.ag.nd.gov/BCI/CHR/NCJRform.pdf. A criminal history record costs $15.00 (or $5.00 for non-profit charitable organizations exclusively for the benefit of children or vulnerable elderly). Eligible non-profit charitable organizations must submit an Application for Reduction in Fee and be approved before receiving the reduction in fee. Checks or money orders should be made payable to the North Dakota Attorney General. Do not submit cash. The request form must contain: -The name of the requester; -The name of the individual for whom the record is requested (the “subject”); -The subject’s current address (unless the subject has signed an authorization); And at least two additional items of information from the following list: -the subject’s fingerprints; -the subject’s social security number; -the subject’s date of birth; -a specific “reportable event” (i.e. arrest or conviction), identified by date and either agency or court; -the state identification number assigned to the record subject by the BCI (Bureau of Criminal Investigation). Most criminal history record checks are conducted using the subject’s name, date of birth, and social security number. To be sure the criminal history information includes all releasable information, it is important to include any maiden name, former name, or known aliases of the subject. Special Note: Unless a signed authorization form accompanies the request, the BCI will mail a notice to the subject that the criminal history record has been released. The authorization form can be found at: http://www.ag.nd.gov/BCI/CHR/Authorization.pdf

Major USA Data Breaches In 2010, More Go Undisclosed: Report

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

There were 662 reported data breaches last year, up from 498 in 2009, according to a report from the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC). However, the number of data breaches that took place in 2010 is actually much higher, since not all breaches are reported. In addition to looking at how many breaches were reported in 2010, the ITRC report also examined what types of data were stolen. Nearly two-thirds of reported breaches involved the theft of Social Security numbers, while 26 percent involved the theft of credit and debit card information. The report also found that more data breaches were the result of theft than human error. Roughly 17 percent of data breaches were the result of hackers breaking into systems, while 15 percent of data breaches were the result of insider thefts. Finally, the report found that nearly 20 percent of data breaches involved the loss of paper documents, while the method that thieves used was unknown in about 38 percent of cases.

Re-Think Your Results In Detroit (Wayne County)

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

One of the fifteen busiest trial courts in the nation, Wayne County Circuit Court processes over 100,000 cases annually. For the past two years Wayne County's leadership failed to appropriate sufficient funds necessary to allow the citizens of Wayne County access to justice in the Wayne Circuit Court. This failure has contributed to impossible staff workloads, deteriorating buildings "not fit for man nor beast" and antiquated, inefficient technical equipment. Images of the Wayne County court crisis include: Over a hundred boxes each containing hundreds of unfiled court documents due to a shortage of modern imaging technology. Scores of boxes of unopened responses to juror questionnaires. A Friend of the Court staff fighting a losing battle, trying to process 289,000 open cases — 1,229 per staff member, nearly 300 percent more than any other county. Tens of thousands of outstanding bench warrants for child support. A computer system so antiquated that it is not possible for different divisions of the court to share case records. A building with only one functioning public women's room to accommodate over 1,000 visitors daily. Until this problem is fixed you can count on Straightline International to handle your BIG ORDERS in Detroit. Call 1-866-909-6678 today

Drunken Driver Reports Himself To Police In Iowa

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Iowa City police say a 25-year-old man called 911 to report a drunken driver: himself. According to the Iowa City Press-Citizen, police say Francisco Castro called the emergency number around 8:30 on Christmas morning. Officers found Castro sitting in the driver's seat of a running vehicle. Police say Castro told officers that he called 911 because he thought he was too drunk to drive. A follow-up test showed his blood-alcohol level was nearly three times the legal limit.

Background Check Industry Has Changed Much in Years from 2000 to 2010

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

By Thomas Ahearn With the year 2011 now upon us, the time seems right to look back at how much the background check industry has changed since the year 2000. In slightly over a decade, background checks have gone from a luxury to a necessity, from a primarily government run endeavor to a substantial private sector business with a large number of firms providing service, and from a mostly expensive time and labor consuming task to, in some cases, a totally automated paperless solution. Factors behind the increased use of background checks include in large part to the shocking terrorist attacks that unfolded on September 11, 2001 as well as publicized incidents of workplace violence, multi-million dollar negligent hiring verdicts, a sharp rise in cases of resume fraud including some well publicized examples of fake degrees, and a national awareness of the dangers to children and other vulnerable groups when unqualified or dangerous persons are allowed access to them. Below are comparisons of background checks in 2000 and 2010 in six critical areas that have changed in the industry: 1. Number of employers performing background checks: 2000: An estimated 50 percent of companies conduct background checks on their employees according to the 1996 SHRM Workplace Violence Survey. 2010: A series of recent surveys from SHRM reveals that approximately three out of four U.S. businesses perform some type of background check as part of their pre-employment screening programs, with 76 percent conducting reference background checks and 73 percent conducting criminal background checks. 2. Industry standards for background checks: Many changes have occurred with respect to background screening industry standards in the years between 2000 and 2010. 2000: There is no national trade association, industry standards, or definitive publications on background screening. Steven Brownstein, Publisher of the Background Investigator, holds the first ever background check industry conferences in Long Beach, California and then larger events in Tampa, Florida. 2003: As a result of the Tampa conferences, momentum builds for a professional trade association for the background screening industry. ESR President Lester Rosen serves as the chairperson of the steering committee that founded NAPBS and serves as the first co-chair. NAPBS seeks to “…promote ethical business practices, promote compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act and foster awareness of issues related to consumer protection and privacy rights within the background screening industry. The Association provides relevant programs and training aimed at empowering members to better serve clients and to maintain standards of excellence in the background screening industry.” 2004: ‘The Safe Hiring Manual – The Complete Guide to Keeping Criminals, Terrorists, and Imposters Out of Your Workplace’ by ESR President Lester Rosen is published, the first comprehensive book on employment screening. 2010: NAPBS launches the Background Screening Agency Accreditation Program (BSAAP) for a singular background check industry standard representing a background check company’s commitment to excellence, accountability, and professionalism. To become accredited, a background check company must pass a rigorous audit of its policies and procedures as they relate to six critical areas of the BSAAP: Consumer Protection, Legal Compliance, Client Education, Product Standards, Service Standards, and General Business Practices. 3. Sources for background check information: 2000: Background check information is mostly limited to traditional sources such as criminal records, driving records, verifications, and reference checks. 2010: With the advent of new technology like the Internet in general – and new media such as blogs, videos on YouTube, and social networking sites like Facebook in particular – there are many more potential outlets from which employers may gather information about job applicants. 4. The need for international background checks: 2000: Before the rise of outsourcing, much of the workforce is perceived to have lived, worked, and been educated inside of the United States, so the idea of international background checks for job applicants seems expensive and unnecessary to most companies. There are also limited resources available for such background checks. 2010: According to recent U.S. government statistics, there are 38.5 million foreign-born U.S. residents representing 12.5 percent of the population, more than 1.1 million persons became Legal Permanent Residents (LPRs) of the United States in 2009, and the unauthorized immigrant population living in the U.S. reached an estimated 10.8 million in January 2009 and grew 27 percent between 2000 and 2009. Given these facts, U.S. companies must be prepared to perform international background checks on job applicants with global backgrounds. 5. Compliance issues concerning background checks: 2000: Background check companies must comply with the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), originally passed in 1970, that regulates the collection, dissemination, and use of consumer information and is enforced by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). 2010: Background screening has become an intensely legally regulated endeavor. Background check companies must comply with a myriad of industry regulations in addition to FCRA requirements such as the Fair And Accurate Credit Transaction Act (FACT Act) of 2003 (which amended the FCRA), Sarbanes-Oxley, the Patriot Act, E-Verify employment eligibility verification, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) discrimination issues against protected classes pertaining to the use of criminal records and credit reports for employment purposes, and new consumer data privacy protections regulations such as “Safe Harbor” and privacy laws that protect the Personally Identifiable Information (PII) of consumers. Another source of intense legal regulations are state laws regulating credit reports and criminal records. Many states have their own version of the FCRA. 6. Technology used in background screening: 2000: Most employers are required to fax orders to a background check firm. The idea of entering orders into an online system or making information available online is only in the beginning stages. 2010: Technology in the background check industry has increased substantially, with the use of online processes to not only enter orders but to have paperless systems with electronic signatures and integration into Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) so background checks can be ordered with the click of a mouse. With the advent of Web 2.0, employers may expect to see more advances in the technology for the background screening process. The downside, however, is that Internet entrepreneurs have seized upon background checks as a way to make quick money and in some instances are playing off the fears of Americans by offering cheap and instant checks that are based upon databases never intended to be a substitute for a background check.

Orleans County Real Estate Records Back Online

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

The real estate records nightmare that has caused problems for people buying and selling property in Orleans Parish since October is finally over, according to Civil Clerk of Court Dale Atkins. Atkins' office opened its doors January 4th for the first time in 2011, and outside of a few expected glitches, all the mortgage and conveyance records are again accessible. Workers in Atkins' office have been pulling all-nighters since New Year's Eve to get the property records back online. A computer crash more than two months ago brought the whole system to a halt. "We are what I consider fully operational," Atkins said. "Now we have to do verification of thousands of instruments, so even though the data has been fully restored, we have to do that verification process." Recovery specialist The Winward Group was brought in to help resurrect the lost data. And the real estate industry reverted to old-fashioned methods to search titles and the like. "By the time we realized this was going to be long term, they found ways to get around the obstacles, so thankfully we have sort of seen an increase in closings in December," said Joe Ory of the New Orleans Realtors Association. While the clerk's office was closed for the New Year's holiday, employees worked 24/7 to bring the system back up to speed. And Atkins said the entire ordeal has been a learning experience. "One lesson is that paper is a good thing," Atkins said. Atkins said the data verification process should be completely up to speed in about four weeks.

Lack Of Marriage Records Aids Rise In Chinese Bigamy

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

China's increasingly mobile society has seen a significant increase in the number of people taking second spouses, and the illegal practice of bigamy has been made a lot easier by the lack of a nationwide database of marriage records. Some 23 provinces have already set up their own intra-provincial marriage database systems and a system covering the whole country should be ready by the end of 2015, vice-minister of Civil Affairs Dou Yupei told the China Daily. “It will not only provide technical support to improve our marriage management and services, but also will act as a protective screen against illegal acts, such as bigamy and the concealment of marriage,” Mr Dou said. In one of the more spectacular cases, Qiu Xiaohua, the former head of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), was labelled a “vile social and political influence” and expelled from the Communist Party for bigamy in 2007. Meanwhile, the Guizhou Metropolis Daily reported the case of Hu Qinxian in south China’s Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, who married two men in two years. Ms Hu first registered with a man surnamed Pan in November 2008 and gave birth to a daughter. She left Mr Pan without divorcing him, and married another man in a different village six months later. Mr Pan learned of the second marriage and took her to court, and this week Ms Hu was given six months in jail for bigamy. Beijing, Shanghai and northwest China’s Shaanxi province will be the pilot areas for the marriage database. Chen Wei, a lawyer with Yingke Law Firm in Beijing, said the new database was necessary in the “strangers’ society” created by high mobility. “Some people have used current administrative loopholes that make it difficult to check someone’s marital status,” said Mr Chen. Also helping the system was the fact that more people were using online bookings to register their marriages. Mr Dou said in Shenzhen in southern China, around 70 per cent of applicants made online reservations. As well as keeping tabs on potential bigamists, however, Mr Dou said it was important to stress the stability of the institution of marriage itself. “The divorce rate has been rising, which reflects our citizens’ growing freedom. But families’ disintegration is usually traumatic for both partners and their children. And it will cause social problems when divorce rates become too high,” he said.

Wyoming Offers Seven - State Criminal Record History Check

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Wyoming statutes contain a provision for a voluntary record check which enables any person to obtain a criminal record check on themselves and provide that record to any person they designate. This procedure requires the submission of a State of Wyoming applicant fingerprint card with a preprinted waiver signature section on the reverse side. In addition, the applicant must also submit a fee which is also set by statute. For most applicants, the fee is $15 for the state of Wyoming which includes the Western Identification Network criminal history check. Most Wyoming criminal history record checks are generally completed within 10 business days depending on monthly volume. The criminal history check typically consists of a check of criminal arrest and conviction records in the State of Wyoming and the Western Identification Network (WIN). Wyoming is a member of the Western Identification Network (WIN) which includes 7 other states: Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. The history check includes all reported felonies, high misdemeanors and other specified misdemeanors. This does not include municipal ordinance violations. If authorized by state law, the check may include federal records maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. An employer can see if an employee has a criminal record if the employee consents through the submission of the required fingerprint card, signing and notarization of the waiver section, and the required fees. A fingerprint card is required. Persons can be fingerprinted at the Division of Criminal Investigation, or at a local Wyoming law enforcement agency. They may also be charged for the fingerprinting service.

EU And USA Negotiate New Personal Data Protection Regulations

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

The European Union (EU) and the US are set to embark on a data-protection agreement that will see a unified fight against terrorism and crime, as well as ensuring a high level of protection for personal data. The agreement, which was approved recently by EU justice ministers to start talks between the EU and US, aims to protect personal information, such as passenger data and financial information, enhance citizens' right to access, and rectify or delete data. Both parties hope that the agreement will prevent, detect or help them prosecute criminal offences, including terrorism. “Protection of personal data is a fundamental right for EU citizens. To guarantee this right, we need to be ambitious in our approach to personal data protection – both at home and abroad," said vice-president Viviane Reding, the EU's Justice Commissioner. “(This) decision gives us the green light to negotiate a solid and coherent agreement with the US, which balances enforceable rights for individuals with the strong co-operation we need to prevent terrorism and organised crime. I look forward to meeting my US counterparts in Washington to kick start these important negotiations.” The European Commission (EC) had recently set out a strategy to strengthen EU data protection rules in all policy areas, including law enforcement, while reducing red tape for business and guaranteeing the free circulation of data within the EU. The Commission also proposed legislation to protect individuals' information in order to revise the EU’s 1995 Data Protection Directive in 2011. The purpose of the negotiations approved is also to address and overcome the differences that exist between the US and EU in their approaches in protecting personal data. The EU has set out a mandate to negotiate an "umbrella agreement" for data transfer between them and the US.

Violent Crime Continues To Decline In USA

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Reports of violent and property crimes continued to decline in the first half of 2010, according to a preliminary crime report released by the FBI. The FBI's semiannual uniform crime report shows that reports of violent crime dropped 6.2 percent from January to June and property crime reports were down 2.8 percent. The dip in reported crimes follows a three-year trend of decreasing crime rates despite a sagging economy. According to the FBI, murders dropped 7.1 percent in the first six months of 2010 while robberies decreased by 10.7 percent. Reports of vehicle thefts also dropped by 9.7 percent. FBI crime reports have shown a steady decrease in crimes rates since 2008. In the annual report for 2009, released in September, reports of violent crimes dropped 5.3 percent and reported property crimes fell 4.6 percent.

The Public Record Update A Service from BRB Publications, Inc.

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Connecticut An extensive reduction in the number of probate courts in Connecticut will officially take place on January 5, 2011. The number of probate courts will be reduced from 117 to 54 locations. There are two excellent resources available that provide details: Visit www.jud.ct.gov/probate/Redistrict/Directory2011.pdf for a directory of the new probate districts in alpha order with addresses, phone numbers, names of judges, and a cross-reference list of towns and districts. Visit www.jud.state.ct.us/probate/budget/CourtNames.pdf for a table with the district number, court name, and assigned towns per court. Vermont Per legislature, the Vermont Judiciary was restructured earlier this year. The former Superior Courts, Family Courts, District Courts, and Environmental Courts became separate divisions of a newly-created unified Vermont Superior Court on July 1, 2010. Effective February 1, 2011, the Probate Court will become a division within each Vermont Superior Court. There are fourteen "units" of the Vermont Superior Court, one per county. The restructuring of Probate Courts means the four VT counties that have two probate districts each will consolidate as one district and one court location per county, effective February 1, 2001. On Jan 20, 2011, in Windsor County the case files located at the Probate Court in North Springfield will be moved to the location in Woodstock. In Bennington County, the closure of the Probate Court in Manchester will take place as soon as the facilities at the Bennington location can be modified to accommodate the consolidation. On February 1, 2011, in Rutland County the Probate Court in Fair Haven will close and all case files will be moved to the Probate Court in Rutland. The closure of the second Probate Court in Windham County is up in the air. The two Probate Courts in Brattleboro and Bellow Falls will consolidate but both court locations will continue to be in operation. This will go on for an undesignated period. Later, at an undesignated time, the court will be truly consolidated into one as yet undesignated location. Ann Arbor Michigan District Court Relocating The 15th District Court of Washtenaw County MI is moving in mid-January 2011. The court will close its location at 101 E Huron St. on January 14th and re-open at the new loctaion at 301 E Huron St. on Wednesday January 18th. The phone numbers will remain the same. The District Court handles misdemeanors, traffic, civil actions under $25,000, small claims and evictions. The other courts located at 101 E Huron will remain there, including the Probate Court and the 22nd Circuit Court.

Les Rosen's Corner - Inaccurate Criminal Background Check Information Leaves Innocent Man Jobless

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

A man from North Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was stunned after he was fired from his job at a video-game store for ‘nondisclosure of information’ on his application caused by what turned out to be erroneous information on a background check, according to a story in the Philadelphia Daily News. The 32-year-old man had admitted that he had pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of simple assault, harassment, and related offenses for fighting, and disclosed this on his job application at a video-game store in North Philadelphia, PA. However, after a month of employment, his manager asked about any criminal record that he had not disclosed before firing him. After being fired, the man interviewed for an overnight-manager position at another company and gave them permission to do a background check. A week later, he received a denial letter from the company and a copy of his background check which claimed he had been convicted in 1996 of felony cocaine possession in Gloucester County, Virginia and sentenced to 10 years in prison. The man – who had never even been to Gloucester County, VA and was still in high school at the time of the offense – called the background check company to dispute the information and the company cleared his criminal background check of the false felony cocaine charge. However, the video-game store did not re-hire him after the felony charge was cleared, the Philadelphia Daily News reports. After not having steady work since April 2009, the man now wonders how many other jobs that he applied for but did not get were because of inaccurate information on his background check. This story – about an employee losing a job because of inaccurate information on a background check – shows why hiring (and firing) decisions made by employers must be based on timely and accurate background check information. Erroneous and out of date background check information exposes employers not only to bad hiring decisions but also to potential litigation from those people harmed by such data.

Identity Theft Reported by 11.7 Million Victims According To Government Survey

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

According to a press release from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), an estimated 11.7 million people were victims of identity theft during the two years prior to being surveyed in 2008, and the financial losses due to the identity theft totaled more than $17 billion. The findings are based on the 2008 Identity Theft Supplement (ITS) to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). The ITS surveyed over 56,000 persons age 16 or older in the U.S. about the types of identity theft experienced in a two-year period. In the survey, “identity theft” was defined as the attempted or successful misuse of an existing account, such as a debit or credit account, misuse of personal information to open a new account, or misuse of personal information for other fraudulent purposes. Other key findings of the survey include (figures are estimates): -6.2 million victims experienced the unauthorized use or attempted use of an existing credit card account, the most prevalent type of identity theft. -4.4 million victims reported the misuse or attempted misuse of a banking account, such as a debit, checking, or savings account. -1.7 million victims experienced the fraudulent misuse of their information to open a new account, and -618,900 victims reported the misuse of their information to commit other crimes, such as fraudulently obtaining medical care or government benefits or providing false information to law enforcement during a crime or traffic stop. -16 percent of all victims experienced multiple types of identity theft during the two-year period. -23 percent of all victims suffered an out-of-pocket financial loss due to the victimization, with the average out-of-pocket financial loss being $1,870. -40 percent of victims had some idea about how their identifying information was obtained. Following publication, the report – Victims of Identity Theft, 2008 (NCJ 231680) – can be found at http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov. The story serves as a reminder of why the Personally Identifiable Information (PII) of consumers used in background checks must be protected from threats like identity theft.

Giant Blizzard Brings A Halt To Criminal Record Searches

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

by Steven Brownstein Today, February 2nd, a giant blizzard in the Midwest USA and the East Coast has brought to a halt most activities including criminal record searches. This blizzard cut a swath through the middle part of the U.S.: Texas. Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michiogan, and Ohio. It is now bashing Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Maine. Expect delays of your searches from 1-2 days ubtil this mess is cleared up. Check status of the Storm of the Decade at www.weather.com

Cairo And Alexandria, Egypt Court Record Searches Are Temporarily Suspended

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Straightline International announces the disruption of court record retrieval and access services in Cairo and Alexandria, Egypt. This is due to unrest and danger in the two cities. Luxor and Aswwan continue to operate unimpeded. Below is the Criminal Court in Cairo, near the location of the protests. Photo by Steven Brownstein

Skokie Illinois Courthouse Closed After Big Snowstorm

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

It was rather eerie to see the Skokie, Illinois Courthouse closed as it is one of Chicago's busiest. Tuesday's storm dumped 22" of snow in the Skokie area. Many people were surprised when they arrived there to find it closed. There was no press notification to alert the public to the closing.Photo by Steven Brownstein

Special Thanks To The Background Investigatorâ€™s Management

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Steven Brownstein, Publisher of The Background Investigator, wants everyone to know how grateful he is for the fine job done at the Pre-employment Screeners’ Conference. “In case you don’t know,” he says, “my wife, Rhoda, and Faheem Ebrahim, Straightline International’s Hong Kong Manager, played extraordinary roles in providing our industry with the finest quality conference that can be imagined.” Continuing Brownstein says, “What goes on behind the scenes is remarkable. The two individuals (Rhoda Brownstein and Faheem Ebrahim) are hands down the best in event planning.“ Steven Brownstein, also, reminded us that the next Clearwater event will be in January 2012.

The Background Investigator Adds Free Press Releases To Website

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Beginning today, The Background Investigator, has officially begun accepting press releases for its unique Site on www.thebackgroundinvestigator.com. The normal price of $19.95 has been waived for all pre-employment screening companies. Steven Brownstein, publisher of The Background Investigator, says that this free promotion is just one more way for him to give back to the industry what good it has brought him. Also he added that this is an ideal time for background check and criminal record researchers to send in a press release because the NAPBS Conference is soon to commence. Steven Brownstein continues that if you are interested in submitting your free press release to send them directly to his E-Mail at steveb@search4crime.com No time like the present.

Straightline International Provides Background Checks To Brazil

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Straightline International provides expert criminal and court record research in Brazil. Straightline's accurate service, enhanced by an already expertise, is reflected by its agents in Sao Paulo and Fortaleza. Coincidentally, recently published in the NAPBS Journal (Feb. 2011, is an article about Brazil background checks and Brazilian employee screening. Naturally, one (including the author of the NAPBS article) would write generously about police clearances; undoubtedly not being part of criminal record background checking for pre-employment purposes. Nevertheless, he wrote a decent article. The one exception, though, the article in the NAPBS Journal reads that identifiers are difficult to obtain from court records. On the contrary, identifiers such as addresses and dates of birth are quite common, no more, no less than those found in USA court record files. Straightline International, distinguishes itself,; one, by being part of the background screening industry, and two, by understanding that police clearance certificates are not the only option for criminal record histories. Straightline International’s thoroughly trained records retrievers scour the records at individual courthouses. And as always, translation from Portuguese to English is no problem for you, the client, as Straightline International, has Portuguese speaking researchers in Brazil and USA, assuring fast dependable service. Your pre-employment screening records department will appreciate the fact that Straightline delivers performance in Brazil. Contact Steven Brownstein or Dennis Brownstein at Straightline International, 1-866-909-6678, or by E-mail, info@straightlineinternational.com

The Background Investigator Primer, "How To Do Cook County, IL Criminal Record Searches"

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

How It's Done In Chicago
Research work in Cook County can be a frustrating experience. But, with the experience one gains working the computer index in that county an expert it does make. The Cook County criminal index is computerized and name specific. In other words, if you type in a name misspelled, such as leaving off the ìhî in ìSmith,î there is little hope of getting a correct result. You will get Smit. (More likely smitten!) The index is arranged alphabetically. That's good. Felonies and misdemeanors appear on the index. That's good. Complete docket information appears on the index. At least we pray it does! And DOB's for misdemeanors has been improved tremendouisly. ..What used to be sorely lacking in that department.is now highly efficient. DOB's are present from all most cases 1996 -forward. But older files and those without DOB's on the index still need to be ordered so it can be searched manually for any identifiers. The ordering process has changed. District 1 Misdemeanor files (from 1996) are now kept in the same building, so what once took two days to be delivered from the warehouse is available on the spot. But there problems that occur in the ordering/delivery process that can cause delay. There are "lost" or "misplaced" files, files that are being put back into the system, files that someone else (the someone else no one knows) has ordered and in that case it could be several weeks until they are put back in the system for re-ordering. And so on and so forth. I hope this helps you to understand the Cook County system (or lack of it). If you do, congratulations! You have accomplished something most of us pros haven't figured out yet! Chicago Information The Circuit Court of Cook County is the largest unified court system in the world. The 2300 person staff of the Clerk of the Circuit Court serves the 5.1 million residents of Cook County within the City of Chicago and its 126 surrounding suburbs in handling the 2.4 million cases filed every year and the millions of pages of pleadings and other documents that pass through the system.

Does Your Criminal Records Vendor Really Do Searches?

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0600

By Steven Brownstein Many of you who know me personally have heard many of my calls for getting to know your vendor. Why? Because it still surprises me that many a pre-employment screening will order searches from a vendor (records retriever) without knowing how searches are done at that jurisdiction or what the re3cord retriever is retrieving! That’s why. A case in point: My friend, Les, called me to say there are new international record retrievers advertising. I looked at their ads or WebSites and almost believed they (the new international record retrievers) knew what they were doing. I was almost that stupid. There is no law stopping companies from advertising international searches (or any kind of search), but there should be. I know that Straightline International, maybe we don’t have the most beautiful Web Site, but we do spend hundreds of thousands of US dollars to go to the courts and police authorities around the world. No one else does that. Look into it, that’s what I’m asking.

It’s pretty simple. Not rocket science. Check on your US record retrievers while you’re at it. And here's a tip for one of those new international Web Sites; Singapore is not in Malaysia.

Texas Law On Reference Checks

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

by Dick Baggett There are two sets of what are called FEPAs (Fair Employment Practice Acts) in the U.S. Most employers are “somewhat” aware of the federal (what I would call universal) employment laws and civil rights acts. However, few employers have ever looked up the state of Texas FEPAs to see what the state law says. You see, in addition to the federal laws about employment generally, every state in the U.S. has its own set of rules. The state laws can be the same as the federal laws or more intense than the federal laws. They can’t be in contradiction to the federal laws. For Texas employers, the best place to find the various state FEPAs is to go on the website of the Texas Workforce Commission. For a few weeks, we will be discussing what information is on the website for Texas employers regarding background checks and the application process. One thing you will learn is that in 1999, the state Legislature passed an employment background law called H.B. 341. The bill can be located in the statutes found in Sections 103.001-103.005. The purpose of H.B. 341 was to codify in the state law protections for employers and employees (applicants and former employees) in the giving and getting of reference checks. It therefore deals with job references and the issue of defamation. It just happens that this author was one of four people in Texas who wrote H.B. 341. The purpose of the act states: “The legislature finds that the disclosure by an employer of truthful information regarding a current or former employee protects employment relationships and benefits the public welfare. It is the intent of the legislature that an employer who makes a disclosure based on information obtained by the employer that any employer would reasonably believe to be true should be immune from civil liability for that disclosure.” Particularly important in H.B. 341 was the section that defined “job performance.” Job performance in the law “means the manner in which an employee performs a position of employment and includes an analysis of the employee’s attendance at work, attitudes, effort, knowledge, behaviors, and skills.” That’s a pretty broad category of information. The law provides for civil liability immunity for background checks. Specifically H.B. 341 states: “An employer who discloses information about a current or former employee under Section 103.003 is immune from civil liability for that disclosure or any damages proximately caused by that disclosure unless it is proven by clear and convincing evidence that the information disclosed was known by that employer to be false at the time the disclosure was made or that the disclosure was made with malice or in reckless disregard for the truth or falsity of the information disclosed. For purposes of this subsection, ‘known’ means actual knowledge based on information relating to the employee, including any information maintained in a file by the employer on that employee. ”Therefore, within the Texas court system when a managerial employee or another representative of the employer“ who is authorized to provide and who provides information in accordance with this chapter in the same manner that it applies to an employer” gets and gives background job performance references, they have civil immunity from liability. It’s important to remember that this immunity applies only to the truth. Here are some more summary principles to follow: * Telephone reference calls: these usually produce very little information of value. Usually, they result in the company being called only verifying, at most, that the person worked there, their job and what they were paid. It is rare that valuable information about job performance is shared. This is partially because of corporate policy established erroneously in fear of being sued for telling anything at all — even the truth, as we have discussed under HB 341. Additionally the company doesn't share much because they don't know anything about the validity of the person calling. One way of overcoming this is to use written job reference requests. These can contain information about HB 341's allowances and protections. * Signed releases and waivers: We have discussed this before. To iterate, the bottom line is that all background searches should be conducted after obtaining proper signed authorization from the person being investigated. Such releases and waivers should contain as a minimum the following such statement:
The above wording is from the Texas Workforce Commission. It does not represent the author's own professional wording or forms. * Who should conduct the reference search: Any employer has the right to conduct background searches. It is highly recommended that this be done only if the employer understands the relevant laws and issues facing them when they attempt these searches. This is partially the reason that organizations specializing it these searches are contracted to perform the search. As an example, the Fair Credit Reporting Act has specific rules about authorizations for searches and what requirements about information the applicant is to receive if they are turned down based on the search results. *In-home service and residential delivery companies: Texas law has precise requirements for conducting background searches on people who will be performing these services. * Arrests, etc.: it is recommended that information about arrests should not be emphasized. Texas law has definitions and allowances about what types of criminal background information can be sought and which types of offenses are meaningful for employment decisions * Polygraph examinations: Many people are still not aware that Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988 essentially gutted the use of polygraph examinations for the vast majority of employers. Therefore, barring statutorily mandated or narrowly allowed polygraph examinations, an employer should never use or require a polygraph examination as part of its background checks. * Transcripts, records, certificates and licenses: an employer may demand that applicants produce these documents and credentials themselves.

Are You A Criminal? School Asks Parents

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Do you have a PC at home? How big is your house? What car do you drive? Do you have your tax returns in place? And most importantly, do you have a criminal record? Before you dismiss these questions with a curt 'none of your business', know that answers to these queries will determine if your child gets admission in a school. Maneckji Cooper High School in Juhu, is asking parents of prospective students to get a character certificate from Mumbai police, presumably so everybody can rest assured that children of hardened criminals are not running amok in the school. In Maneckji's admission form states, "Parents should obtain a certificate from the Mumbai police confirming that there has never been and currently no criminal investigation, proceeding, conviction against the parents and guardians, whose child is applying for admission."

Are You A Criminal? School Asks Parents

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Suicide Risk Rises After Criminal Encounters

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

People who have had run-ins with the law, even if they were never jailed, show a higher risk of committing suicide, said a new study. The research, published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, a journal of the American Medical Association, examined records in Denmark and found that the risk of suicide was highest among people who did time behind bars. But the study authors also determined that suicide risk was "elevated even among those who had never received prison time or a guilty verdict," when compared to people who had never been exposed to the criminal justice system. "Suicide was most strongly associated with sentencing to psychiatric treatment and with charges conditionally withdrawn," or suspended sentences, the study said. British researchers examined the records of 27,219 people in Denmark who died from suicide between 1981 and 2006 and compared them to a control group of 524,899 people who were alive but otherwise matched them by age and sex. Then, they linked those records to data from a national registry of criminals to determine which individuals were exposed to the justice system after 1980. More than a third (34.8 percent) of the men who died by killing themselves had a history with the criminal justice system, compared to almost one-quarter (24.6 percent) in the control group. Among women, 12.8 percent of those of died by suicide had criminal encounters, compared to 5.1 percent of the control group. "The risk of suicide was especially high among those with a criminal history who were younger, who had been charged for violent offenses and whose contact with the criminal justice system was recent or repeated," it said. The study said that because suicide risk appeared to mount in relation to the number of times a person had contact with the criminal justice system, and how recent those encounters were, they believe that the research was not simply reflecting trends among people who were more likely to be troublemakers. "Exposure to the criminal justice system in itself may contribute to elevating a person's suicide risk, rather than simply reflecting the traits and characteristics of people who come into contact with the system," it said. The study was led by Roger Webb of the University of Manchester.

Driver Cleared By CRB Check Abused Child

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

A man cleared in a background check had child abuse convictions and went on to abuse a child, it has emerged. The "vulnerable" child was abused while being driven to school in 2008 by the man working for Camden Council. Despite convictions abroad for abuse, the driver had been given a green light by the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB). The council has been fined £1,200, while the Home Office claimed it had always warned CRB checks were not failsafe for foreigners. Local Government Ombudsman Jane Martin warned the case illustrated the importance of proper safeguards while transporting children. She said: "This investigation has highlighted a number of learning points which have implications for councils and contractors. "The child's mother, who brought her complaint to me, wanted to prevent a similar situation occurring in future." A spokesman for Camden Council said: "This is a tragic case and we would like again to express our apologies to the family and offer them our continued support. "Our contractor did check that this man was cleared to work with children but unfortunately faults with the CRB system meant that his previous crimes were not recorded." The Independent Police Complaints Commission is investigating how the driver was given CRB clearance by the Home Office. Camden Council was ordered to pay £1,200 to the child's mother for her distress. A spokeswoman for the Home Office, which runs the CRB, said: "The CRB has always been clear that if organisations recruit from overseas, a CRB check may not provide a complete picture of an individual's criminal history."

How Much Should Employers Know?

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

by Emily Gurnon After a 15-year-old girl was raped by a convicted sex offender who worked at RadioShack in New Prague, MN, her mother and a friend confronted the store owner. Why hadn't he done a background check, the friend asked. The man conceded that the applicant told him "he had done something in Illinois with a girlfriend" and had gone to jail or prison. But the owner told the applicant that he "believes in second chances," and so he hired him, the girl's mother said. Store owner Monty Dehn now faces a possible lawsuit, and worker Bradley O'Donoghue — who raped the young customer on a sofa in the store's backroom — has pleaded guilty to criminal sexual conduct in Le Sueur County. State law requires some employers, mostly in the public sector, to do background checks on workers. Retailers are not required to do them. Many companies do them simply because they want to avoid the kind of liability the RadioShack owner now faces. And there is little law in Minnesota that prohibits employment decisions based on the worker's criminal history. But the Department of Human Rights cautions that a hiring policy could be deemed discriminatory when a minority member is restricted from employment based on his or her criminal record. "The employer is put between a rock and a hard place," said Minneapolis attorney Marshall Tanick, who works in employment law. "Generally speaking, the law gives broad discretion to employers to do these background checks, and it does not intervene much in the employer's decision whether to hire or not hire someone, unless there's fairly clear racial discrimination," Tanick said. "And even those cases are very hard to pursue." Dehn's attorney in the possible civil suit, Deborah Eckland, said she could not talk about the specific case. But she said it's common for small employers to skip background checks. "In terms of smaller places, I know I've been surprised by what I've found, that they don't do them routinely," Eckland said. "I will tell you that Monty Dehn is a very conscientious person and the nicest person you'd ever want to meet, and wouldn't put himself in this position for anything." Attorney Michael Padden, who is representing the girl's mother, said he believes Dehn should have known not to hire O'Donoghue based on information he had about O'Donoghue's history. "We contend that the owner of the RadioShack in question knew that this guy had a past sex crime history before he hired him," Padden said. "If you know that ... and you know that person is going to be interacting with minors, at the very least you should make sure he's not working in the store alone. "So it's negligent hiring and negligent supervision," he said. O'Donoghue's previous conviction involved fondling and kissing a girl in Illinois who was under age 13. He was required to register as a sex offender. Initially sentenced to six months in jail in 2002, he violated his probation and drew a 4 1/2-year prison sentence in Illinois. Eric S. Bruner, a spokesman for RadioShack Corp., said an independent dealer operates the New Prague store. "We understand the serious nature of the allegations, and we believe the local operator responded swiftly and appropriately in this situation," Bruner said. "Because the dealers and franchises are independent small businesses, we don't normally discuss their personnel practices." O'Donoghue's criminal attorney, Anthony Nerud, declined comment on his case. But he said that small-town employers might take a less critical look at prospective employees and do background checks less often. "Folks don't generally anticipate bad guys living amongst you," Nerud said. "You want to presume the best; you don't want to presume that the person is a perp of some sort." In larger cities, he said, "(The applicant) is not somebody you're going to see on a daily basis if you reject them." O'Donoghue lived down the street from the RadioShack where he worked. The Minneapolis-based Council on Crime and Justice works to educate employers on how to interpret criminal background checks and make smart decisions based on them. "We're not necessarily saying, 'Don't look'; we're saying, 'Understand what you're seeing,' " said Pamela Alexander, the group's executive director. When background information is so widely available, many employers use it without fully understanding it, she said. For example, a person might miss out on a job because the record shows an arrest, but no charge or an acquittal. "Then it stops them from being able to get on with their lives," Alexander said. Even those with low-level crimes might find it nearly impossible to get jobs or apartments. Alexander said sex offenders make up a small portion of criminals, and their inclusion in a national database makes it easy for prospective employers to check on them. Employers often make it easy on themselves by asking job applicants to sign a "voluntary" waiver. The document may give the employer permission to seek information, from criminal and driving records to credit checks and education history. "Those background-authorization forms give employers almost carte blanche to gather any and all information about employees," said Tanick, the employment law attorney. In one of his cases, an employer sought records going all the way back to kindergarten, he said.

Industry in India Must Wake Up To Rising Corporate Fraud

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

by Garry Singh & Abhinav Mohindru Experience is a hard school, but fools will learn no other.” This often-written line by students being punished in British schools has an apt ring to it considering the rise of high-level fraud taking place in India. Why is India not learning from its bitter experiences with fraud? Corporate India is no stranger to fraud. One of India’s largest pharmaceutical companies was indicted in the UK courts for its part in a price fixing and deception case in the late 1990s. So, what lessons have been learnt since then? With the uncovering of the Satyam scandal and recent banking frauds, it appears little heed has been paid to the warnings. Our corporate community suffers from the cannot-happen-to-me syndrome, also known as ignorance. Corporate crime is an evolving animal that continuously changes its form, which makes it difficult to control. Technological advances have provided the fraudster with a sophisticated arsenal, whereby he can take advantage of archaic accounting and regulatory systems within companies. A PricewaterhouseCoopers survey confirmed that 35% of the companies that had approached it were victims of at least one significant corporate crime between August 2008 and July 2009. Many of them suffered more than one significant crime. Obviously we can’t count those who never got to know what they suffered. The fact that many corporate houses do not have systems to counter potential frauds has made the fraudster’s life easy. The misconception about fraud is that it takes place due to external factors. However, corporate fraud is often committed by an insider. That inside link to an organisation results in the most damage when a fraud is perpetrated. The presence of an insider allows a systematic long-term fraud, as he can avoid suspicion and detection for long periods by fraudulently appropriating small amounts of money on a consistent basis. Recent cases show that it is no longer possible for companies to be in denial on their susceptibility to fraud. Companies need to adopt a mandate to escape becoming victims of fraud, and set up a series of systems and procedures to prevent fraud. As India grows into a world power, foreign investors will seek confidence that economic crime or fraud is being addressed and tackled in India. Fraud reporting in most parts of the globe is consistent, and highlights the human weakness for easy money irrespective of the geography, religion and type of industry. The rise in frauds can be blamed on the recession in the US and high economic growth and economic diversity in Asia. A survey showed that 88% of the companies experiencing economic decline also faced corporate fraud. The recent recession saw downsizing of controls and personnel responsible to prevent and/or detect a fraud. The opportunity to perpetrate a fraud is higher in companies that have restricted their control regime to old-day accounting procedures. Adoption of dynamic controls to use a mix of technology and human intervention could have been delayed due to conservative thoughts or low expenditure appetite. Whatever the reason, the cost of bearing a fraud is far more critical than not adopting the new controls. Some manufacturing firms use traditional techniques to control fraud, and trends indicate they have been suffering the most. In fact, some companies that have started using modern systems continue to focus on detective and reactive methodologies and much has to be achieved on the preventive controls. Techniques such as risk management and periodic gap analysis to prevent frauds are not yet popular due to the low interest of organisations and lack of availability of skilled professionals to manage such projects. The Ethical Hotline has produced good results for many organisations. Such hotlines provide crucial workable intelligence along with possibility of throwing false alarms. The maximum number of frauds are seen as perpetrated by the middle management whereas the high-value ones are mostly attributed to the C-suite. An increasing number of financial frauds is reported through a nexus of multiple authorities and personnel. The most common type of fraud noticed in recent times is due to the collusion of finance department of a company and their bankers. Sharing critical financial processing and authorisation details facilitates easy frauds. Also seen among low-value frauds is fictitious invoicing. Being low value, these transactions don’t attract high scrutiny. Recently, a Gurgaon-based company faced regular outflow of funds from its current account. There were 14 transactions of value ranging from `4 lakh to `9 lakh over three months, before the company noticed a possible fraud. A discreet investigation revealed that a former employee who had faced hostile termination had, post-termination, used the details of authorised signatures and other financial procedures of the company to conduct the fraud. He was assisted by two others: a technically-suave individual who forged bank stationery, while the other was a bank employee with responsibility of clearing the counterfeit cheques. As can be seen, fraud manifests itself in many shapes and forms, and has far-reaching effects. Preventive action is the way forward in this battleground. Fraudsters are being given too many free opportunities to carry out their plans.

Drug Use At Work: Higher Than We Thought

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

According to a recent report by the drug-testing company Quest Diagnostics, the number of Americans using cocaine while at work fell 29 percent between 2008 and 2009 to about 0.29% of the population. However, heroin use and prescription medication use has increased. The rise in positive heroin tests from 0.0008 percent to 0.04 percent between January and June 2010 is attributed to new, more accurate testing methods that use oral swabs instead of urine samples. "Stress in the workplace, which can play a role in increased substance use, has amplified in recent years due to job insecurity and a trend toward working longer hours," says a report from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Heath Services Administration.To combat the problem, most employers offer employee assistance programs (EAPs), including drug and alcohol counseling. However, even employees who want to get help are often hesitant to do so because of fears that the counseling is not truly confidential, said Ruth Donahue, a benefits specialist in the Chicago office of human resources consultants The Segal Company. Donahue said that companies need to do a better job of dispelling these myths and reassuring workers that getting help will not endanger their careers.

Gallatin, TN Police Almost Lose Access To State Criminal Database

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

The Gallatin Police Department nearly became the first department in the state's history to lose direct access to confidential law enforcement databases. Before former Police Chief John Tisdale retired from his post after accusations he misused criminal background tools, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation was mulling the revocation of those privileges for the department. "I sure didn't want to take it away," said Brad Truitt, director of the TBI's Information Systems department, but it was an option officials seriously considered. Officials say misuse of confidential law enforcement records databases is rare in Tennessee. But, several high-profile cases in which public employees accessed sensitive law enforcement information for non-law enforcement purposes have led to suspensions, firings, lawsuits and criminal investigations. And technology is making it easier to access that information by a larger pool of people, making it more likely for breaches to occur here and across the nation. "You're going to have to learn to deal with this new technology," said John T. Soma, law professor and executive director of the University of Denver's Privacy Foundation. "Those issues are very fluid. We're going to see more of it as a result." Tisdale retired as chief in January, and the department was able to keep access to the Tennessee Information Enforcement System, or TIES, a collection of state and federal law enforcement databases that contain sensitive personal records. At the time of his retirement, the 56-year-old Tisdale said he was "old and wore out." "I've been doing this over 30 years, and I'm tired and I just think it's time,'' he said. Tisdale was accused of four questionable searches: two cases in which individuals in an adoption wanted proof they had no criminal record, a third involving a convicted murderer in a Mississippi civil case in which Tisdale would testify as an expert witness and a fourth that investigators still can't explain. Sumner County District Attorney General Ray Whitley investigated the breach, but said there was "no evidence of any kind that could sustain a conviction.'' Whitley did not file any charges against Tisdale. In a letter, TBI Director Mark Gwyn blasted the Gallatin department for what the TBI called "a pattern of misuse and disregard for the rules … over the past several years," that showed "no real attempt by the Gallatin Police Department to improve" how it handles sensitive information. As punishment, the agency will have to undergo audits every 6 months, as opposed to every three years. Though the TBI audits the TIES system, the Tennessee Administrative Offices of the Court, which oversees a system called the Criminal Justice Portal, has no such checks in place. The portal is a collection of statewide criminal justice databases and records, including driver's licenses, vehicle titles and registrations, state protection orders and wanted persons. "All audits are handled by the individual agencies that use the portal," said spokeswoman Laura Click. Meanwhile, nine former and current Mt. Juliet employees settled a lawsuit against the Smyrna/Rutherford County Airport Authority and a former Wilson County commissioner who accessed information through the portal system. Christopher Sorey resigned his position at the authority in 2008 after the TBI said he ran improper checks on several Mt. Juliet officials, including the city manager and mayor. No charges were filed, but the nine sued him, citing invasion of privacy. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed. Mt. Juliet Vice Mayor Will Sellers, whose information Sorey accessed, said having private personal information revealed to someone improperly is frightening. "We're all very happy this is all over and done with because you know when your identity is compromised you never know what the consequences are going to be," Sellers said. Sorey has said he accessed the information to research fire and code violations in Mt. Juliet. Truitt said the most information breaches across the state are inadvertent, and the few purposeful cases rarely involve someone seeking personal gain. But even so-called "curiosity" cases, in which an employee looks up a neighbor or a potential paramour out of curiosity, can affect public perception of such tools, Soma said. "The main social concern is the integrity of law enforcement," he said. "When you give information to them, it's going to be kept confidential and only released in a court of law. If that information is being released, whether it's a petty little thing like a mistress or something very serious … that's a violation of the public trust." Soma warned that the problems are likely to increase as technology improves. New Internet tools, better mobile technology and faster computers will make accessing the information faster and easier. Truitt said Tennessee and other states are bracing for that possibility by trying to improve oversight and security. "That availability of access and that amount of data is a good thing," Truitt said. "But there's that much more being accessed. There's more people with access. There's easier access."

Record Number Of Foreigners In Nepal's Criminal Activities

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Nepal´s criminal records show cases of involvement of foreigners in criminal activities have spiked in recent years. Even a limited amount of processed data indicates the alarming trend. In 2010 alone, the Department of Immigration (DoI) deported 70 foreign nationals. The year saw cases of deportations increase by 60 percent than the previous year, which saw 43 deportations. The figure partly covers the number of foreign nationals who committed crimes during the same year. According to Immigration Law 2049 BS, the DoI can deport foreign nationals who violate local laws after the latter serve punishment imposed by the judicial authorities or the DoI itself. The trend of foreign nationals getting arrested in connection with different crimes has reached a new high in the first two months of this year. The Metropolitan Police Range Kathmandu (MPRK) alone has 18 foreign nationals including 10 Indian nationals currently in its custody. Except for a British national being prosecuted on a rape charge and an Indian accused of murder, all are accused of involvement in drug trafficking. The Narcotic Drug Control Law Enforcement Unit (NCDLEU) has filed cases against 11 of them. “This is a remarkable increase. Most noticeable is the variety of crimes the deportees are charged with,” said DOI Director General Narayan Sanjel. Foreign nationals deported in 2010 were from 22 different countries. There were 26 deportees who served punishments on drugs smuggling charges and among them some had also overstayed their visas. Along with the increase in the number of deportations, their crimes were also varied. Among the 13 Bangladeshis deported in 2010 were also those arrested for operating illegal VOIP (voice over Internet protocol) call by-pass rackets, which caused losses worth millions of rupees to the telecom service providers. The Bangladeshis had used fake passports to operate their covert activities in Nepal. In drugs smuggling cases, Pakistani nationals were quite ahead than others. Thirteen Pakistanis followed by five Chinese were deported in 2010. Europeans were also among those deported last year on the charge of drugs trafficking and overstaying visas.

Record 47 Japan Suspects Arrested Through Wiretapping In 2010

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

A record 47 people were arrested in 2010 in investigations using authorized wiretaps into cases such as suspected illegal drug sales, a Japan Justice Ministry survey showed. The number of arrest warrants issued by courts was 34, also the largest since the Act on Wiretapping for Criminal Investigation took effect in 2000, it said. Investigative authorities wiretapped a total of 7,475 communications, all of which were cell phone conversations and text messages, in eight suspected drug smuggling cases, one suspected gang-related murder, and one case of gun possession. The authorities found 1,326 of the communications were linked to the alleged crimes, according to the survey. Drug agents under the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare used the law in their investigations for the first time. The law, enacted controversially amid concerns about privacy, authorizes investigators to eavesdrop on communications they suspect are linked to crimes involving illegal drugs, gun possession, human smuggling and gang-related murder.

Expungment Of Criminal Records Doesn't Make Report False - New Jersey Says

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that reports of crimes are not necessarily libelous just because the criminal records have been expunged. The court in G.D. v. Bernard Kenny and The Hudson County Democratic Organization, Inc. reversed a trial judge's holding that the use of expunged information could be libelous. During a primary contest for state Senate in 2007, opponents of candidate Brian Stack issued campaign fliers criticizing him for previously hiring an aide with a criminal conviction. The aide was identified as G.D in court documents. The arrest and conviction were expunged prior to the publication of the fliers. G.D. filed a civil complaint, in which he alleged that the defendants "committed the torts of libel and intentional infliction of emotional distress by disseminating two false and defamatory campaign flyers [sic]" and sought compensatory and punitive damages. Defendants asserted truth as a defense, but G.D. countered that because the record of his conviction was expunged, it never occurred under the law. "Although our expungement statute relieves a prior offender of some civil disabilities, it does not extinguish the truth," Justice Barry T. Albin wrote for a unanimous court. A number of organizations, including The Associated Press and the American Society of Newspaper Editors, filed friend-of-the-court briefs in the case. Attorney Thomas J. Cafferty, who represented both organizations, said of the decision: "We're very pleased with the result, with the court recognizing that while there are benefits obviously to an expungement, those are . . . benefits that flow from a legal fiction, and they can't change the underlying facts or truths." Attorney Bruce S. Rosen represented North Jersey Media Group, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case. In the brief filed by NJMG, the media organization stated: "With the proliferation of data aggregators and the archiving of web pages collecting or describing state criminal records with expungement orders -- but with those aggregators or web pages not necessarily correlating those records with expungement orders -- the effectiveness of the expungement statute is likely to become increasingly problematic and the issue of whether use of expunged criminal records could create liability for defamation or invasion of privacy claims increasingly likely to occur without a strong statement of the law from our courts. "At the end of the day, while this did not involved a dissemination of media material, often the media writes about people who may have had expungements, et cetera," Cafferty said

Chinese Make Up Lion's Share Of Foreign Wives In Korea

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Chinese women took up the largest portion of foreign wives married to Korean men in 2009, government data said. According to Statistics Korea, a total of 11,364 Chinese women married Korean men in 2009, while 7,249 Vietnamese and 1,643 Filipina women walked down the aisle with Korean men in the same year. They were followed by Japanese, Cambodian, Thai, American and Mongolian wives, numbering 1,140, 851, 496, 416 and 386 people, respectively, the state-run statistics agency said. The number of international marriages has been on the rise for years.

Justice Department Beefs Up Foreign Corruption Act Enforcement

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

By John Pappalardo and Kara Bombach In recent years, U.S. government officials have acknowledged the increasing focus on Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement. The government has been transparent about its priority to target individuals and companies who make improper payments or offer anything of value to foreign government officials for purposes of obtaining or retaining business. For U.S. and international businesses and their individual officers, directors and employees, however, such generalized statements about FCPA enforcement priorities take on new significance when put in terms of hard numbers of investigations, fines and convictions. In 2009, the Department of Justice set a record for numbers indicted and tried for Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations, yet the enforcement momentum in 2010 has actually escalated. Consider these 2010 milestones: • Justice imposed the most criminal penalties in FCPA-related cases than any previous 12-month period — well over $1 billion. In 2009 and 2010 combined, the department charged over 50 individuals and collected nearly $2 billion. • Approximately 35 defendants now await trial on corruption charges in Houston, Miami, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. • Justice ranks have grown to over a dozen attorneys dedicated solely to prosecuting corruption cases. • The department has deployed sting and undercover operations to reveal suspected FCPA violations, most notably with the high-profile indictment of 22 individuals in the military and law enforcement products industry in early 2010. The indictments resulted from Justice’s most extensive use ever of undercover law enforcement techniques in a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigation, and represent the single largest prosecution in the history of the department’s FCPA enforcement efforts. In front of this backdrop of increased resources and attention, a distinct Foreign Corrupt Practices Act trend is emerging, namely, the internationalization of the enforcement efforts. The unit works not only with other Justice Department divisions, but also with foreign counterparts. This theme will doubtless color the nature of future enforcement. Internally, Justice’s FCPA unit now receives assistance from prosecutors in the department’s asset forfeiture and money laundering section. The section recently initiated a new Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative to target and secure proceeds of foreign corruption that have been laundered into or through the United States. On the multinational front, many of the 144 member states who have ratified the U.N. Convention Against Corruption have implemented the required local laws providing for multinational enforcement cooperation, as well as extradition. Member states — including the United States — under the convention must render specific forms of mutual legal assistance in gathering and transferring evidence for use in court, and to extradite offenders. Member states must also implement measures to support the tracing, freezing, seizure and confiscation of proceeds of corruption. Member states include the United States and European nations, as well as countries with a historical record of systemic corruption, such as China and Nigeria, signaling a tidal shift in tolerance for corrupt conduct globally. Member states must implement the mutual assistance and cooperation provisions, and mutual assistance provisions require economically developed participants to assist developing countries to build and implement domestic anticorruption systems. Members are already following through on this obligation with the establishment of the International Anti-Corruption Academy in Vienna, Austria, a joint initiative of, among others, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the Republic of Austria and the European Anti-Fraud Office. The academy’s goal is to provide degree and certificate programs in combating global corruption to geographically diverse private and public sector participants. Apart from the the convention, a number of individual mutual legal assistance treaties between the United States and other nations provide for investigation and enforcement cooperation, as well as extradition of defendants for various crimes, including alleged FCPA violations. The Justice Department has already greatly increased its cooperation with foreign counterparts, and Justice officials have made recent public statements confirming that the department intends increasingly to rely on foreign partners in future cases. Regardless of the level of direct cooperation between U.S. and foreign enforcement officials, multinationals are vulnerable to enforcement not just by U.S. agencies, but also by local authorities in the numerous foreign jurisdictions where they operate directly or indirectly. Indeed, enforcement by other countries is also on the rise. For example, in June 2010, Daimler-Benz agreed to pay $185 million to Justice to settle charges of alleged illicit payments in 22 countries worldwide including Nigeria, China, Iraq and Russia. The Nigerian government then launched its own investigation into payments made to Nigerian officials by Daimler and Anammco, a Nigerian company that assembles Mercedes trucks and buses. This case serves warning that settlement in one country hardly insulates the perpetrator from prosecution in other jurisdictions. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement trends point toward 2011 investigations and prosecutions that likely will be industry-targeted and based, at least in part, on multilateral assistance and cooperation between enforcement agencies of different countries. Companies doing business overseas must continue to be vigilant in the selection and retention of foreign agents and business partners, and should continually examine and enhance existing compliance policies, procedures and practices to minimize exposure under the FCPA and other anticorruption laws.

The Database State Is Alive And Well In UK

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

The amount of data collected by automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras has reached into the billions. A Freedom of Information request by a member of the public known as HMP Britain has revealed that a national police database holds records of 7.6 billion occasions on which the locations of vehicles have been automatically logged. The National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA), which runs the National ANPR Data Centre, collates the data from roadside cameras across the UK. The official number of ANPR cameras in operation varies. The NPIA has claimed there are 4,045 by the first full week of June, but the Association of Chief Police Officers said in February that there may be over 10,000 cameras in use. Each camera takes a photo of the number plate and the driver and passenger. The number plate is then stored in the data centre, but the image of the driver and any passengers are not collected centrally. Guy Herbert, general secretary of NO2ID said: "There is nothing wrong, necessarily, with an automated system looking out for specific wanted vehicles in a way a human officer can't manage. But routine recording of where you've been and who you were with was used to intimidate dissidents in a police-state. It is the activity of stalkers, industrialised by database." The sheer number of databases held by the government will also be a cause for concern. It has been revealed there are over 30 databases in the Home Office and its executive agencies alone with hundreds of thousands of records. In a parliamentary written answer, Home Office minister James Brokenshire revealed that his department has 31 databases that hold information relating to at least 100,000 people.

Internet Runs Out Of IP Addresses (For Now)

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

The pool of Internet addresses has officially been drained. Four non-profit Internet administrative groups -- the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the Number Resources Organization (NRO), the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) and the Internet Society -- said at a press conference that the supply of IPv4 addresses has been depleted. "This is a major turning point in the ongoing development of the Internet," said Rod Beckstrom, ICANN’s president and CEO, in a statement. The situation however isn't imminently dire: It's not as if companies or individuals who want to launch a Web site will be unable to do so. There are likely to be addresses to be had for months if not years, and the dwindling supply may be extended through network addressing tricks. But the limits of IPv4 are no longer theoretical. The last remaining IPv4 addresses were allocated -- two blocks of IP addresses, about 33 million, were assigned to the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) for the Asia Pacific region already and the five final blocks were doled out in conjunction with the press conference.

No Hepatitis Tests For Chinese Background Checks

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

The Chinese government has reiterated a strict ban on hepatitis B tests. The Ministry of Health said that no health institutions are allowed to provide hepatitis B checks as part of pre-employment physical tests regardless of whether the examinees provide consent or not. However, according to a survey released this week, which was conducted by the non-profit Beijing Yirenping Center, some 61.1 percent of the 180 state-run companies surveyed included hepatitis B checks in their pre-employment physical examinations.

Crime Gangs Import New Members On Work Visas

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Organised crime networks have set up phoney companies and employment agencies to abuse the "points-based" visa system, introduced under Labour in 2008, which puts responsibility on employers to "sponsor" migrant workers. The Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) warned that the tactic allowed foreign criminals to be brought into Britain legitimately on work permits. Scotland Yard has said that around half of London's organised crime gangs are "cultural networks" whose members share a foreign nationality - typically from countries such as Turkey, China and Vietnam whose citizens require visas to come to Britain. It came as photographs were released demonstrating the lengths to which some illegal immigrants will go to enter Britain. Soca said that fraudulent work permits and student visas, along with bogus marriages and exploitation of visas for family visitors, were "common methods of abuse" following the introduction of the points-based immigration system by the Home Office in November 2008. "There is a new emphasis on placing responsibility on sponsorship to determine applications," said a briefing document from Soca. "This ... in turn presents potential opportunities for organised criminals to provide false documentation which enhances or creates sponsorship profiles."

UK Employers Face Fines Over Inappropriate Background Checks

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Employers that repeatedly make inappropriate or even unlawful background checks on staff will in future face fines of up to £500,000 as part of the coalition government’s revamp of the controversial Vetting and Barring Scheme. The proposals would see the VBS replaced by a significantly scaled back system targeting only those personnel who have close and regular contact with children and vulnerable adults such as teachers, nurses and care workers. Criminal records checks would no longer apply to volunteers who occasionally or might interact with them. The changes are expected to be introduced in about 18 months if, as anticipated, the Bill reaches the statute book early next year. Under the new regime, employers that knowingly ask for a background check that is inappropriate or even illegal will be hit with a penalty, however. In the most extreme cases, they could be referred to the Information Commissioner to assess whether data protection laws have been breached.

Parking In 'Handicapped' Spot Can Get You A Criminal Record

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

It's not "convenient" to be disabled. People tend to forget that fact when they are in a hurry to run into the grocery store and carelessly park their car in an open disabled spot. But now Texas cracked down on healthy people who don't think they will get caught. In fact, the state is making it a heftier crime to break the rule. Parking in a disabled spot just seems like bad karma. While it's tempting to park in a "handicapped" spot at a busy outlet mall, just think about how blessed you are to be able to walk a little further to the door. A new law took affect that not only imposes a higher fine, but the charge will be criminal. Those who park their cars illegally in a disabled spot will have to pay a $500 fine. That's nearly double the current fine of $255 to $300. As a criminal offense, the fines and court costs will begin at $511 for the first offense. Even borrowing someone's place-card will break your wallet. Violations include parking in a disabled space without a place-card and illegally using a place-card if you are not disabled. If you are disabled and you loan out your place-card? You too could face a $500 fine. The new fines took effect Feb. 1.

Background Check Update In Missouri

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

The Missouri State Highway Patrol has made it easier for you to do criminal history checks. On Monday, February 7th, it announced the launch of a new website that allows the public to get open record criminal background checks in a matter of seconds. It's called the Missouri Automated Criminal History Site and anyone can create an account. The Missouri Automated Criminal History Site can be found at the Highway Patrol's website or at the MACHS site. Once an account is created, users may submit the name, date of birth, and/or social security number of a person and receive all Missouri open record criminal history information related to that individual. The majority of requests should be completed and sent to the user within seconds. "Previously, when a person wanted to make an open record criminal history check, they had to complete a form and send that form to Jefferson City which actually took about 2-4 weeks to get any type of response," said Sgt. Brent Bernhardt of the Missouri State Highway Patrol. The same $10 fee for each record check that is charged for mail-in and in-person records checks applies online, along with a convenience charge for each request.

Court Records Destroyed In Fire

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Hundreds of important files were reduced to ashes in a major fire that broke out at Punjab and Haryana High Court. The blaze erupted in the judicial record room. According to officials, hundreds of files relating to court records that were lying in around 210 racks in various rooms were damaged. Most of these pertained to First Appeal against Orders (FAOs). Some files of the adjoining RTI branch were also destroyed in the incident. Some case files that did not catch fire were strewn all over, soaked.Court registrar general VS Malik said apart from the fire, even water used to douse the flames ruined the documents.

New Bill To Require That Firms Check On Foreign Recruits

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Companies will have to do their own background checks on people they want to bring into the country if the Department of Home Affairs has its way with amendments to the Immigration Act. At a parliamentary press conference, Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said the aim of the amendments was to "streamline and create checks and balances and centralise the process" for people wanting to enter South Africa. "If a company wants to bring someone into the country, such as a CEO, then it makes no sense to have police clearances for every country that person has been in for the past 20 years," she said. However, Dlamini- Zuma said the idea was to make companies "responsible" for ensuring that the correct information was presented on applications for job permits and the justification of their employment was properly presented. Dlamini-Zuma said she was also in favour of an idea that companies wanting to import certain people as part of their investment in the country should also employ a number of local people as well. The Immigration Amendment Bill is being debated before Parliament and has drawn criticism from a number of quarters. The aim is to finalise the law before the end of the second quarter.

Les Rosen's Corner NASA and Background Checks

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

In a case pitting individual privacy rights of citizens against national security concerns of a country, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturned a ruling limiting government inquiries about contract workers at a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) laboratory and ruled the federal government can ask employees about their drug treatment, medical conditions, or other personal matters during background checks and that the questions did not violate the constitutional privacy rights of employees.
USCIS Bureau Notes Improvements of E-Verify System According to a new report from the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO), the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) bureau has taken steps to improve the accuracy and efficiency of the E-Verify electronic employment eligibility verification system used to check if workers are legally eligible to work in the country.

Reason for Leaving: Fired Over Social Media Website A recent article in the Wall Street Journal warns employers about "tripping over legal potholes in social media" if they choose to fire people over alleged social media infractions as more employees and job applicants access popular social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Public Record Update A Service from BRB Publications, Inc.

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Alabama Disables Vehicle Record Access Site Three months ago, the Alabama Motor Vehicle Division launched two searches for Vehicle Title and Registration records. However, this past week the MVD temporarily disabled these two searches at www.revenue.alabama.gov/motorvehicle/mvinfo.html. The reason for this stoppage is that the access program allowed people to retrieve personal identification data associated with vehicle registration or title without asking users to verify they had legal authorization to access the records. The Division is working to correct this oversight and make the data accessible to those with a legitimate (DPPA) purpose. No time estimate has been posted. There are two other record search features still operational at this web page. A Vehicle Information Check provides limited vehicle information, but includes lienholder data. Also an Abandoned Motor Vehicle Information Service is provided. Occasional requesters may use a credit card for a $6.00 fee per search. Ongoing users may access as approved, subscribers of Alabama Interactive - the NIC affiliate for the state.

Missouri Highway Patrol Opens New Criminal Record Access Site The Missouri State Highway Patrol, Criminal Record & Identification Division, recently instituted a new program for the online access and retrieval of criminal records. The data includes felonies, misdemeanors, and selected municipal ordinance violations. The site is www.machs.mshp.dps.mo.gov. A user must create an account and use of a credit card is required. There is a $10.00 fee for each search plus a 'convenience fee' for each transaction. This convenience fee is $1.00 for 1 to 3 records, but when more than 3 records are ordered a sliding scale is used which varies from 3% to 2.6%. Once an account is created, users may submit the name, date of birth, and/or social security number of a person. Requesters receive all Missouri open record criminal history information related to the individual - meaning convictions, arrests within 30 days, pending charges and suspended imposition of sentences during probation. All completed records are emailed in a PDF format to the user's account, usually within seconds unless further research is need to determine a disposition. For additional information, visit the site or call the Highway Patrol at 573-526-6153. Federal Courts at Northern District Illinois to Move In the Northern District of Illinois, both the US District Court and US Bankruptcy Court Western Divisions located in Rockford, IL will move into a new facility sometime in the Spring of 2011. The new address will be 327 S. Church. The Zip Code and phone numbers will remain the same. The old address is 211 S. Court Street. The original anticipated move date was to be November 2011, but this has been put back several times due to construction delays. Also of note, the Bankruptcy Court Western Division has adjusted the new case filing sequance for 2011. All cases filed in the Western Division (Rockford) for calendar year 2011 now begin using a sequance starting at 80,000. Case numbering for cases filed in the Eastern Division remain unchanged. As always, the two-digit year shall always precede the number assigned.

Straightline International Makes Record Search Turnaround Time Calculations As Easy As Clicking A Bu

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

My brother, Dennis, is some kind of engineering genius. While, as a kid, he was building intricate plastic models, one particularly of a large to-scale aircraft carrier, I was busy planning to see from how high I had to drop a bowling pin to crack the carrier in half once it was afloat. More on why or how I even got the bowling pin some other time. Dennis has now devised a turnaround table that is truly astounding. This turnaround table is another of his engineering feats, not an aircraft carrier mind you, but definitely a large scale undertaking. It behooves (wasn't this a good time to use that word?) you to take advantage of this tool. So every time you need to quote your customer you can tell how long it will take a search to be completed. It starts with a bell shaped curve that is called normal distribution. There is the middle of the curve, which is called the mean and then there is how tightly the data is packed around the middle. That is called the standard distribution. Are you a math whiz? No? I'm not either but I'll try to explain it in plain old english. Simply, it means the closer the data (in this case returned search results) to the center of the curve (the mean), the smaller the standard deviation. Which is good for you because it is very easy to calculate that your search will be returned close to the center of the curve. At a presentation in New Delhi, India, Tejas Sanghvi of Supersoft, was so impressed with Dennis' formula; that it was absolutely the best he ever has ever seen. "Please leave me a copy," I remember Tejas saying. Now, Dennis (and I) do not expect you to do the math. That's why we have computers and guys like Dennis who can calculate it with pencil and paper. In fact, Dennis has made it so simple that all you have to do is click a button. Go to your Straightline Online-Account and test ride the system. Check one of your searches, the formula is built into the ETA table. It's also built into the pricing and turnaround table. Dennis can explain it much better than I. He can even tell you how the standard deviation is built into the table and that the turnaround time reflects an exact calculation of the last 90 days of search results for that jurisdiction. That's why I have mentioned his name so much (and also to let him know how sorry I am for destroying his aircraft carrier). You can contact Dennis Brownstein at 1-866-909-6678 or E-mail him at dennisb@search4crime.com As far as the bowling pin goes, didn't everyone as a kid make a bowling alley in their backyard?

Women and Verbal Abuse

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Many men are obviously verbally cruel and abusive. Others are more subtle. Although verbal abuse does not leave black eyes or visible bruises, it is often more seriously damaging to your self-image. Verbal abuse is cruel and scars your soul. Many women never discuss verbal abuse. Indeed, some do not even recognize that they are being verbally abused. Often a verbal abuser is quite sensitive to outsiders finding out about the abuse and is very careful to save these scenes for the home environment only. Many verbal abusers are delightful, charming men in public. They treat their spouse or girlfriend with such respect that people often think they ""are the perfect couple."" They save their cruelty for a private audience of one. Why do intelligent, warm women permit verbal abuse from boyfriends and later from spouses? During the courtship period, everyone is on their best behavior. The verbal abuse is slight and probably few and far between. Since women want to believe the best of their lovers, they overlook obvious verbal abuse. Chemistry adds to the capability women have to overlook the first subtle signs of abuse. Then they marry or move in together. One of the most devastating effects of living with a verbal abuser is the change in self-esteem. As women begin to internalize the criticism and believe it's valid, self-image sinks lower and lower. They start feeling worthless, incompetent, unlovable. After all, when someone who knows them so well thinks they are so worthless and unlovable, then ""it must be true."" Sticks and stones ... and that saying of old keeps many women in place until verbal abuse has destroyed self-esteem, making leaving even harder. They even start thinking that if this man loves them, they should hold on to him. The fact that verbal abusers are quite often charming people adds to the confusion. The abuser can turn on the charm with the woman he is abusing, making her doubt her instincts. If the woman does challenge the abuser, he might answer with: -""What's wrong with you, making such a big deal out of nothing. -""Come on, honey, I was drunk ..... -""I had a bad day at work ..... -""I was upset with my ex,"" -""You know I didn't mean anything I said. I'm the one who loves you more than anyone else in the world loves you--remember."" If you are in a verbally abusive relationship, start by acknowledging the abuse. This is not an easy thing to do, especially as your self-esteem is weakened. Outside help may be necessary because family, friends, and relatives are often under the spell of your ""charmer"" and don't offer belief or support. They think you are crazy not to marry this man. Make plans to create a better environment for yourself. Don't stay too long, though, because every time your self-esteem sinks further, you lessen your chances of actually leaving. Remember, verbal abuse escalates. Verbal abuse can and sometimes does, turn physical.

Patience Prevails While Awaiting Japanese Public Record Searches

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

by Steven Brownstein Luckily, I left Tokyo with my wife, Rhoda, on Thursday, the day before the horrible earthquake and tsunami. And our island, Saipan, 1500 miles south of Japan, was spared the wrath of a major tsunami, too, barely breaching the 4 foot mark at its peak. Our homes were spared and no lives were lost. Now the citizens of Japan face severe hardships. Court services in most of Japan are slowed or non-existent. There is no need for me to explain the fact that our searches, then, are also delayed. Please be patient. And do what you can to help.

More Details Revealed Of Alleged Attempt To Bomb Illinois Courthouse

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Details of the government’s case against the alleged would-be Springfield, Illinois, federal courthouse bomber emerged March 7 in a motion seeking to bar the man from using an entrapment defense. The suspect allegedly proposed using two bombs — the second to kill emergency responders — and more than once expressed his willingness to die a martyr, the prosecution motion said.The man allegedly bought electronics components after being told Al Qaida would use them to kill U.S. soldiers and said he would leave the country after the bombing with the hope of returning in a couple of years to “do it again.” The motion, filed March 7 in U.S. Court in East St. Louis, indicates the government’s evidence includes video and audio recordings of the suspect, 30, planning and carrying out what he thought would be the destruction of the Paul Findley Federal Building in Springfield on September 23, 2009. The suspect was charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction against U.S. property and with attempting to murder a federal officer or employee. The government alleges the man thought he was detonating a van loaded with a ton of explosives parked near the federal courthouse. He did not know he was working with the FBI and not al-Qaida agents, and the van contained no real explosives.

Aviva (UK) Warns Against Risk of Criminal Records

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Home insurance policy holders should at all times inform their insurance company if any member of the household is found guilty of a criminal offence, says insurance giant Aviva. Failure to do this could result in all future claims being rejected even if premiums are up to date. A spokesperson for Aviva said they do not usually issue policies to anyone with an unspent criminal conviction. ”If a customer has had a criminal conviction then they need to inform us, as this could be material to their insurance cover.” Director of projects at Unlock, a charity organisation dealing with reformed offenders, is not happy with this state of affairs. He says that a large percentage of consumers are not aware of the fact that they have to inform their insurer if someone in the household has a criminal conviction. He continued “Insurers are basically imposing a blanket ban if anyone in a household has had a criminal conviction.” He added that a very small percentage of consumers were aware of their responsibilities in this regard. Even fewer of them are probably aware of the fact that, even if you provide room and board to someone with a criminal record, it can nullify your insurance cover. Unlock recently published a manual to help ex-convicts better understand their rights and responsibilities when it comes to buying insurance. Home insurance policy holders are encouraged to scrutinise their policy documents to make sure they are not violating any of the terms and conditions in this regard.

Straightline International Visited the Sydney, Australia Central Criminal Courthouse Pictured Above

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

By Steven Brownstein You probably didn't know this but Australia lies just a little more than four hours flying time from Saipan. This means that in a pinch Steven Brownstein can go to any courthouse in Australia lickedy-split. Obviously, criminal cases are heard at this court, but more minor ones are heard at the nearby Downing Centre.
Steven Brownstein has visited all the Sydney courts, as well as Cairns, Perth, and Melbourne. Straightline Intenational has researchers on staff in Sydney and Perth.

TV Star From "The Wire" Arrested

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

by Steven Brownstein Ever watch on HBO the series, "The Wire?" A gang banging, drug dealing killer on the show, Snoop, really known as Felicia Pearson has been arrested in real life for conspiracy to sell heroin. Felicia claims she is innocent.

Straightline / Chimera Add Growth Within The Pacific Basin

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Steven Brownstein, LLC , dba as Straightline International and The Background Investigator has acquired a majority interest in Chimera, LLC, an international pre-employment screening company. Chimera is committed to the professionalism of International and Domestic screening for the background screening needs of employers across the globe. Chimera currently does business on Guam and CNMI. The addition of Straightline International's criminal record retrieval sources will expand Chimera's reach from Santiago, Chile along a wide arc through, Tahiti, Fiji, Samoa, then curving north through Palau on up its way to Tokyo, Japan. According to David Burger, one of the founders of Chimera, "I am fond of the pre-employment screening industry." "In Guam and Saipan, the larger companies understand background checks; the smaller ones have always been the hardest to convince." "The addition of Straightline's records will add to our menu of services. We will be able to individualize searches based on the customer's need making it affordable for every situation."

Steven Brownstein Speaks To NAPBS Members About International Background Checks

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

It began as a side business for Steven Brownstein, who was in the 1990's the USA's largest provider of criminal background searches. With over 60 employees, Steven provided records 24 hours a day, 5 days a week, plus a half-day on Saturdays.
DAC Services, the Tulsa - based sister company had expanded service to Canada and Puerto Rico. Also, the World Gaming Network, another sister company, based in Las Vegas, was receiving requests for criminal record searches on foreign soil.

That's where Brownstein came in. He had already built a giant network of record retrievers throughout the US. He was processing more than 6,000 request per day and turnaround time was excellent.

So that's how it began.

Brownstein flew to Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, Canada to visit the courts.

He knew about the RCMP's CPIC search but found too may flaws in their record keeping , plus a long turnaround time, and actually, too much paperwork had to be collected, submitted, and tracked per request. Not particularly cost effective for pre-employment screening. The contacts he did make at the Canadian courts proved to be invaluable. Good, quality searches with little or no paperwork to handle.

Then he also flew to San Juan, Puerto Rico, met with their staff, and was assigned a public access computer whereby he could come weekly to the court and do searches

This was the beginning of international searches in the USA and he was at the forefront.

His techniques were simple - just continue applying the methods that I used providing USA domestic background checks.

And the techniques were successful. He expanded international search offerings to the total USA pre-emplyment screening industry.

Even though, initially, the quantity of requests was small, Steven Brownstein did see that the end result for foreign searches would be high volume. And as you know, today it is.

Remember, no one was doing international searches. He was the first.

His business expanded and England was the next on the list. He flew to London to run the first ever searches at Horseferry Magistrate Court and the Middlesex Guildhall Crown Court. He ran them successfully, adding he obtained copies of a case from the Crown Court.

That was the beginning. India came next, and so on and so forth.

Quoting Brownstein, "It is my pleasure to continue this dynamic, exponentially growing business opportunity to the pre-employment screening industry. And as one of the first to foresee the beginnings of NAPBS, and having stuck around to see its growth, I say thank you."

Steven Brownstein Goes To The Singapore Courts

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

The receipt above is from the Singapore Subordinate Court, one of the first courts I ever visited in the last decade and one I still visit today. I have also been to the Singapore Police Department. Both visits, rather, multiple visits, were to obtain information and results from background checks for pre-employment screening. Several years ago I even registered an office in Singapore to help one of my researchers who had just relocated there. Straightline International has made great strides, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, paving the way for all companies to obtain access to international criminal records.

Maryland Courts Get Online System Update

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Online Court Records: Now You See Them, Now You Don’t By Edward Ericson Jr. Users of the state’s online court records database (courts.state.md.us/courtrecords.html) saw a new message beginning on March 14: “No Electronic Record Exist [sic] or Case Not Subject to Electronic Inspection.” Searching for some names brings dozens of copies of this message. For other names there are none. Most people with criminal court records seem to have at least a few that are “not subject to electronic inspection.” The message appears at the top of many searches ordered by date, though there is no date, or any other information, on the line. The message telling you there is no information is actually new information, according to a state judiciary spokeswoman. “It’s a global message to account for a variety of scenarios,” says Terri Bolling, a spokeswoman for the State of Maryland Judiciary. “It means that either no record exists to be reported by the court system or that a court record exists, but the information is not publicly available.” In the past, she says, the online court records user would have no inkling that there were any hidden cases. If a case has been sealed, the person seeking to look at it will have to petition the court to open the case. The case number will not be available to aid in this quest. If a case is expunged, there will be no record, Bolling says, though that process can take up to 90 days, during which time only the name and case number will appear. Bolling cautions users that the “Case Search” feature of the online Judicial Information System “is not the official court record and is only a summary of information in the court record. For the official case record, people should visit the courthouse where the case was filed.”

NY Crackdown On Phony Licenses.

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Police arrested 11 bus drivers around the New York area suspected of using phony aliases to get fraudulent driver licenses, officials said. The crackdown comes on the heels of a horrific bus accident that left 15 passengers dead. Authorities suspended the license of a bus driver — who has not been charged with a crime — after police said his driver’s license application was found to contain false statements. A joint investigation by the New York Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and police uncovered similar incidents. Among those arrested were Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) employees and commercial drivers, the statement said. All 11 drivers were charged with falsifying business records and offering a false instrument for filing. “This investigation is ongoing and our investigators will continue to identify and arrest all those who have submitted false identities,” said the DMV’s executive deputy commissioner. MTA has suspended the suspects’ driving privileges pending the outcome of criminal hearings.

Dennis Brownstein And Straightline International Revamp Turn_Around Times

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Steven Brownstein Straightline International Makes Record Search Turnaround Time Calculations As Easy As Clicking A Button My brother, Dennis, is some kind of engineering genius. While, as a kid, he was building intricate plastic models, one particularly of a large to-scale aircraft carrier, I was busy planning to see from how high I had to drop a bowling pin to crack the carrier in half once it was afloat. More on why or how I even got the bowling pin some other time. Dennis has now devised a turnaround table that is truly astounding. This turnaround table is another of his engineering feats, not an aircraft carrier mind you, but definitely a large scale undertaking. It behooves (wasn't this a good time to use that word?) you to take advantage of this tool. So every time you need to quote your customer you can tell how long it will take a search to be completed. It starts with a bell shaped curve that is called normal distribution. There is the middle of the curve, which is called the mean and then there is how tightly the data is packed around the middle (or mean). That is called the standard distribution. Are you a math whiz? No? I'm not either but I'll try to explain it in plain old english. Simply, it means the closer the data (in this case returned search results) to the center of the curve (the mean), the smaller the standard deviation. Which is good for you because it is very easy to calculate that your search will be returned close to the center of the curve. At a presentation in New Delhi, India, Tejas Sanghvi of Supersoft, was so impressed with Dennis' formula; that it was absolutely the best he ever has ever seen. "Please leave me a copy," I remember Tejas saying. Now, Dennis (and I) do not expect you to do the math. That's why we have computers and guys like Dennis who can calculate it with pencil and paper. In fact, Dennis has made it so simple that all you have to do is click a button. Go to your Straightline Online-Account and test ride the system. Check one of your searches, the formula is built into the ETA table. It's also built into the pricing and turnaround table. Dennis can explain it much better than I. He can even tell you how the standard deviation is built into the table and that the turnaround time reflects an exact calculation of the last 90 days of search results for that jurisdiction. That's why I have mentioned his name so much (and also to let him know how sorry I am for destroying his aircraft carrier). You can contact Dennis Brownstein at 1-866-909-6678 or E-mail him at dennisb@search4crime.com As far as the bowling pin goes, didn't everyone as a kid make a bowling alley in their backyard?

A Few Links - A Lot Of Searches

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Alaska Trial Court Name Index Database. The Name Index database allows you to search for trial court cases that have been filed with the Alaska Court System using a person's name. www.state.ak.us/courts/names.htm The Arizona Judicial Branch offers Public Access to Court Case Information, a valuable online service providing a resource for information about court cases from 137 out of 180 courts in Arizona.
www.supreme.state.az.us/publicaccess/ New Mexico State Judiciary - The New Mexico State Judiciary offers case look-ups for cases in the New Mexico Magistrate Courts.
www.nmcourts.com/ OSCN On-line Dockets - The Oklahoma State Court Network provides access to court databases.
www.oscn.net/applications/oscn/start.asp?viewType=DOCKETS CCAP's Wisconsin Circuit Court Access - Search for criminal, traffic, forfeiture, family, and civil cases on the Web site.
wcca.wicourts.gov/index.

10,000 CRB Reports Sent To Wrong Person

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

A police blunder that saw the results of about 10,000 Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks sent to a journalist was branded unacceptable by AMs. A member of Gwent Police staff copied the wrong person into an email containing the highly sensitive spreadsheet. The Information Commissioner s Office (ICO) has ruled that Gwent Police was in breach of the Data Protection Act. An investigation by Gwent Police found the staff member had a somewhat cavalier attitude to IT security. The employee has since resigned. The email was meant to go to five fellow police staff. However, a journalist s address was auto-suggested by the computer program because it was the same name as one of the intended recipients. The journalist received a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet as an attachment containing about 10,000 CRB inquiry results, requested by Gwent Police. Of these, 863 records indicated the individual had some degree of information recorded. The record did not disclose the nature of the information, nor any details of any criminal convictions recorded. Mick Giannasi, Chief Constable of Gwent Police, said the force flagged up the breach with the ICO at the earliest opportunity. He said: In the interim we initiated an internal investigation which was supervised by the Independent Police Complaints Commission and conducted a thorough review of our data protection procedures... Our technological systems have been upgraded as we have installed message classification software which applies the Government Protective Marking Scheme classification to raise security awareness and prevent data loss. This is the latest security breach across the UK. This week the ICO fined Ealing Council 80,000 and Hounslow Council 70,000 for serious breaches after the loss of two unencrypted laptops containing sensitive personal information.

Whole-Body Scanner Detects Contraband

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

In late February, Collier County has become the first Florida county jail to begin using a whole-body security scanner. The facility will serve as pilot location to test the RadPRO SecurPASS, which will be used to scan inmates and their possessions, including linens and mattresses. Collier County was selected for the pilot project because of a high incidence of prescription drug abuse. Funds from a State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP) grant were used to purchase the scanner, which detects metallic, non-metallic, organic and inorganic contraband. If the scanner detects contraband, the inmate will then be subjected to a strip search.

'Sexting' Teens Avoid Child Porn Charges

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The New Jersey Assembly passed a bill that essentially decriminalizes teen 'sexting,' by allowing the courts to send teens to a diversionary program, rather than strapping them with a criminal record. As sexting among teens grows increasingly popular -- the bill's sponsor, Assemblywoman Pam Lampitt, notes that 20-percent of teens surveyed have sent explicit images -- the legislation commonly used to deal with such "crimes" has spanned from outdated to abused. Teenagers are being charged under child pornography laws; their chances at college or a job lessened by a heinous criminal record.

Nursing Homes And Criminals

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Almost all nursing homes employ at least one person with a criminal conviction in his or her background, according to report released last week by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The report revealed that 92 percent of the nursing homes employed at least one person with at least one criminal conviction, and nearly half employed five or more such individuals. Overall, about 5 percent of nursing facility employees had at least one conviction. According to the HHS report, about 84 percent of employees who had convictions had their most recent criminal incident prior to their employment at the facility. The majority of these prior convictions -- 44 percent -- were for crimes against property, such as burglary, shoplifting and writing bad checks. About 20 percent were convictions for driving while intoxicated; roughly 16 percent were for drug offenses; and about 13 percent were for crimes against persons. Federal regulations prohibit Medicare and Medicaid nursing facilities from employing people found guilty of abusing, neglecting or mistreating residents. They also prohibit those facilities from hiring anyone who has had a finding entered into the state nurse aide registry concerning abuse, neglect or mistreatment or residents or the misappropriation of their property. The data collected in this study doesn't confirm whether any of the facilities studied violated the regulations. However, the study does raise questions about the importance of criminal background checks on nursing home employees. Though there is no federal law or regulation requiring nursing facilities to perform background checks, most states have instituted their own requirements. According to the report, there are eight states that have no such requirements. Of the states that do, 10 require an FBI criminal background check as well as a statewide background check. Thirty-two states and the District of Columbia only require a statewide check. Of the states that do, 10 require an FBI criminal background check as well as a statewide background check. Thirty-two states and the District of Columbia only require a statewide check.

Background Check Typo?

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

A simple typo might have failed to alert officials at Summit Christian School about the financial missteps of a man tapped to rescue the school from more than $10 million of red ink. Longtime Summit Christian headmaster Sam Skelton and angry parents said they were stunned by a story that the school's new headmaster and president faces a felony charge for writing a bad check, was convicted of contracting without a license and has been the target of more than a half-dozen civil lawsuits for failing to pay his debts. Socrates Maradiaga, 61, was introduced to staff and parents last week as the long-sought-after savior of the 600-student suburban West Palm Beach school. He promised he would make sure the school avoids a $9.3 million foreclosure lawsuit later this month and pays off nearly $800,000 in IRS liens. Skelton said that a background check done by the school came back clean. He speculated that Maradiaga's name was misspelled by school staff or the firm paid to run the check. He said he told Maradiaga the felony charge should have been disclosed. In an e-mail to parents and staff Saturday, Maradiaga said it would be "resolved" Monday. While Maradiaga didn't attend the hearing, his lawyer persuaded a judge to continue the case until March 31. Maradiaga is accused of writing a $5,000 check knowing there wasn't enough money in the account. "We believe it's a civil matter," attorney Robert Pasch said of the check written to Jon E. Schmidt & Associates for land planning the firm did for a school Maradiaga wanted in Lake Worth. Schmidt said it would have been a civil matter had he believed Maradiaga could pay the $5,000 and the remaining $15,000 he owes the firm. After doing a background check, Schmidt said he realized Maradiaga didn't have the resources, so he turned the check over to law enforcement for prosecution. Maradiaga faces a $17,000 court-ordered judgment for failing to pay a West Palm Beach school rent for his Cornerstone Christian Academy, which received state money to educate students with disabilities. Others also sued for not paying for expenses related to the school. Some dropped the suits when they couldn't locate Maradiaga. Maradiaga said the claims are false and he doesn't owe any money.

An Easy Way To Learn The CourtSystem (Using Florida s As An Example)

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Joe gets a traffic ticket for driving too fast and he wants to dispute it. Which court will handle this? Answer: The county court handles traffic infractions Pat meets an unfortunate death. Penny wants to get Pat s will probated. Which court will handle this? Answer: The circuit court handles legal issues dealing with wills and estates. Ralph gets in a fight with Donald. Ralph is charged with simple battery, a misdemeanor. Which court will handle this case? Answer: The county court has jurisdiction over criminal prosecutions for misdemeanors. Will kills Ron and is charged with first-degree murder, a felony. Which Court will handle this case. Answer: The circuit court has exclusive jurisdiction over criminal prosecutions for felonies

What Does A Court Clerk Do? (Seriously!!!)

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Court clerks record and process legal records, documents, and forms used in a court of law. Court clerks keep records and papers that are used in court. Thus clerks spend many hours filing these documents. Each document is entered on a list, assigned a number, and indexed in the names of all participants. In addition, the documents filed in each case are copied into special record books. Court clerks also file public records, such as mortgages, deeds, and marriage licenses. Another duty of court clerks is preparing the court calendar. This involves scheduling when each case will be heard. Clerks then send the participants a letter that states when and where the trial will be held. Later, the court clerk examines the files for each case. They make sure that all related records and documents are in the file. If documents are missing, clerks request copies. On the day of the trial or hearing, clerks prepare any forms that might be used by the judge. Clerks also print out informational sheets for each hearing. These sheets contain the case number and the names of plaintiffs, defendants, and attorneys. Clerks proofread the printouts to find errors or missing information. They distribute the completed sheets to the judge and other court personnel. If the judge has questions about the file, the clerk answers them. After the trial or hearing, court clerks record the rulings and decisions on several forms. Then they process the forms. This may involve collecting payments, fines, and court costs. Clerks generally use computers to keep track of all the payments. In many cities, court clerks also monitor the jury selection process. Clerks keep track of which jury members appeared for duty and which were chosen for the jury. They also may be in charge of the paperwork for paying jury member.

How To Find A Case In A Law Book

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The written, published opinions of courts are contained in law books. These published opinions constitute what is known as case law. Finding a court opinion in a law book is easy. The opinions in these books are identified by their case citations. -A case citation begins with the name of the case. -Next comes the volume number of the book in which the opinion can be found, -followed by the abbreviated name of the book, -followed by the page number. -Last, in parentheses, is the year of the decision. Example: -A citation of State v. Ramseur, 106 N.J. 123 (1987), means that the opinion is in volume 106, on page 123, and that the case was decided in 1987.

The Difference Between Great Britain And The United Kingdom

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The United Kingdom is made up of the countries of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Its full name is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Great Britain, on the other hand, comprises only England, Scotland and Wales.

Northern Ireland's Criminal Records Service Reviewed

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Government management of criminal records is to be reviewed in Northern Ireland. Sunita Mason, the UK Government's adviser on the management of criminal information in England and Wales, has been appointed to carry out an investigation into the system in Northern Ireland and is expected to report back by the end of June. AccessNI was established in 2008 but was criticised by employers shortly afterwards for the amount of time it took to vet people. The review will look at AccessNI's procedures for issuing criminal record disclosures and consider whether this process can be made more efficient and easier, while at the same time maintaining the rigorous checking process. It will consider how criminal records are held, used and managed. It will also consider if processes in Northern Ireland are consistent with the recently published findings of the Vetting and Barring Scheme by the Home Office. Ms Mason said Northern Ireland was in some ways ahead of England and Wales in managing information on criminality, adding: "I wish to make sure those systems work for the benefit of everyone."

Criminal Association In Cyberspace

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Art Bowker A prohibition against any criminal associations is a standard condition common in community supervision (probation, parole, supervised release, etc.). A basic premize has been that when offenders associate with another it frequently leads to more serious noncompliance, such as drug use or other criminal conduct. Association on the job or during treatment is not usually considered criminal association. It is hard to ascertain how many supervision cases are actually revoked for the technical violation of criminal association. Prior to the advent of social networking sites (SNS) criminal association violations were sometimes detected during a chance home visit or possibly a prison letter found in an offender s possession. Unfortunately they too often were first discovered in a police report of all individuals arrested with an offender during a new crime. However, offenders are now associating with one another in increasing numbers on social networking sites (SNS), such as Facebook. This trend raises the interesting possibility that supervision officers can be more proactive in detecting criminal associations as opposed to waiting for an offender s arrest report to identify their problematic associates. What kind of numbers are we talking about? One recent case found almost 15% of one offender s total friends were individuals they had meet while serving time in prison. This may be an extreme case but even one criminal association may be enough to get an offender into noncompliance. SNS are used by offenders in much the same way as the general public, i.e. to communicate and maintain contact with friends and relatives and to make new contacts who share similar interests. However, when supervised offenders have contact with other offenders via a SNS, they are violating their association condition. What kind of trouble are we talking about? Supervised offenders have been posted on their Facebook wall such antisocial activities as: Bragging about criminal conduct, including showing images of drug use and gun possession; Warning other associations about police investigations; Threatening alleged informants and witnesses It is ironic that many of these activities are posted in public areas of an offender s profile. However, most SNS also allow individuals to send private messages to one another. With mobile phones, a SNS presence can provide immediate access to one s criminal associates. The contact is not only immediate but can also be simultaneous with all of one s fellow felons. If they are publicizing such activities to the world we can only surmise what are they communicating privately among themselves.

Zaire Province Issues Criminal Records Online

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The civil and criminal identification department in northern Zaire province started to issue criminal record certificates online on March 2 this year, in connection with the headquarters in Luanda. The information was released in Mbanza Kongo by the head of Zaire s civil and criminal department, Pedro Sebasti o. According to the official, until now, 134 criminal record certificates have been issued in the province. He said that the applicant is required to produce his ID and pay Akz 259 (about Usd 2,5). The official said issuing criminal records online has significantly reduced delay in obtaining the document.

What Is Restorative Justice?

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Restorative justice is a philosophy that shifts the focus of the justice process from being focused on the offender to resolving the problem and restoring the harm created by the offender s actions. Restorative justice has three primary stakeholders: the victim, the offender, and the community. The state gives up its central role in dispensing justice and assumes the function of facilitating reparation of the harm done to the victim and the community. The harm caused the victim and community is assessed by the parties involved, and the offender is accountable for restoring the victim and community, as much as possible, to their pre-offense condition. There are three fundamental concepts that define the essence of a restorative justice approach: A restorative justice response proposes the victim will have the option of being included in determining how the criminal behavior is addressed. This does not give carte blanche to a victim to decide on a course of retribution for the offender without protection of the offender s due process rights. It does mean that victims play an active role, if they choose to, from the beginning to the conclusion of the process. Victim impact statements and victim-offender mediation approaches are examples of including victims in a restorative justice system. These approaches may include many people from the community interacting with the offender and the justice system to identify the aftermath of the crime and search for acceptable ways of addressing it. In a truly restorative justice context, communities would provide leadership to the entire process. However, involving communities in restorative justice strategies is very difficult, in part because this practice has not been undertaken routinely in the recent past. People often grapple with the concept of community without fully resolving them. Involving citizens in creative problem-solving and resource development is a vital part of a restorative justice approach. Focusing on the harm caused by offenses to victims and communities necessitates a shift in the response to crime. Emphasis is placed on natural and logical consequences of his or her criminal behavior. For example, if the victim was injured, an offender might have to pay for medical costs or do tasks the victim cannot perform while healing from the injuries. Active participation of offenders in the justice process also is a feature. Restorative justice involves the offender in active encounters with victims and community members. Offenders must hear about the consequences of their behavior from their victims and they must respond to victims and community members questions about the cause of the behavior. They are also engaged is designing appropriate ways of restoring victims and the community, as much as possible, to their condition before the crime occurred. Accountability literally means to answer to, explain something, or to give an account. The offender has responsibility for reaching a conclusion about what the harm is, owning it, and taking action to repair it. Accountability is victim-focused rather than offender-focused. It involves the development of empathy for victims and an understanding of the harm done. The primary obligation is to restore the victim, not change the offender. Reintegration of the offender is an objective of offender rehabilitation and often is an outcome of the restorative justice process, although it is not the primary intent of restorative justice. By assuming and carrying out tasks to restore victims and the community, offenders may learn valuable skills and form supportive associations that will lead to more pro-social lifestyles.

How Do Employees Steal: "Skimming"

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Skimming is the removal of cash from an organization before the cash has been recorded in the organization's books. Because the money is stolen before it appears on the books, skimming is known as an "off-book" fraud. The absence of any recorded entry for the missing money also means there is no direct audit trail left by a skimming scheme. The fact that the funds are stolen before they are recorded means that the organization may not be "aware" that the cash was ever received. Consequently, it may be very difficult to detect that the money has been stolen. The basic structure of a skimming scheme is simple: Employee receives payment from a customer, employee pockets payment, employee does not record the payment. There are a number of variations on the basic plot; however, depending on the position of the perpetrator, the type of company that is victimized, and the type of payment that is skimmed. In addition, variations can occur depending on whether the employee

Credit Reports And Bankruptcy

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

If a credit report shows that the person declared bankruptcy, then you also have to comply with provisions of the federal Bankruptcy Act. Under the Bankruptcy Act, you may not discriminate against an applicant solely because a credit check reveals that an applicant has sought protection under the Bankruptcy Act, been insolvent before seeking protection under the Act, and not paid a debt that is dischargeable under the Act. In other words, bankruptcy is not a valid reason to deny employment.

Civil Identification Issues Online Criminal Record Certificates

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The civil identification and criminal department of the provincial management of Justice in Cunene province, started issuing online criminal record certificates, in connection with the central in Luanda, aiming at speeding up the issuing of the document. The information was deliveredby the institution director, Adriano Gabriel Ndemupomito, who referred that the beginning of the issuing of the online criminal record certificates, enabled to guarantee quickness in the delivery of the documents to the citizens who daily go to the sector for this service, as it used to take two to three months. He stressed that the new system which is similar to the one used in the issuing of the new identity card, allows the person to receive his or her document on time, although there are some cases in which it takes some days, to enable a strict checking of the personal data of the person, done through the central databases in Luanda.

Interpreting Criminal Statutes

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

All criminal statutes define crimes in terms of required acts and a required state of mind, usually described as the actor's "intent". These requirements are known as the "elements" of the offense. A prosecutor must convince a judge or jury that the person charged with the crime (the defendant) did the acts and had the intent described in the law. For example, commercial burglary is commonly defined as entering a structure (such as a store) belonging to another person, with the intent to commit petty or grand theft (that is, to steal) or any felony. To convict a person of this offense, the prosecutor would have to prove three elements: The defendant entered the structure. The structure belonged to another person. At the time the defendant entered the structure, he intended to commit petty or grand theft or any felony. Example: Larry was stopped by a security guard as he left a department store. His oversized backpack contained three pairs of expensive running shoes and nothing else. After interviewing the guard, who described seeing Larry take the shoes and leave without paying for them, the prosecuting attorney decided to charge Larry with burglary. At the trial, the prosecutor was able to prove the following three elements: Larry entered a structure listed in the burglary statute. (The state statute included the term "store.") The structure belonged to another person. It was easy to show that Larry did not own the store. Larry entered with the intent to commit theft. The prosecutor convinced the jury that Larry's use of an oversized, empty backpack was evidence that, at the time he entered the store, he was planning to stash stolen goods. The jury didn't buy Larry's claim that he only decided to steal the shoes (and therefore formed the intent to steal) after he had entered the store.

Understanding Ohio s Case Numbering System

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

How to read case numbers. The three letter prefix indicates what type of case it is. Below is a listing of the case categories:

Criminal/Traffic Division
CRA - Felony
CRB - Misdemeanor
TRC - DUI
TRD - All other traffic violations

Civil Division
CVE - Damage to person and/or property
CVF - Monetary damages
CVG - Eviction
CVH - Replevin
CVI - Small Claims
CVJ - Rent Escrow
CVK - Drivers license appeals
MCT - Court transfers to collect judgment in a different jurisdiction - beginning in 2000, all MCT cases were given the designation of CVH. On criminal and traffic cases, you will notice a four (4) digit suffix indicating the number of charges in the case. All Criminal/Traffic cases are given the suffix "0101" which means "one of one". When more than one charge is filed simultaneously, the case numbers increase to the number of counts you are cited. The case numbers given are then put in order of severity. For example, if you are stopped by a police officer and cited for going 10 miles over the speed limit and not having a valid drivers license, your case numbers would be similar to the following: no valid drivers license TRD-99-12345-0102
speeding TRD-99-12345-0202

My Biggest Mistake We Failed To Check Out A New Hire

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Reprinted from TheChicago Tribune High-quality talent is always the desire of a small business. When the opportunity comes to bring in high-quality talent on the team, we frequently jump on it. But high quality isn't always high quality. I am the leader of a diversity consulting firm with 10 full-time employees and about 25 associates whom we use on an as-needed basis. In the field of consulting, you are always seeking out prime-time, quality talent. Not too long ago I had the fortunate opportunity to hire a consultant who had a doctorate and several years' experience with a major management consulting firm. She was very bright, personable and had a passion for the field of diversity. She also had knowledge of sophisticated electronic systems to help build the infrastructure of the organization. With such an awesome background and dynamic personality, I immediately got excited and made her a part of the team. The first few weeks were just like I thought they would be. She was proactive, insightful and very much a team player. Everyone on my team thought I made a great hiring decision except my colleague and partner of many years, Bea Young. Bea informed me that there was something about her that did not sit well. She told me to keep an eye on her. I felt Bea's concerns were associated with dealing with change versus the new hire. I felt that, in time, Bea would come to appreciate her as well. As time went on, the new employee began to behave differently. She became very argumentative in meetings and questioned all ideas with an annoying cynicism. After only a few months, she felt she was the expert and could ignore the perspectives of other team members. A little while later, she was caught attempting to steal a potential client and make the client one of her own. The potential client called me to question her activities and when questioned, she directly lied to me. She began to create division among my current staff. I am so glad my employees had faith in the direction of the company and did not fall for her behavior. Soon thereafter she was let go and business was back to normal. But I learned several lessons during this ordeal:

- Don't put all your trust in the contents of the resume.
- Regardless of how you feel about a person, check them out.
- Trust the opinions of your colleagues.
- Cut your losses soon before they become insurmountable.
- Know your biases. If you have a liking for upbeat personalities, have someone on your team who couldn't care less about upbeat personalities interview the person. They will give an honest evaluation.
- Don't rush your hiring decision. Anything that is good will get better in time.
The fallout from this hiring decision could have been a lot worse. The affect of a bad hire on a small company is really scary. Prior to this hiring decision, most of the staff came directly from personal relationships, so the background of individuals was pretty well known. We felt safe in our decisions. Don't think because you don't have the resources to do the appropriate big-company check that pre-employment screening is unimportant. Pre-employment screening is vital, and regardless of the method chosen, do the necessary due diligence to ensure the integrity of your team. Today, we have a three-month trial period for all new hires and contact several references to speak to the quality of the person. We implement this process both for individuals we know and for individuals who come to us from unknown sources. I suggest everyone do the same when making hiring decisions.

Sci-Fi No Longer Fiction

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Crime forecasting is a new approach for crime prevention, using statistical tools to predict where crimes will take place and sending police to those locations before the crimes occur. It uses data about past crimes and some knowledge of criminal behavior to project possibilities on a computer-generated crime map, and is based on the idea that criminals tend to be habitual. Computer-based forecasting can work with more variables than the human brain can easily handle, integrating seasonal patterns, annual patterns, and emerging trends to be 80 percent accurate, according to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.

The Long Shadow Of A Criminal Record

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Erik Roskes I have a patient who carries a conviction for a very serious felony. In 2001, he was convicted, and given probation and a suspended sentence. During his 18 months in jail awaiting a resolution, he was found to be psychotic and was treated with medication, which was gradually reduced. The treatment staff in the jail determined that he was psychotic due to heavy drug use in the years (and days) prior to his being incarcerated. In his youth, he was not a choir boy. During the years leading up to the felony charge, he was arrested on four occasions, charged with offenses ranging from loitering to second- degree assault. Most cases were dismissed or led to acquittal, but he did on one occasion receive a probation before judgment for discharging a weapon illegally. All of these charges related to his drug abuse and probable addiction. I first met him at the request of his probation agent, shortly after his release from jail in 2001. She was concerned both because of his history and his somewhat odd presentation. After working with him for several months, I concluded that the jail staff were correct: his mental disorder was directly related to, and probably caused by, his drug use. We have worked together closely ever since, and he has refrained not only from using illicit drugs and alcohol, but in fact has learned that his brain is adversely affected even by certain over-the-counter or herbal medications and has avoided these as well. But, of course, now he has a record. Like a weight hanging from him, this history - one incident lasting no more than a few minutes! - interferes with his ability find work. Many employers opt not to hire someone like him. Fortunately, he has the strong support of family, who assist him with his needs and help him find work even hiring him themselves at times. During the decade in which I have worked with him, he has married, divorced, celebrated his religious rites, dealt with several episodes of illness and hospitalizations. But one thing he has been unable to do is to find consistent work that would allow him to support himself. Many times, he has sought employment only to be turned away due to his record. Is it true that this man has had problems? Yes. Was he found guilty for a serious crime? Yes. But is it not equally true that, with help, support and ongoing treatment, he has been a good citizen now for over 10 years? Why is it that our society does not understand that people change, that they can be rehabilitated, even though our criminal justice system has abandoned rehabilitation as one of its goals?

Mistaken Convictions Suspected In Many Shaken-Baby-Syndrome Cases

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

A group of lawyers that has succeeded in exonerating hundreds of people based on DNA evidence is mounting 20 to 25 appeals of shaken-baby convictions. "No one wants child abuse," says Keith Findley, a lawyer for the Wisconsin Innocence Project. "But we should not be prosecuting and convicting people in shaken-baby cases right now, based on the triad of symptoms, without other evidence of abuse. If the medical community can t agree about all the conflicting data and research, how is a jury supposed to reach a conclusion that s beyond a reasonable doubt? Between 1,200 and 1,400 U.S. children sustain head injuries attributed to abuse each year. Most of them are under a year old. Usually, there s not much dispute that the children were abused, because doctors discover other signs of mistreatment cuts, bruises, burns, fractures or a history of such injuries. Law-enforcement authorities believe there are about 200 shaken-baby prosecutions annually. In an estimated 50 percent to 75 percent of them, the only medical evidence of shaken-baby syndrome is the triad of internal symptoms: subdural and retinal hemorrhage and brain swelling.

Feds Say US Gangs Have Swelled To 1 Million

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Criminal gangs in the USA have swelled to an estimated 1 million members responsible for up to 80% of crimes in communities across the nation, according to a gang threat assessment compiled by federal officials. The report by the Justice Department's National Gang Intelligence Center concludes gangs are the "primary retail-level distributors of most illicit drugs" and several are "capable" of competing with major U.S.-based Mexican drug-trafficking organization. Houston May Scrap Military-Style Boot Camp For Delinquents Harris County, Tx., may scrap rigorous physical training and rigid military-style drills at its boot camp in favor of a program that uses therapy to attack the emotional and behavioral problems that led the young people into crime. The county opened a juvenile boot camp in 1994 to offer chronic young offenders one last chance to shape up before they would be shipped off to do hard time at a state facility.

Lawmakers Want To Outlaw Workplace Bullying

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Washington state Sen. Nick Harper is sponsoring a bill that would make it illegal to bully someone at work. The bill was would add "subjecting an employee to an abusive work environment" to the state's list of unfair labor practices. The legislation would give employees legal recourse to deal with harassment at work. The definition of "abusive conduct" in the Senate bill is defined as "conduct of an employer or employee in the workplace, with malice, that a reasonable person would find hostile, offensive, and unrelated to an employer's legitimate business interests." State Rep. Mark Liias introduced a companion bill in the House.

Severe Victorian Justice Revealed As Criminal Records Of Women Published

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

More than 4,400 criminal records of women in the 19th century have been published online by Ancestry.co.uk, revealing the harsh reality of Victorian justice. The records to be published online for the first time show a ruthless British judicial system in Victorian Britain. The collection Licences Of Parole For Female Convicts, 1853-1887 includes more than 500 mugshots.

Guide To Insurance With Criminal Convictions

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Getting insurance (UK) with criminal convictions can be difficult and expensive. The ABI and UNLOCK have teamed up to produce guidance to make things fairer. On the 21st February 2011, the ABI (Association of British Insurers) and UNLOCK (the National Association of Reformed Offenders) announced the launch of a guidance scheme to help improve the provision of insurance to people with criminal convictions. Targeted at both consumers and insurers, this gives information to those buying and selling policies and will hopefully make the system fairer and easier to understand. If you have a criminal conviction, then you might find it hard to get accepted for some types of insurance, or may be charged higher rates when you declare your circumstances. If you, for example, have a motoring conviction, then a car insurance company may opt not to give you a quote, may charge you a higher premium or may add exclusions to coverage because you pose a greater risk. This can apply to you, people who live in your household or people named on policies. Not all insurers will ask about convictions during the application stages, however, and many people do not realise that they should disclose them. This can also lead to problems in the future, if the information then comes to light, and cover can be invalidated or cancelled. From a consumer perspective, the ABI/UNLOCK guide is designed to make it easier for people to understand their obligations during the insurance application process. This often comes down to the status of a conviction. Under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, unspent convictions come with a set period of rehabilitation before a record is wiped clean. Once this time is done, a conviction is considered to be spent. You do not have to tell insurance companies about spent convictions, but, as the guide illustrates, you should tell them about unspent records, even if they do not ask. This is known as the 'duty of good faith'. A company may never find out that you didn't declare in full, but, if it does, you could see your policy avoided or cancelled and you may not be eligible to make a claim. The guidance given in this report also asks for insurance companies to conform to a series of good practices. This could, for example, involve a provider making it more obvious how they deal with convictions and modifying application questions to make them clearer. It would also help if policies were more widely available for people with convictions and if insurers helped to find alternative policies if cover could not be given. According to Nick Starling, the Director of General Insurance and Health at the ABI: Access to, and fair treatment by, financial services providers is a key part of financial inclusion. We recognise that some people with criminal convictions may encounter difficulties when looking for insurance. Our guidelines have been produced to ensure that people with criminal convictions get a fair deal when applying for insurance. Despite calls for change, some insurance companies will not sell insurance to people with criminal convictions in any circumstances at the moment; others may take an individual's situation or offence into account. Those having problems finding a provider may find it useful to use the list of brokers produced by UNLOCK. Those with less problematic convictions but high premium costs could use an insurance supermarket to shop around for quotes.

The Public Record Update A Service from BRB Publications, Inc.

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Changes to Electronic Access of NC Criminal Court Records At present, millions of North Carolina criminal record searches are processed annually by licensees of the ACIS Daily Criminal Extract. Licensees receive a daily bulk feed provided by the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts' (NCAOC). The data includes full information on criminal court cases. Effective March 1, 2011, NCAOC will terminate the inclusion of criminal court case details from these daily ACIS extract feeds. The NCAOC will replace the current extract with a stripped down version dubbed the "Demographic Extract" which will include name, address, DOB and the last four digits of the SSN. However, to retrieve specific case details including charge, level of offense, method of disposition, plea, and sentencing, all licensees (or vendors or end users) will now have an added manual step and incur additional fees to access the Remote Public Access system. The Green Screen The Remote Public Access system, commonly referred to as the "Green Screen" is a Telnet based system that connects users directly with the AOC. Users incur a charge of $.21 per screen or page. There are numerous screens associated with a search, For example there is an initial entry screen, a log-in screen, a log-in confirmation screen, and the case details are shown on multiple screens. Each movement up or down to a new screen incurs the $.21 charge. Users often find that a record search can involve using a dozen or more screens, and of course the associated time. At present, most high volume users and vendors prefer to access records on an instant basis from one of the licensees. Effective Match 1, these record requesters will be forced to either use the Green Screen or to pay someone to look-up the records on the Green Screen. According to former NC Magistrate Judge Dean Carras, "The current Green Screen system is operating with the same technology and platform it was using in the mid 1990's. The Green Screen is very antiquated and inefficient compared to the other 29 states where the office of court administration offers online access to court record information. The Remote Public Access System is not and was never designed for use as a screening or investigative tool." According to the NCAOC, the reason for the termination of the case information in the data extract feed is to stop the reporting of inaccurate information and the reporting of expunged cases. Licensees and record requesters counter that many expunged cases are already being shown on the Green Screen and that adding a manual process step to criminal record searches will increase and not lesson the chance of inaccurate data be reported. Record Searches March 1 Forward The licensees who receive the bulk criminal record data will maintain their historical information to provide to vendors, employers, attorneys and other users. However search details on all new, open cases, or amended cases will now need to be searched on the Green System. This means that users will see a fee increase for the added costs and added time needed to access and read records. Also, time delays are expected, especially at the outset with the learning curve users will face with navigating the Green Screen System. Another concern is the additional bandwidth that will be needed to accommodate the significant increase Green Screen usage. Licensees are fearful that the system will bog down or come to a halt as millions of record searches will be subject to a non-automated access mode. A Restraining Order May Override the Mandate Several consumer reporting agencies are in the process of filing a restraining order on the NCAOC to stop the mandate. A court date to hear the motion is expected to be set before March 1. If the restraining order is granted, BRB Publications will post a notice at www.brbpublications.com. A list of licensees who receive the daily bulk fee is found at: www.nccourts.org/Citizens/GoToCourt/Documents/cbccompanies.pdf

Les Rosen's Corner Court Rules Staffing Firm that Outsources Background Checks Cannot be Sued Unde

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

A staffing firm that places individuals in temporary positions with independent employers cannot be sued under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) when a background check firm hired by the staffing firm delivers a background check report that is inaccurate or erroneous. In a case from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, a staffing firm retained an employment screening firm to provide a background check report. The background check report indicated that the plaintiff had been convicted of a felony and misdemeanor, had served jail item, was serving probation, and had made restitution for theft and assault. According to the lawsuit, the problem with the background check report was that it was false and erroneous. As a result, the plaintiff lost an opportunity to become a permanent employee at the location where she was assigned, and was also terminated from working for the staffing firm. Among other rulings, the Court dismissed the allegations that the staffing firm violated the FCRA for the simple reason that a staffing firm that hires a background check firm is not a Consumer Reporting Agency (CRA) under federal law. The FCRA regulates employment background checks in the United States. A firm that provides background checks is known as a Consumer Reporting
Agency (CRA). A CRA, among other things, is a firm that regularly engages in whole or in part in the practice of assembling or evaluating information on consumers for the purpose of furnishing consumer report to third parties (FCRA section 603f). In this case, the staffing firm outsourced that function to a background check firm. The Court held that the staffing firm clearly did not qualify as a CRA because it was not engaged in conducting background checks as defined by the FCRA. However, this does not mean that staffing firms are always in the clear. Although not alleged in this case, a staffing firm could still potentially be the subject of litigation for negligent selection of a background screening firm if a consumer can show that the staffing firm fell below an acceptable standard of care in choosing a background screening firm and that firm produced an inaccurate background check report. For example, if a staffing firm selects a background check firm based only on price without considering other qualifications, a plaintiff may be able to state a cause of action for negligence. That means that a staffing firms should be careful in how they select a background screening partner.

Canadian Bankruptcy Case Link

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

This link is provided Free By The Background Investigator This bankruptcy database contains a record of all bankruptcies and proposals filed in Canada from 1978 to date. It also contains a record of all private and court appointed receiverships filed in Canada from 1993 to date. All petitions that have been registered are also available in the database. There is a minimum $8.00 charge for each search, including those which result in "no record". In the case of multiple hits, the charge is $8.00 for each group of ten matches or less, utilizing the same search criteria. Users are able to redefine their search criteria to limit costs. https://strategis.ic.gc.ca/sc_mrksv/bankruptcy/bankruptcySearch/engdoc/

More News Of RCMP (CPIC) Criminal Record Check Backlogs Plus A Solution

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Straightline International Breaks Up RCMP delays With A Court Search Since last July requiring all fingerprints be sent electronically to Ottawa for screening, people are having to wait as long as five months for their criminal record checks to be complete. According to RCMP Insp. Lyle Gelinas, Campbell River RCMP currently have 64 paid criminal record check applications and 160 volunteer applications sitting in the queue. Gelinas explained that it takes local RCMP four to five weeks to administer a criminal record check because there is such a backlog and not enough staff. Then, it takes another 120 days to get the results back from Ottawa. Individuals are finding they are unable to take positions because they can’t get their criminal record checks back fast enough,” said Andy Laidlaw, Campbell River city manager. Editors Note: Great news. Straightline International has a researcher that goes to the court in ottawa every day. Contact Straightline International 1-866-909-6678 or by E-Mail at info@straightlineinternational.com

CPIC Searches Cause Grief for NAPBS Pre-employment Screening Companies

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Background Checks run through the CPIC (without fingerprints) will only return name matches. Many NAPBS member companies have written and talked about the ineffectiveness of FBI, or state-wide searches, and CPIC. Background Checks run through the CPIC (without fingerprints) will only return name matches. You will then have to submit fingerprints and wait - sometimes weeks or months! CPIC searches can cause more than grief for pre-employment screening companies. Say good bye to the job candidate. He's been hired by someone other than your client who has the knowledge to check the Provincial Court Systems for date of birth matches. On the other hand, CPIC, and other national searches, are good sources for pointers. Search first, but not last. Mixed or unclear results, now that's bad. Obviously then, if you want to get fast results with date of birth identifiers, Canadian Provincial searches are your best bet.

Woman Sues Match.com After Alleged Sex Assault

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

A California woman claims she was sexually assaulted by a man she met on the popular online dating site Match.com, and now she's suing, saying the site needs to do more to prevent similar attacks. Attorneys for the woman, a Hollywood executive who wants to remain anonymous, filed a civil suit calling for Match.com to to stop adding users until a sexual predator screening process is installed. The suspect in the case, Alan Wurtzel, is also facing felony charges in LA Superior Court. Police said he is a previously convicted sex offender for other assaults on women he met on the Internet. CBS affiliate KCAL spoke to the attorney representing Wurtzel, who confirmed he has had problems with the law in the past. Mark Webb is the plaintiff's attorney. "If somebody uses their credit card to pay, then they basically run their name through a federal sex offender data bank and through a local county registration bank," said attorney Mark Webb. Webb said the woman met the alleged assailant last year in West Hollywood. After a second date, the attorney said the man, who has been convicted six separate times for sexual battery, followed her home and attacked her, KNX Radio reports. Wurtzel's attorney said the sexual contact was consensual and that he's pleaded not guilty to two felony charges against him. Robert Platt, the attorney for Match.com, said it would have been impossible to weed him out when he signed up and the company is standing by its practices. "We don't have their Social Security numbers. It would create so many problems by trying to get background information on all these people," said Platt.

Fairfield County, PA Common Pleas Court Posting Some Decisions Online

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

In the past, if members of the public wanted to get copies of a significant Fairfield County Common Pleas Court decision, they had to go the courthouse and ask an employee of the clerk of courts to provide them. But now, a new page on the Fairfield County Common Pleas Court's website, www.co.fairfield.oh.us/CommonPleas, will contain the full text of selected decisions issued by the court. "Just as the Ohio Supreme Court and the Fifth District Court of Appeals provide online access to their decisions, the general public and attorneys will now have online access to significant decisions made by our court as well," said Fairfield County Common Pleas Court Judge Richard Berens. All decisions by the courts are public records and are filed with the Clerk of Courts. Berens said the Common Pleas Court judges will decide which decisions are posted to the website. They will include motions in civil and criminal cases dealing with suppression of evidence, motions to dismiss, restraining orders and verdicts. Court decisions which meet the judge's criteria, including complexity of the legal issues involved and whether the case involves issues of general public interest or involves the application of law to a novel set of facts will be posted. "Right now, we don't have enough employees to be posting all the decisions on the website," Berens said. "So it will only be those decisions that are significant to begin with." The decisions will be posted at least once a month, Berens said. There also will be link to the court's website on the Fairfield County Bar Association website, the professional organization for attorneys practicing law in Fairfield County. "Ready access to these decisions will hopefully lead to a better understanding by the public of how its court system operates and will assist attorneys in keeping current with our interpretations of the law," Berens said. Additional Facts
ON THE WEB: » The Fairfield County Common Pleas Court website is www.co.fairfield.oh.us/CommonPleas.
» The Fairfield County Bar Association website is www.fairfieldcountybar.org.

Steven Brownstein Successfully Passes The NAPBS Provider Exam.

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Both Straightline International and The Background Investigator benefit from passing the NAPBS Provider Exam.. As publisher of The Background Investigator and Chief Officer of Straightline International, the world's leading provider of international criminal records to the pre-employment screening industry, Steven Brownstein has successfully passed the NAPBS Provider Exam, meeting their strict requirements. "The Criminal Research Provider Guidelines were created to assist Research
Providers by giving them procedures to ensure that they are conducting the most
accurate searches and obeying all local, state and federal regulations in the completion
of that work." "The Guidelines were created by the Provider Committee of NAPBS." "Those who successfully complete the exam show due diligence and industry knowledge that
should be beneficial to their clients and the end-user."

North Carolina Courts Raise Prices

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

By Mandy Locke, Charlotte Observer Checking on your baby sitter's or blind date's criminal history in North Carolina just got a little harder. In March, the Administrative Office of the Courts, which keeps criminal records across the state in a central electronic program, started forcing private vendors to tap into an antiquated computer system to get the most up-to-date records. The bottom line: It will cost customers more and take longer. "This is really taking us back," said Paul Dent, owner of Hirease, one of about 50 vendors that pay the state for its criminal records to provide background checks for clients such as staffing companies and school systems. John Smith, director of the AOC, said the change is necessary to protect the secrecy of criminal records that have been expunged. In North Carolina, judges can agree to wipe away a defendant's crime, forcing the courts to hide these records. Forcing vendors to check the most recent disposition available will ward against inadvertent release of charges that have been expunged, Smith said. Smith said some vendors were using outdated versions of state data, meaning they still were including charges or convictions that had been expunged. "We want our records to be reliable and dependable," said Smith. "We don't want people harmed." Criminal records in North Carolina are public. But the electronic system that keeps them - built in the 1980s - is clunky and makes it nearly impossible for lay people to search records across the state. AOC officials haven't opened the full system to the public because they fear security breaches and don't think the system would support that volume of users. People can visit local courthouses and search criminal records, but they can see results only for that particular county, not the whole state. In the late 1990s, AOC turned to private vendors, who were lobbying for access that would allow them to fill the demand for statewide criminal records searches. A cottage industry has since developed, and today, about 50 companies have contracts to buy North Carolina's criminal database and updates to then sell to customers. "We came in as the middlemen," said Dent, whose company recently lost a request for a judge to stop AOC's new system of providing records. "We made the old data searchable. It was invaluable for our clients." Companies needing to vet job candidates, law offices, schools and media outlets turned to the private vendors to search people's criminal histories. Some companies, Dent said, pay to have his company search their current employees against the database every day to check for new charges. Most vendors charge from $3 to $6 for a one-time search. Since 2002, vendors have paid about $37 million to AOC for access to the records. That money was designated to be spent on technological updates at AOC. Officials never set priorities for overhauling the system to create a user-friendly search function, such as the one that the Department of Correction created on its website. "We wish we could let people have straight, live access into our site," said Smith. "Clearly that's the gold standard." Smith said it's not a good time to ask for resources, given the budget crisis facing North Carolina government. Vendor funds paid for updates to the current system. Smith said AOC hasn't saved the money to pay for a replacement system. AOC has a long history of mishandling technology projects. A legislative oversight committee blasted the agency in 2008, saying the department's technology projects run far behind and are poorly managed. AOC launched a statewide program called NCAWARE in 2000 that lets officers and magistrates access arrest warrants across the state. It was supposed to be completed by 2004. Even now, two counties, Mecklenburg and Buncombe, are not online. Vendors say the new contracts to access criminal records may force some of the companies out of business. Dent predicts his monthly costs to AOC will soar from $500 a month to more than $6,000. Some vendors have already alerted clients that their cost will at least double. Smith said it was not AOC's intention to increase revenues through this change. The new arrangement will do more than add cost and hassle for customers seeking criminal history searches. With the new system, some vendors worry that they will not be able to capture some charges they did before when they could search for various categories on their own databases, using Social Security numbers or other identifiers. With AOC's system, catching misspellings of a name and other mistakes such as an incorrect date of birth are more difficult. That's a troubling prospect for employers who hire the vendors to help them weed out job applicants with previous problems. Some employers, Dent fears, will forgo the checks altogether because of cost. "Companies will hire someone with a record because they are trying to save money with a work-around," Dent said.

FBI Announces Creation of Biometric Database

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Daniel Sayani The FBI announced that its new identification system has reached its initial operating capacity. Known as Next Generation Identification (NGI), the Lockheed Martin-built program serves as an incremental upgrade of the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, or IAFIS — which will revolutionize law enforcement’s ability to process fingerprints. NGI provides automated fingerprint and latent search capabilities, electronic image storage, and electronic exchange of fingerprints to more than 18,000 law enforcement agencies and other authorized criminal justice partners 24/7. Upon completion, the system will have the ability to process fingerprint transactions much more effectively and accurately. “The implementation represents a tremendous achievement in enhancing our identification services. Already, we’re seeing how the NGI system is revolutionizing fingerprint identification in support of our mission,” said Louis E. Grever, executive assistant director of the FBI Science and Technology Branch. “Lockheed Martin was there supporting the FBI when IAFIS went live in 1999, and we’re thrilled to be here for NGI today,” affirmed Linda Gooden, executive vice president of Lockheed Martin Information Systems and Global Solutions. “Technology like this is a powerful tool when it comes to protecting America’s citizens, and we’re proud to serve as a partner in that mission.” “While IAFIS has been effective, criminal and terrorist threats have evolved over the past decade. Today’s environment demands faster and more advanced identification capabilities,” said Assistant Director Daniel D. Roberts, of the FBI Criminal Justice Information Services Division. “NGI represents a quantum leap in fingerprint identification that will help us in solving investigations, preventing crime, and apprehending criminals and terrorists.” Lockheed Martin, the nation’s largest recipient of defense industry contracts, and a leader in the field of biometrics, says that the new technology enhances the FBI’s background-check programs by giving investigators expanded and more timely access to fingerprints. They also note that they see the FBI contract as a means by which biometric surveillance can be increased: a press release from the defense contractor states that “[W]hile this meets the challenges of today, tomorrow holds the possibility of developing iris scanners, genetic scanners, and other advanced biometric solutions.“ The biometrics company was awarded the $1 billion contract to develop the new, enhanced identification system in February 2008. According to Leslie Holoweiko, a Lockheed representative, the company has also received government contracts to open the Biometric Experimentation and Advanced Concepts (BEACON™) center in White Hall, W.Va., to serve as a collaborative center in the development of integrated biometrics solutions for both current and future initiatives. She also indicates that the company is the lead systems integrator for the Registered Traveler program led by Verified Identity Pass, Inc. Lockheed is also the lead contractor for the Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) program, a TSA initiative to protect ports by issuing a biometrically-based credential to vetted workers requiring unescorted access to the ports. To date, the NGI system is the world’s largest biometric database, which the FBI expects to make available to a wide variety of federal, state, and local agencies, all in the name of keeping America safe from terrorists (and illegal immigration). The FBI also intends to retain (upon employer request) the fingerprints of any employee who has undergone a criminal background check, and will inform the employer if the employee is ever arrested or charged with a crime. The Washington Post also says that the NGI database relies heavily upon real-time (or very nearly real-time) comparisons. This could include general face recognition, specific feature comparison (notable scars, shape of the earlobe, etc.), walking stride, speech patterns, and iris comparisons. To date, facial-recognition technology hasn't exactly reshaped the face of law enforcement. The increasing use of biometrics for identification is raising questions about the increasing inability of Americans to avoid unwanted scrutiny. It is drawing criticism from those who worry that people's bodies will become de facto national identification cards. Critics say that such government initiatives should not proceed without proof that the technology really can pick a criminal out of a crowd. The use of biometric data is increasing throughout the government. For the past two years, the Defense Department has been storing in a database the images of fingerprints, irises, and faces of more than 1.5 million Iraqi and Afghan detainees, Iraqi citizens, and foreigners who need access to U.S. military bases. The Pentagon also collects DNA samples from some Iraqi detainees, which are stored separately. The Department of Homeland Security has been using iris scans at some airports to verify the identity of travelers who have passed background checks and who want to move through lines quickly. The department is also looking to apply iris- and face-recognition techniques to other programs. The DHS already has a database of millions of sets of fingerprints, which includes records collected from U.S. and foreign travelers stopped at borders for criminal violations, from U.S. citizens adopting children overseas, and from visa applicants abroad. Therefore, there could be multiple records of one person's prints. "It's going to be an essential component of tracking," warned Barry Steinhardt, director of the Technology and Liberty Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. "It's enabling the Always On Surveillance Society." Advocates of civil liberties (inspired by John Locke’s belief that one’s natural rights to life, liberty, and property entail a fundamental right to be free from government intrusions into bodily autonomy) also are concerned that the creation of this biometric database can unconstitutionally infringe on the Fourth Amendment rights of the American people. (The New American discussed many of these concerns in a previous analysis of the DHS's creation of a genetic scanning program, which could easily metastasize into a government DNA database.) Privacy advocates also are concerned about the ability of people to correct false information. "Unlike say, a credit card number, biometric data is forever," noted Paul Saffo, a Silicon Valley technology forecaster. He voiced his concern that the FBI, whose computer technology record has been marred by expensive failures, could not guarantee the data's security. "If someone steals and spoofs your iris image, you can't just get a new eyeball," explained. By 2013, the FBI says that it hopes to expand the NGI system to “fuse” fingerprint-, face-, iris-, and palm-matching capabilities into one mega-database, according to Kimberly Del Greco, the FBI's biometric services section chief. In addition, Lawrence Hornak, director of the West Virginia University Center for Identification Technology Research (CITeR), indicated that the government’s goal is “ubiquitous use of biometrics.” A traveler may walk down an airport corridor and allow his face and iris images to be captured without ever stepping up to a kiosk and looking into a camera, he said. For those who champion constitutional rights, this latest milestone represents yet another step in the erosion of natural rights and individual liberties, and a turn toward a more robust, authoritarian police state.

The (Security) Check Is At The Mail, Canada

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Bradley Bouzane
Canada Post has jumped on board with one of the country's leading pre-employment screeners to speed up the process of getting a stamp of approval from police before hopeful prospects take a new job. A new partnership between Canada Post and BackCheck makes it easier and faster for job hunters to receive background checks. Applicants through BackCheck will be able to receive ID verification at participating post office outlets instead of arranging a meeting at another — possibly more inconvenient — location in order to expedite the process. ID verification is one step needed to complete a criminal record check, which is required by many employers when hiring new staff. To use the service, applicants must register with BackCheck through the company's website (www.mybackcheck.com) and then print material from the site to take to the post office for verification. A Canada Post employee can then verify the applicant's signature and complete the application to BackCheck, which then completes the background checks and screening through police sources for more than 5,000 companies around the world. The service, which is free to applicants, is available in about 5,000 Canada Post locations, said John Reis, the Crown corporation's director of retail business. He said it makes sense to have the service available through postal outlets because of the broad reach it has in every province and territory because of new point-of-sale terminals installed at most of its outlets in recent years. "(It's available) from rural to urban (areas), but it probably wouldn't be offered in remote areas . . . where we don't have high-speed connectivity to our (transaction devices)," Reis said. "They go to the BackCheck site, they print the forms off and come in and we finish the process. We scan the ID . . . and forward that back to BackCheck who then in turn move that over to (police). We use a secure email link and we only send it back to (BackCheck)." The arrangement between the two groups started last summer during testing in a "soft launch," but Reis said "the business has been building ever since. We're starting to get more critical mass now. It's been good."

Straightline Unsurpassed When Searching For Puerto Rico Criminal Records

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

By Steven Brownstein Everyone in the pre-employment screening business has their favorite method or favorite researcher who performs background checks. In the case of Puerto Rico, many companies use the courts and others use the police. Unfortunately in today’s litigation happy world that might not be enough. That’s why Straightline International has begun offering an enhanced search they call the XR2. Basically, what the XR2 does is consolidate the police and court searches, with a proprietary third and fourth search method using other identifiers you provide. Listening to Dennis Brownstein, who developed this search, you’ll understand its significance: “After careful measurement of hundreds of test results comparing common search methods versus my new XR2 search, I can increase your hit ratio on a regular basis just by using the basic information that you are already sending.” And NAPBS members should particularly take note: “In some cases, the differences are almost 60%.” Dennis Brownstein’s experience comes from his engineering background and years in the pre-employment screening industry. He can patiently sort out and arrange things as attested to by the standard he set for measuring turnaround time. To get on the ground floor of this exciting new product call Dennis Brownstein at 1-866-909-6678.

Bail Bonds Cause A Mess

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

In December 2010, police in Cumberland County, Maine tried to stop a speeder. He led them on a chase and ended up crashing on a I-95 exit ramp. The local bail commissioner was told the charges were driving at a criminal speed and operating with a suspended license. He set the bail at $300. When the man appeared in court two days later, the judge reset his bail at $25,000. The difference, according to bail commissioner Alan Robitaille, was the judge knew a lot more about the defendant than he did. When Robitaille set bail, he was unaware of two charges — eluding an officer and reckless conduct with a dangerous weapon, the car. Robitaille said he also had not been told of the man’s extensive criminal history, including five prior violations of operating after suspension, burglary and cultivating marijuana. When the defendant appeared in court, the judge set bail 83 times higher than the less-informed bail commissioner. Robitaille said, “That would tell me that the court had a heck of a lot more information at its disposal than I did.” The case demonstrates one of the problems with Maine’s justice system, which depends on independent contractors to set bail in most cases. Bail commissioners rely on the arresting officer or a jail employee to give them information — usually over the phone — that they use when deciding whether to release the person without bail or to set an amount for bail. A 2006 study of the system commissioned by a state-appointed corrections panel noted: “A majority of law enforcement agencies and jails reported they are limited to locally specific records and often times reporting the known criminal history for that county or the arrest/booking history for that jail only.” Without a full and accurate understanding of the defendant, experts say a bail commissioner could set bail too low, which could put a dangerous person back on the street. Or the bail could be set too high and unfairly deprive a person accused of a crime of their liberty for a day or two until a judge can review the bail. Robert Mullen, deputy chief judge of the district courts, oversees bail commissioners. He said he has checked with state record-keepers and has been told that commissioners do not have to wait to see relevant records. “All the jails can run a defendant’s records, not just state or county, but nationally,” he said. ”And most police departments can run the same check [in their cruisers] and that’s pretty much instantaneous unless the system is down.”

Douglas County (Omaha), NE Records To Go Online

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

(From the Editor, Steven Brownstein, A Note: Omaha Nenbraska has always beenone of thr toughest circuits to get a court record check accomplished.) Douglas County officials are hoping a new system will save people a trip to the courthouse. Court records will be available online. It’s been 3 ½ years of scanning half a million documents from local court cases, and now, Douglas County is ready to join the rest of the state on Nebraska's court management system called JUSTICE. “Is it the right thing to do, and is it good to have all court systems in state of Nebraska on one system? The answer clearly to that is yes,” Clerk of the District Court John Friend said. Users can get online and search for their case by name, case number, judge or attorney. “Don’t have to call, don't have to ask questions. Nothing. Put your name in, do a search, you'll be able to see that record online,” Friend said. Local attorneys, such as Mark Quandahl, are excited about the update. “It saves us a lot of time and lot of expense in actually going to the courthouse and actually talking to courthouse personnel or calling them up on the phone, if we can just do it right on our computer screen,” Quandahl said. It will also benefit the general public. Citizens can access records now, and by summer, they'll be able to pay certain fines and judgments online. “It’s nice to have our government getting to the point private businesses are, in that they're being more accessible, being more transparent, good not just for lawyers, good for all Nebraskans,” Quandahl said. Accessing JUSTICE is not free. There's a fee per search. For more information, you can call 402-444-7658 or visit the Douglas County Clerk of the District Court online. Website: http://clerk.dc4dc.com/

Essex County, NY May Put Records Online

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Essex County is considering putting some of its records online. Initially, only deeds, mortgages and state Adirondack Park Agency permits would go online. Further down the road, lawsuits and court judgments could also go online. County Clerk Joe Provoncha told the board's Finance Committee that he is ready to put these records online, if the board wants to, and wanted to know whether the board would want to make them available for free or charge for them. Most counties that put such records online now charge for them. "I think it would be a great service," said committee Chairman Tom Scozzafava, R-Moriah. "And it's a money-maker," Provoncha added. Records are currently available at the county clerk's office. Copies cost 65 cents per page.

"No Priors" Hiring All-Too Common

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

By Micah Maidenberg A job advertisement posted on Chicago Craigslist last November by a temporary staffing company sought entry-level employees to work for two different manufacturers based in Lockport and Naperville. Shift hours were listed. Job descriptions were detailed. Employees would make minimum wage or just above it. And check out the highlighted criteria all applicants had to meet: "No priors" references an applicant's criminal past. According to the National Employment Law Project (NELP), such language has become all too common for employers both large and small. The group makes this conclusion in "65 Million 'Need Not Apply'", a study (PDF) released this morning that analyzed job postings at city-specific Craigslist sites around the country, including Chicago. A NELP spokesman released screen shots of some of the Chicago-area Craigslist ads to Progress Illinois. "No prior criminal records- we do background checks!" a company seeking leasing agents in Chicago, one declared. Prospective taxi drivers in DuPage and Kane counties must "have No Felony Criminal back Ground [sic.]" A restaurant franchise in Joliet required that applicants "Must be able to pass background check, no felonies or theft/fraud on record" in an ad posted about a year ago. "Across the nation there is a consistent theme: people with criminal records 'need not apply' for available jobs," NELP writes. "Combine today’s tight job market, the upsurge in background checks, and the growing number of people with criminal records, and the results are untenable." And they're untenable for literally millions of people. The organization calculates that 65 million adults -- more than one out of every four -- now have criminal records across the country. In Illinois, according to NELP's estimates, there are nearly 3.9 million adults with a criminal record, about 40 percent of the adult population here. Criminal convictions linger -- a bad youthful choice can haunt people for decades. Consider the case of Darrell Langdon, a Chicago man Tribune columnist Dawn Turner Trice highlighted last summer. Langdon was working for Chicago Public Schools when he was convicted of possession of a half gram of cocaine in 1985. He got help and continued working for the school district until a layoff hit 10 years later. Landgon switched to working as a mortgage broker until 2008 and then sought employment with CPS again. Here's how Turner Trice described what happened next: He decided to return to CPS, applying for the position of stationary engineer (or boiler room engineer). In his August 2008 job application, Langdon said, he disclosed his criminal record. During the next 16 months, he interviewed three times and took an aptitude test and another test that assessed his plumbing, electrical and boiler room skills. In late January, it appeared the lengthy process finally had paid off. CPS told him he was hired, pending a background check. Just days after he signed his new employee paperwork, CPS informed him they'd learned of his 1985 conviction and that he was ineligible for hire. This case ended with CPS taking another look. "In response to my questions — and hard work by Cabrini Green Legal Aid and, frankly, by Langdon to rehabilitate himself — CPS officials agreed to take a second look at his application. Last week, they called Langdon to inform him that he'd been hired," Turner Trice wrote in a follow-up column. But thousands of others are not so lucky. Anthony Lowery, the director of policy and advocacy for the Safer Foundation, a non-profit that trains ex-offenders and places them with employers, called a criminal past a "blanket-barrier" to finding a job. "The criminal record is the biggest barrier to employment anyone can face," Lowery told Progress Illinois today. "It supersedes education, work experience. The big thing is people being released and the community at large doesn't understand the level of discrimination." He went on: "Most people who get out don't understand blanket barriers to employment. A lot of them try to get jobs on their own, but after they submit 50 resumes on their own, then they'll come to Safer and get help." This is important because Illinois' criminal justice system has a poor track record on recidivism. But employment helps -- a lot. A three-year study of its operations Safer released in 2008 found that while the recidivism rate for ex-offenders leaving the state Department of Corrections (DOC) was 52.3 percent in FY2005, the rate fell to 20 percent for offenders that went through Safer's programs and achieved at least 30 days of work and 16 percent if they worked for a year. Lowery said Safer is able to help on average 10,000 people annually. The Illinois Department of Corrections released 37,000 people according to its most recent annual report (PDF). Advocates see a variety of solutions to give ex-offenders another chance. Lowery talked about a statewide "ban the box" law for non-violent offenders that would remove from intial job applications a box that applicants must check if they've had a prior conviction (the City of Chicago has already removed its box). That would allow employees to be considered first for a position based on their education and experience, rather than a single moment in their past, Lowery said; the prior conviction would come up later during a background check. There are legislative efforts afoot in Springfield on this issue. State Sen. Kimberley Lightford's SB 1284 would make it a civil rights violation for "any employer, employment agency, or labor organization to inquire into or use the fact of an arrest, the fact of a criminal charge, or any expunged or sealed criminal history record information ... of a person, as a basis to refuse to hire." The bill passed out of the Senate's Criminal Law Committee by a 5-1 vote on March 17. NELP, meanwhile, noted in its report that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ruled back in 1987 that barring people from jobs based on criminal records disproportionately excludes African Americans and Latinos, making seemingly "race-neutral" hiring policies anything but. (Recall that the Illinois Disproportionate Justice Impact Study recently found that nonwhites were arrested for drug-related offenses at rates that outstrip their share of the population in 62 of Illinois' 102 counties.) The organization has also been part of what it calls a wave of lawsuits using the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other laws to challenge exclusionary hiring based on criminal records. Five other civil rights suits against large corporations about criminal records and hiring were filed last year. In its report, the organization calls on the federal government to aggressively enforce exisiting legal protections that apply to criminal background checks; to adopt fair hiring policies itself; and for state and local governments to create fair hiring policies for ex-offenders and reach out to employers. Companies, the report states, must promote fair and open hiring processes.

Not Everyone Is Aware Of DCFS List

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Local Illinois police departments did not know about the Department of Children and Family Services’ State Central Register, but may add it to background checklists used when hiring new officers. “I don’t know what criteria (DCFS) uses, what the investigation involves or who did it,” said Normal Police Chief Kent Crutcher. “It might be a good tool to have, but I’ll want to do more research.” McLean County Sheriff Mike Emery said pre-employment screenings involve a battery of tests and background checks, but does not currently include the DCFS registry. It’s unlikely the sheriff’s department would hire a person whose name is on the DCFS list, he added. “This would be an indication this isn’t a top-notch candidate,” said Emery. Bloomington Police Chief Randy McKinley also did not know about the registry and said the department does not have a policy for handling an officer who is placed on the list. DCFS spokesman Kendall Marlow said the register is a database that stems from DCFS hotline and child protection investigations. Names are added when an investigation finds “credible evidence to substantiate an allegation.” No criminal charges have to be filed for a person’s name to be placed on the list. Marlow said DCFS has a lower standard of proof than that used by authorities in a criminal investigation. The list is confidential, he added, but certain professions, including child welfare agencies, are required to request a registry check on any potential new employees. DCFS requires consent from the prospective worker before it can run the check. Marlow said others who have requested checks include hospitals, school districts and park districts. “There are a wide variety of employers being smart across the state,” he said.

Greene County, Indiana Going Online Greene County Daily World

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Change for the better is always a good thing, except when it upsets the apple cart. Go with the flow sounds good, as long as it's someone else that has to do it. And there's a big change under way at the courthouse. On the positive side, it's a change that the majority of the public will love. People who don't want everyone to know about their past criminal record -- might not love it so much. They are switching some of the court records into a new computer system and much of the information will be available online. When a case is filed, instead of being recorded by handwriting in a big, heavy red book, it will be entered into the system. This is going to make it a lot easier to follow up on a case. Instead of making phone calls or asking (over and over) what's happening with all you'll have to do too, is navigate to the online database, type in a name, and the cases that have been filed against them will pop up. You'll have access to this information for both criminal cases and civil cases including divorces, small claims collections, etc., and even infractions. Y The process of switching to this system has begun and will be ongoing for some unknown time. This transition is happening statewide, one county at a time. Monroe County made the jump quite a while ago and so did Owen County. There are 92 counties in the state and Greene County is number 27 to get onboard. The others will follow.

Employee Mistake Not Enough To Lose Unemployment

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Being fired for making an inadvertent mistake at work is not a reason for losing the right to unemployment benefits, the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled. The court settled the case of Joan Dourney, who was fired from Panino's Restaurant in Shoreview, where she'd worked for 11 years, because she served alcohol to a minor. Dourney said she thought a woman, who was accompanying a man she knew was over 21, was old enough to drink. Her boss ordered her to card the woman, Dourney removed the drink, and then she was fired. But the restaurant objected to her unemployment claim , saying she was guilty of employment misconduct and, therefore, ineligible for unemployment benefits. It appealed the unemployment claim that was approved by the state. The court said "even if a reasonable person would have carded the customer whom Dourney failed to card and Dourney's conduct could be considered negligent, (state law) expressly provides that inadvertence is not employment misconduct... Because Dourney's forgetting to card the customer was conduct marked by unintentional lack of care, the conduct was inadvertence." The case, however, shows the extent to which a worker occasionally has to go to get unemployment.

More Of RCMP (CPIC) Criminal Record Check Backlog

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Since last July requiring all fingerprints be sent electronically to Ottawa for screening, people are having to wait as long as five months for their criminal record checks to be complete. According to RCMP Insp. Lyle Gelinas, Campbell River RCMP currently have 64 paid criminal record check applications and 160 volunteer applications sitting in the queue. Gelinas explained that it takes local RCMP four to five weeks to administer a criminal record check because there is such a backlog and not enough staff. Then, it takes another 120 days to get the results back from Ottawa. Individuals are finding they are unable to take positions because they can’t get their criminal record checks back fast enough,” said Andy Laidlaw, Campbell River city manager. Editors Note: Great news. Straightline International has a researcher that goes to the court in ottawa every day Contact Straightline International 1-866-909-6678 or by E-Mail at info@straightlineinternational.com

Lifetime Likelihood of Going To State Or Federal Prison

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

If recent incarceration rates remain unchanged, an estimated 1 of every 20 persons (5.1%) will serve time in a prison during their lifetime. Lifetime chances of a person going to prison are higher for -- men (9%) than for women (1.1%) -- blacks (16.2%) and Hispanics (9.4%) than for whites (2.5%) Based on current rates of first incarceration, an estimated 28% of black males will enter State or Federal prison during their lifetime, compared to 16% of Hispanic males and 4.4% of white males.

Marijuana Possession Arrests Cost Tax Payers $75 Million

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

New York City officials joined representatives from the Marijuana Arrest Research Project, the Institute for Juvenile Justice Reforms and Alternatives, the Drug Policy Alliance, and other community advocates on the steps of City Hall to address the issue of the costs of, and the astronomical number of marijuana possession arrests. A report released at the press conference details the cost to city taxpayers for the 50,000 marijuana possession arrests that took place last year, said Gabriel Sayegh, New York state director for the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA). The report, “$75 Million a Year,” jointly distributed by DPA and the Institute for Juvenile Justice Reform and Alternatives (IJJRA), was written by Dr. Harry Levine, City University of New York sociology professor and lawyer Loren Siegel, JD. The report’s findings showed that of the 54,000 marijuana possession arrests in 2010 in the state of New York, the New York Police Department (NYPD) made 50,300 arrests—equivalent to one out of every seven arrests made in NYC. “It is important to keep in mind that these arrests are not due to an increase in marijuana use or a change in the law in 1977 when marijuana was decriminalized. These arrests are the direct result of police policy and police practices,” said Sayegh. According to the report, each arrest, which includes all police and court expenses, costs from $1,000 to $2,000. In 2010, the city spent $75 million arresting and jailing mostly young people of color for possessing small amounts of marijuana. “Over $6 million a month is being spent to arrest and jail these people,” said Levine, stating that Mayor Bloomberg has spent over half a billion dollars arresting and jailing young people for marijuana possession. “The scale of New York City marijuana arrest per se is staggering, 1,000 marijuana possession arrests a week, 4,000 arrests a month, and 50,000 arrests a year in New York City alone,” said Levine. Since Bloomberg became mayor in 2002, the NYPD has made 350,000 marijuana possession arrests, which is more than Mayors Koch, Dinkins, and Giuliani combined. Most of these arrests came about from the city’s 600,000-recorded ‘stop and frisks’ or thousands of unrecorded frisks, said Levine. These arrests happened in neighborhoods of low-income communities of color, with the majority being young men, said Kyung-Ji Rhee, director of IJJRA. “The young people were searched, often illegally, or tricked into revealing their marijuana. They were handcuffed, taken to police stations, finger printed, [and] photographed. Their eyes were scanned and their data was sent to FBI. They now have a permanent criminal record, which is searchable on commercial databases for $20.00 by employees, by landlords, [and] by credit agencies,” Levine said. According to the report, 87 percent of those arrested were blacks and Latinos comprising mainly teenagers and young adults. “In New York City, Latinos are arrested at four times the rate of whites, and blacks are arrested at seven times the rate of whites,” said Levine. However, government health surveys showed that young white people actually use marijuana at higher rates than blacks and Latinos. Present at the press event, was Councilman Jumanne Williams who expressed his concern. “If they have marijuana in their pockets, a nickel bag, or dime bag, they [NYPD] asked them to take it out of their pocket, once it is in their hands, they charged them with public view. That is complete trickery,” said Williams. Williams pointed out the issue of racial prejudice, stating he could not understand why 87 percent of these young people arrested for marijuana possession are blacks and Latino, and look like him. “I have a feeling, a sneaky suspicion that if it were 87 percent of our lighter skin young children, they will be an uproar in the city and an uproar in this nation. But, it is not, so no one seems to care. But we care,” said Williams. Many of those present discussed how the $75 million could be better spent instead of arresting and jailing young people for having small amounts of marijuana. “To make this the only thing that deserves $75 million, I think it is an abuse of power, an abuse with what should be done with money at a time when we all need it,” said Williams. “This money can be spent for schools, for housing, for health care, [and] for essential services that are now being cut,” said Levine. Arresting these young people and “criminalizing them by putting them through the criminal justice system [is] definitely an inefficient use of resources,” said Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito, who stated that the money could be better spent toward managing the rise in higher-level offenses. To address this issue, Mark-Viverito said, “It is two-pronged: One, is to change the legislation at the state level because right now, it clearly says that if there is marijuana in public view, it is considered to be a misdemeanor.” Two, to “work closely with all of these organizations involved to raise awareness at a local level and push the NYPD to change [its] policy and strategy,” said Mark-Viverito. “Because of the adverse impact, because of the costs, because of the impact to certain communities, I would urge them to change the law and make marijuana possession a violation as opposed to a misdemeanor, a more serious offense,” proposed Councilwoman Letitia James. “It goes against the spirit and letter of the decriminalization bill that the New York state Legislature passed in 1977 in response to an outcry from white parents who were very upset that their children were being arrested and prosecuted for marijuana possession,” added Seigel. Currently, this law is misapplied to the disadvantage of not only the young persons involved but also taxpayers, whose $75 million a year is being wasted and used for negative purposes, according to Siegel, who stated that the current situation could be simply rectified by following the Marijuana Reform Act of 1977. Chapter 360 of the Laws of New York, “Crimes and Offenses-Possession and Sale of Marijuana” states, “The legislature finds that arrests, criminal prosecutions, and criminal penalties are inappropriate for people who possess small quantities of marijuana for personal use. Every year, this process needlessly scars thousands of lives and wastes millions of dollars in law enforcement resources, while detracting from the prosecution of serious crimes.”

OCA Alternative: Unreliable CHAIRS Harm More Than Help

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

By The Syracuse Post-Standard Editorial Board The Post-Standard When members of the Alliance of Communities Transforming Syracuse (ACTS) raised objections in late 2009 to the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office practice of selling background checks for $10, the group made a convincing case the reports were unfair. They argued the reports — Criminal History Arrest Incident Reporting System, or CHAIRS — are flawed because they list arrests in Onondaga County but do not show the disposition of charges. In many cases, the outcome of an arrest required that the arrest record be sealed. Now a study by the Center for Community Alternatives (CCA) shows ACTS greatly underestimated the level of inaccuracy in the CHAIRS reports. The findings strengthen their calls for the sheriff to stop selling the reports and for landlords and employers to stop using them. We endorsed those suggestions in 2009 and find the new data even more convincing. The CHAIRS reports date to the 1980s. They come from a countywide database and incorporate information from most police agencies operating in Onondaga County, except the state police and Skaneateles police. The system was developed to give police quick access to information about the criminal backgrounds of people they deal with. That kind of internal use makes sense. The problem comes when employers, volunteer groups and landlords use the reports to screen applicants or potential tenants. The inaccuracies unfairly deny people employment, housing and community service opportunities. A majority of reports include information about arrests that are protected from disclosure by New York’s sealing statutes, Human Rights Law and the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The CCA reviewed 70 criminal background reports the sheriff’s office generated between August 2008 and April 2010. The study found 64.3 percent of the CHAIRS reports (45 out of 70) reviewed contained at least one arrest that should not be publicly disclosed under New York state law because they were sealed. Ninety percent of the reports reviewed contained arrests that did not lead to criminal convictions and therefore should not be disclosed. In allowing such reports to be disseminated publicly, the sheriff’s office “is regularly undermining New York’s law and public policy,” the CCA report says. Patricia Warth, of CCA, adds that the reports undermine public safety by limiting employment and housing options for people who were in the criminal justice system. People with stable jobs and housing are less likely to commit crimes again, she said. After ACTS met with Sheriff Kevin Walsh in 2009, his office clarified on the report that they reflect only arrests, and the report is labeled an “arrest history” rather than a “criminal arrest history.” The new reports fail to note that they do not reflect court dispositions, although the sheriff’s website does say that. That’s a minor improvement. But the onus should not be on individuals to correct any mistakes. Walsh continues to defend selling the $10 reports because they’re much cheaper than the $125 fee charged by the state Division of Criminal Justice Services, or the $65 fee charged by the state’s Office of Court Administration. That only proves the adage, you get what you pay for. If Walsh’s office can’t provide accurate background reports, it should stop selling them.

Officials Say Background Check Could Have Prevented UTC "Spy-Cam" Incident

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The University Tennessee-Chatanooga student charged with planting surveillance cameras in campus apartments may have had an easy "in". A tv station learned Bernard Morris previously served as a Resident Assistant for the University. Morris has a record of aggravated burglary and arson and harassment and stalking. But UTC has not required background checks for this position. Merri Mai Williamson, Founder and Chair-person of Application Researchers, says an employment background check could have prevented this situation. Merri Mai Williamson, Application Researchers, LLC, "If they had done a background check on the individual, even though technically it wasn't an employment position, they would have discovered criminal offenses in his past. They were certainly relevant to what has happened now." Application Researchers is a private investigative agency that specializes in pre-employment background checks. Williamson says only a handful of colleges across the United States have implemented background checks.

Canadian Turned Away At Border

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Rene Burellee doesn’t deny he has a criminal record. But since the assault charge in 1972 left him with a two-year suspended sentence, he hasn’t had so much as a speeding ticket. The Cornwall, Ont., man has crossed the border into the United States regularly to visit his son in Georgia, but he had an unpleasant surprise waiting for him on his last trip. He was pulled over by border officials at the Rooseveltown, N.Y., point of entry, fingerprinted, photographed and questioned. Burellee said it was “embarrassing,” but even worse was the news that he had been denied entry and had to return to Cornwall. He was told he could apply for a Canadian pardon and a waiver through the U.S. border agency to gain entry in the future. “I’ve been a worthwhile citizen of our community,” said Burellee, 72. “Now I can’t go visit my son.” He said it will be a struggle to acquire all the necessary documents for a successful border crossing, as a one-year waiver is nearly $600, plus the cost of fingerprints and other paperwork. Burellee said he doesn’t understand why, after all these years, the conviction would create problems at the border. Thomas Rusert, spokesperson for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency, couldn’t comment on Burellee’s case but said officers always take special note of “crimes involving moral turpitude.” He said there’s a long list of charges that mean a denial into the United States, including fraud or crimes against other people. “We’ve always denied entry based on criminal grounds,” said Rusert. “There’s nothing really new.” Rusert reiterated what Burellee was told: an application for a waiver can be made through a U.S. consulate in Canada. The Canadian Border Services Agency has a similar policy. Spokesperson Chris Kealey said there are numerous charges that will create red flags for point-of-entry officials. “It depends on what the infraction was and how long ago it took place,” he said, noting that after 10 years most charges drop off the radar. The only way to make a record completely disappear is a pardon through the National Parole Board. But for any American citizens attempting to enter Canada with past convictions, Kealey said they may have to apply for “rehabilitation” through a consulate in the U.S. “If you are accepted into that, then you are deemed rehabilitated,” he explained, noting that the charge has to be at least 10 years old before the forms can be filled out and presented to border officials. But Rusert indicated there is no such timeline for those entering the U.S. and charges will always be on file when identification is handed over at the point of entry. “A criminal record is a criminal record,” he said.

Think Twice Before Turning In Your Kid

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

It’s the tough decision many parents face: whether to dob in their child for an offence such as bullying or stealing. Several Queensland parents recently have chosen to march their offspring to the police station - and made media headlines in doing so. Recently, a Rockhampton mother’s decision to inform police that her son had a stolen laptop in his bedroom led to the 17-year-old's appearance in court. And also, an Ipswich father told a radio station he dobbed his two teenage children into police when he caught them attacking a younger child for wearing glasses. ‘‘I grabbed a hold of both of them, threw them in the back of the car, got the young kid that they were beating up ... took him home to his parents [and] marched both my kids into the local police station,’’ the father said. So does involving police do children any good or is it just lazy parenting? Child and family psychologist Emily Anderson said parents taking their children to police was generally a "cry for help". ‘‘[But] if they’re doing it so [the child becomes] someone else’s problem then it’s negating the responsibility of the parent,’’ she said. Mrs Anderson, who operates the Triple P Positive Parenting Program South Brisbane division, said parents contemplating police action against their children was not uncommon. ‘‘I’ve just been dealing with a family whose teenage boy has been stealing, it’s become quite a problem,’’ she said. ‘‘They’ve had some intervention and support and [we’ve got to a point where] we’ve encouraged the parents that maybe the next step is to let the child know the seriousness of the situation by telling police. ‘‘I think the issue is how to respond to the stealing, not where you go. ‘‘As long as you take it seriously and your monitoring the youth’s behaviour and having steps in place to show that if [the behaviour continues] then we’re going to contact police.’’ Juvenile justice expert Angela Dwyer said taking a child to the police station could be sufficient to embarrass them into better behaviour. ‘‘There is a lot of shame attached to that process and there’s a good chance that it may shock the child into not doing whatever it is they’ve done or at least deter them from doing it again,’’ Dr Dwyer, a sociologist at Queensland University of Technology, said. However, she said a juvenile criminal record was a distinct possibility that could have serious consequences in adulthood. Juveniles are generally treated according to their age and maturity, as well as family circumstances and offending history, but any conviction would remain on their record for years to come. ‘‘It has a detrimental impact on the young person in terms of being stigmatised at school for being in trouble with the law,’’ Dr Dwyer said. ‘‘But it could be what deters them from doing it again. It’s a very context specific situation.’’ Dr Dwyer said dobbing in a child also could cause significant damage to the relationship. ‘‘If you’ve got a young person that really doesn’t like authority and is quite defensive with their parents and doesn’t want to do anything they say [informing police of their behaviour] is likely to backfire and make it worse,’’ she said. ‘‘It really seems that if someone has disrespect for authority they end up doing more offences as a result.’’ Ms Anderson said she recommended to parents that a general practitioner, chaplin, pastor or school-based youth worker was a good place to start before contacting police, when the offence is minor. In the Rockhampton case, the 17-year-old moved out of home following his mother’s report to police, the court heard. Despite his animosity towards her, the mother continued to attend court to support him, his lawyer said. The teen pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 12 months probation and ordered he pay $40 compensation. No conviction was recorded. The Ipswich teenagers face pending assault charges, according to their father."

Online Court Records: Now You See Them, Now You Donâ€™t

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

By Edward Ericson Jr. Users of the state’s online court records database (courts.state.md.us/courtrecords.html) saw a new message beginning on March 14: “No Electronic Record Exist [sic] or Case Not Subject to Electronic Inspection.” Searching for some names brings dozens of copies of this message. For other names there are none. Most people with criminal court records seem to have at least a few that are “not subject to electronic inspection.” The message appears at the top of many searches ordered by date, though there is no date, or any other information, on the line. The message telling you there is no information is actually new information, according to a state judiciary spokeswoman. “It’s a global message to account for a variety of scenarios,” says Terri Bolling, a spokeswoman for the State of Maryland Judiciary. “It means that either no record exists to be reported by the court system or that a court record exists, but the information is not publicly available.” In the past, she says, the online court records user would have no inkling that there were any hidden cases. If a case has been sealed, the person seeking to look at it will have to petition the court to open the case. The case number will not be available to aid in this quest. If a case is expunged, there will be no record, Bolling says, though that process can take up to 90 days, during which time only the name and case number will appear. Bolling cautions users that the “Case Search” feature of the online Judicial Information System “is not the official court record and is only a summary of information in the court record. For the official case record, people should visit the courthouse where the case was filed.”

Check Wrong Court Location In Hennepin County, MN And Miss Record

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

A recently released report says repeat offenders of misdemeanor-level domestic violence are less likely to be detected in suburban courts of Hennepin County than in the downtown Minneapolis court. The group WATCH oversaw nearly 1,500 court appearances in Hennepin County over two years. Executive Director Marna Anderson said she was surprised to learn that in a quarter of the suburban cases monitored by her group, no pre-sentence investigation was ordered. "The reason for that is then probation can set appropriate conditions," Anderson said. "They can supervise the individual appropriately, they can get victim input, they can look at the criminal record [and evaluate the likelihood of the person to re-offend]." Assistant Chief Judge Peter Cahill of the Fourth Judicial District says the report identified some important issues.

Australia: Prospectuses To Disclose 'Relevant' Criminal Convictions

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The Australian Securities and Investment Commission will require companies to disclose "relevant" criminal convictions in prospectuses under new guidelines just issued. The measure is aimed at ensuring new investors know exactly where their money is going without a deluge of paper and legalise. The inclusion of a criminal record for the first time is aimed obviously at crimes involving fraud or taking money as opposed to murder, which is arguably less bothersome from an investment perspective. The draft proposals are aimed at ensuring investors can understand the risks and rewards in simple English. If companies want to put more material in the prospectus, they are encouraged to direct readers to a web site to avoid overloading the prospectus. Photos are discouraged until after the key financial metrics.

Aviva (UK Insurance) Warns Against Risk of Criminal Records And Claim Rejections

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Steven Brownstein: About International Background Checks

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Steven Brownstein is one reason today that international pre-employment screening and foreign background checks have boomed and criminal records are available worldwide. It began as a side business for Steven Brownstein. who was in the 1990's the USA's largest provider of criminal background searches. With over 60 employees, CrimeSearch operated 24 hours a day, 5 days a week, plus a half-day on Saturdays. DAC Services, the Tulsa - based sister company had expanded service to Canada and Puerto Rico. Plus the World Gaming Network, another sister company based in Las Vegas, was receiving request for criminal record searches on foreign soil. That's where I came in. I had already built a giant network of record retrievals throughout the US. We were processing more than 6,000 request per day. And out turnaround time was excellent. Yes, so that's how it began. I flew to Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, Canada to visit the courts. We knew about the RCMP's CPIC search but found too may flaws in their record keeping , a long turnaround time, and actually, too much paperwork had to be collected, submitted, and tracked per request. Not particularly cost effective. The contacts I made at the Canadian courts proved to be invaluable. Good, quality searches and little or no paperwork to handle. I also flew to San Juan, Puerto Rico, met with their staff, and was assigned a public access computer whereby I could come weekly to the court and do searches. This was the beginning of international searches inthe USA and I was at the forefront. My techniques were simple - just continue applying the methods that I used providing USA domestic background checks. And the techniques were successful. We expanded our international search offerings to the total USA pre-emplyment screening industry. Even though, initially, the quantity of requests was small, I did see that the end result for this foreign search would be high volume. And it is. Remember, no one was doing international searches. We were the first. The business expanded and England was the next on the list. I flew to London to run the initial searches at Horseferry Magistrate Court and the Middlesex Guildhall Crown Court. Successfully, I might add. That was the beginning. India came next, and so on and so forth. It is my pleasure to continue this dynamic, exponentially growing business opportunity to the pre-employment screening industry. And as one of the first to foresee the beginnings of NAPBS, and having stuck around to see its growth, I say thank you.

Les Rosen's Corner Class Action Suit for not Following the Fair Credit Reporting Act

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

In a case that once again emphasizes the importance of employers following the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) for employment screening, attorneys for thousands of mass-transit drivers and school bus drivers announced approval of a class action settlement of 4.3 million dollars for failure to adhere to the requirements of the FCRA. The proposed settlement was approved by a federal Judge in Illinois stemming from a national class-action suit involving allegations of FCRA violations against sister companies that employed drivers. According to the press release, the suit alleged that the two companies - both subsidiaries of a company in Great Britain - obtained criminal background checks on drivers and job applicants without their written authorization and in some cases denied them jobs without providing them a copy of their criminal background report in violation of the federal FCRA law. The FCRA requires that all background checks be conducted with consent and that in the case an adverse employment action occurring as a result of a background check, the applicant is entitled to certain notifications including a copy of the report. The overall settlement was for $5.9 million, with $4.3 million going to the class action and the court awarding an additional $1.6 million for court costs and attorneys fees. According to a spokeswoman for the law firm that filed the suit, the settlement was the largest ever involving employment-related Fair Credit Reporting Act claims. Under the terms of the proposed settlement as reported in the press: -Each worker terminated by either company based on an unauthorized criminal background check report could receive $2,000 to $4,000. -Each worker terminated by either company based on a criminal background check report without first receiving a copy of that report will receive $750. -Each worker who was the subject of an unauthorized criminal background report, but who continued to work for either company, likely will receive between $150 and $300. -According to the press release about the initial suit, the largest labor organization representing transit workers in the United States filed the two separate class actions in federal district courts in Illinois for violation of their legal rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. In each case, workers were dismissed from employment after the subsidiary companies hired a vendor to perform background checks on their employees and reported that the employee supposedly had a past criminal record. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, employers are obliged to notify consumers of any adverse actions as a result of a background check, and to give the consumers a reasonable opportunity to dispute the accuracy of the reported information. The lawsuits sought relief for all employees summarily dismissed - and all applicants similarly refused employment - on the basis of a background check. This case once again demonstrates that the process of obtaining background checks is highly legally relegated, and that employers and background firms need to pay strict attention to all of the various legal rules affecting hiring, including the FCRA. The court document may be viewed at: http://www.workplaceclassaction.com/First%20transit%20settlement%20agrement.pdf.

Updated June 1st- Dennis Brownstein's Extreme Court News

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

For once there has been a major security breach not directly attributable to weak network security or nonexistent data-loss protection – the kind of IT-related security breach that won't necessarily get some digital-security geek fired. The bad news is that it might get some programmers or project-managers fired, or get other people killed. Due to an error in the way it analyzes prisoner records, a program used by the California Bureau of Prisons made recommendations that led to the release of 450 felons whose records indicate a "high risk of violence." Another 1,000 prisoners listed highly likely to commit drug crimes, property crimes or other offenses were also released as part of a court-ordered program to reduce the 143,335-prisoner population of California's overcrowded prisons by about 33,000. The program, running since January, 2010, relied on a program that examined arrest records of prisoners, but not previous convictions or in-prison disciplinary actions, which prosecutors told the Los Angeles Times paint a far clearer picture of an inmate's proclivity for violence. The application evaluates information in a database of 16.4 million arrests statewide, but had no access to data that would have given better indications of a prisoner's risk of committing further violence. Its access to California juvenile-criminal records was spotty, the Inspector General's (IG) report concluded,(PDF) so only a prisoner's adult record was often considered. It also lacked access to in-prison disciplinary records – which often identify gang affiliations and the likelihood a prisoner will become violent without being arrested. Worst, the application had to use as its primary data source California's Automated Criminal History System (ACHS), which contains data on more than 16.4 million arrests, but is missing data on convictions for half those records, making it difficult to weight each incident accurately as an indicator for future violence, the IG's office concluded. "Despite these significant shortcomings in the ACHS database, [California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation] had no choice but to use that database, however inadequate, as the best available source of data," the IG's report concluded. Even estimates of the number of potentially violent felons released are imprecise. The Bureau of Prisons discovered the errors only after former prosecutor-turned-legislator State Sen. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance), asked for a review of the program. Using humans rather than software to review a sample of 200 files from the pile of 10,134 released, prison officials found 31 who should not have been considered for release – an error rate of 15 percent. Procedures require records to be reviewed by prison officials, but the state inspector general's report didn't say whether any potentially violent felons were refused release due to that review. It also didn't say why the records-analysis application was unable to access conviction data. By changing the application's criteria, the bureau was able to get the error rate down to 8 percent, but is not able to re-arrest those already released. The program gave prisoners non-revocable, unsupervised parole – meaning they're free to do as they please without reporting to a parole officer or undergoing any other supervision. They can be sent back to prison for violating parole only if they're arrested for other reasons. Even those legitimately listed as low risks for violence may not live up to expectations based on a profile. In July, 2010 a former prisoner named Javier Joseph Rueda, whose record shows he did fit criteria for release, was shot to death after firing on two Los Angeles police officers, wounding one in the arm. Source: http://www.itworld.com/security/169703/bad-software-analysis-causes-release-450-dangerous-calif-inmates Hendersonville Courthouse Cleared About 20 people were evacuated May 16 from the Historic Courthouse, while about 150 people were evacuated from the 1995 courthouse in Hendersonville, North Carolina after a bomb threat was called in to the Henderson County Board of Elections office. People were allowed to re-enter the courthouses after an hour and a half. The threat was called in at about 11:30 a.m., according to officials with the board of elections and Henderson County dispatchers. The caller indicated there was a bomb at a courthouse, not specifying which one, and that the sheriff would be killed May 16. Emergency personnel closed off Grove and Main streets and both courthouses were immediately evacuated, causing delays to court cases and inconvenience for county workers. At 6:30 p.m., the sheriff’s office said one suspect had been identified, but the office would not release more information. Source: http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20110517/ARTICLES/110519838/1008/sports?Title=Bomb-threat-clears-courthouses&tc=ar

Steven Brownstein's Blogger

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Steven Brownstein's International Background Check Blog can be viewed at: http://stevenbrownstein.blogspot.com/ If you read my China visa posting, this should come as no surprise. I finally got my Chinese visa (an all day affair). Next came the India visa. India has outsourced their Visa application procesing to a company called Travisa Outsourcing. I applied online at Travisa's Website for same day processing. They gave me a date and appointment time to be in their office. After waiting in line at the appointed time, a security/application processing officer announces that if it was anyone's concern, same day visa service was actually taking 2-3 days! No exceptions. I had to return to Saipan without an India visa. So much for outsourcing. I'm sure the India embassy has no knowledge of travisa's poor service; that is, Travisa Outsourcing getting people to their office with the promise of same day processing - then surprising the applicant with, already known to Travisa, bad news that they could not process same day visas.

Council Dumps Criminal Record Check Fee

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Volunteers can rest a little easier. On April 26, Sooke (Canada) council voted to amend and give third reading to Bylaw No. 488 Fees Bylaw. After a lot of discussion and community input, council voted to not institute a $10 fee for criminal record checks for volunteers. There will be a cost of $65 for regular criminal record checks. RCMP Staff Sergeant Steve Wright stated that criminal record checks are time consuming and funding has been taken away by the federal government. The funding used to pay a civilian to do the checks. The employee spends 70 to 80 per cent of their time on record checks and the remainder on transcribing audio statements, which, says Wright is now a requirement of the RCMP. “We need a revenue source to hire someone from outside the detachment to keep up with the work demand,” said Wright. This sat well with the contingent of Girl Guides and Boy Scouts who came before council to state how these record checks and the fees were affecting their fundraising efforts and volunteers.

Centrally Located Criminal Court Search Flawed

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Steven Brownstein When you check central courts, and central courts only, the habit (and now NAPBS guideline) of omitting background checks at outlying courts can look pretty irrersponsible. Especially if the subject applicant has a misdemeanor record at one the outlying courts. Or how about multiple misdemeanor records at an outlying court? Take Arizona, for instance. Many incorporated cities or towns have a municipal court, also known as a city court or magistrate court. Municipal courts have criminal jurisdiction over misdemeanor crimes and petty offenses committed in their city or town. They share jurisdiction with justice courts over violations of state law committed within their city or town limits. Also, each county has precincts, containing that county's justice of the peace courts. Generally, these precincts are larger than city or town limits and typically incorporate an entire city or town, and pieces of other communities as well. Although these geographical boundaries can be changed. Justice of the peace courts hear traffic cases and certain criminal and civil cases, including domestic violence and harassment cases. So you want to miss Domestic Violence cases? DUI's? Assaults? Petty Theft? I'd think not. So where Arizona is not online, say Maricopa County, here is a brief 'what you're missing' summary: There are 25 justice courts in Maricopa County that hear a combined caseload of approximately 400,000 cases each year. (That's over 1,000 cases per day, if they worked every day!) These include the full range of civil and criminal traffic offenses, including DUIs, and other types of misdemeanor allegations (e.g. shoplifting, writing bad checks, violating restraining orders) and, like other trial judges, also handle requests for orders of protection and injunctions against harassment. Sure you want to miss these, they all require a seperate search, Tempe, Paradise Valley, Gilbert, Chandler, Mesa? You can use Arizona's online system or Maricopa County's site. Either way you are missing over 1 million (1,000,000+) residents of these cities and towns that might have committed a misdemeanor crime closest to where they live. Increase the E&O insurance, mate, it's getting warm in here! I applaud the NAPBS for their guideline. It took a lot of hard work by many to even agree what to agree on. So hat off for their hard work. And this is not NAPBS' fault. The record search at only the central court location was alive and well way before their creation. Mainly because researchers in Ohio did not want to drive to the outlying courts and (and this is a big AND) screening companies did not want to pay extra for the search. Competition was tough. It still is. Maybe someone will come up with a better way. But, the consumer (i.e., the employer) meanwhile will pay. In fact. so will you and I.

Straightline International Opens Office In Hong Kong

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Steven Brownstein and Faheem Ebrahim, annouce the opening of a new Hong Kong office for Straightline International and The Background Investigator. Initially, a staff of two researchers will be added enabling a more prompt return of Northern and South- Eastern Asia reports. Straightline's fine researchers in Tokyo, Osaka, Seoul, Busan, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, and Jakarta will continue as usual. The Hong Kong office will also provide sales support for Asian based companies plus after hour customer service work for U.S. and UK based pre-employment screening companies. Contact Steven Brownstein at steveb@search4crime.com and Faheem Ebrahin at faheem@search4crime.com

Ooops! Sealed Court Info Was Accessible in Ala.

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Alabama U.S. Attorney Leura Canary was “appalled” to find out an error allowed the public access to sealed confidential information filed by federal prosecutors on PACER, the online federal court records system, according to The Smoking Gun website. The system is accessed by defense attorneys, reporters, investigators, researches and government officials. TSG website reported that in the past nine months 40 separate sealed court applications were mistakenly made public in the Middle District of Alabama, which is based in Montgomery, Ala. The applications were made by ten prosecutors and included requests to install hidden surveillance cameras, examine Facebook records, obtain credit information on certain individuals, procure telephone records, and attach devices on phone lines to track incoming and outgoing calls, TSG reported. TSG reported that one of its own reporters discovered the breach and notified the Justice Department and the court in the Middle District of Alabama. The matter was quickly rectified. TSG reported that it was impossible to determine if the sensitive information was viewed by other PACER users. “Prosecutors were incredulous when told that law enforcement sensitive information was available on PACER. A Justice Department source termed it a ‘disastrous situation’ for which prosecutors were not responsible.” TSG wrote. “One government lawyer said they were “shocked” to discover that details from sealed court applications were essentially sitting in plain sight.” In a statement to TSG, the Middle District’s chief judge, Mark Fuller said: “The confidential information has been sealed. I regret the error was not identified earlier and have adopted procedures to ensure that it will not occur in the future.”

Steven Brownstein Off-island Until May19th

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Steven Brownstein will dapart Saipan for Vietnam on May 13th. Most of Steven Brownstein's efforts will be towards building a continuing relationship with the Vietnamese judiciairy; at the same time acquiring contacts and leads for alternative background checking methods, i.e., police clearances. Vietnam possesses the opportunity for straightline International's growth. Their large bilingual workforce can possibly provide Straightline International opportunities for in and out of country criminal record checks. Steven Brownstein will return to Saipan on Thursday, May 19th.

Arizona Suspected Gunman Passed FBI Background Check

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The suspect in a deadly Arizona rampage purchased a firearm legally after passing an FBI background check. Loughner, accused of killing six people, shooting Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and wounding 13 others, did not present a concealed weapons permit so he was required to pass an FBI background check. Records obtained from the Pima County, Ariz., criminal database show Loughner was arrested in 2007 for possessing drug paraphernalia, a misdemeanor charge. The records suggest that Loughner paid a $20 fee and completed a court-ordered program for drug offenders.

BBB: Bad Contractors Hard To Keep Tabs On

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Tonia Gibbs admits she's new at owning a home. The 59-year-old bought her first house three years ago and spent a lot of time improving it. But after a major hail storm, Gibbs needed to replace her roof. She said she got three roofing quotes and eventually settled on hiring Total Remodeling LLC to do her roofing work. "There is a 12-year warranty, price guarantee and the whole 9 yards," Gibbs said. "It looks very professional." If the owner of Total Remodeling LLC had not flown under the Better Business Bureau's radar, then Gibbs might have avoided her ensuing roof-repair headache. Gibbs signed the contract with Total Remodeling LLC in July 2010 and said her roof was done in only one day. Gibbs' insurance covered it. Despite the roof repairs, as soon as it started raining outside, it started raining inside Gibbs' home too. "It comes down like a machine gun, real fast, almost a steady stream when it's raining [well,]" Gibbs said. "Funny thing is, it never leaked before." Gibbs did not know Total Remodeling LLC's owner Ed Humphrey's background before she hired him. "He talked a good game," Gibbs said, "I had no idea. I'm flying blind here." Gibbs says she had done some research on Total Remodeling online. "There [are] videos of people singing his praises," Gibbs said. "There [are] different places you can go for the roofing, for the siding; it's like he's got a video for everything, talking about how great they are and what they'll do and how wonderful everything is going to look afterwards." She also checked out the Better Business Bureau of Denver/Boulder. "[The BBB] didn't have any negative reports," Gibbs said. 9NEWS found court documents that show Ed Humphrey moves from state to state, taking money for work he never completes. In Florida, he's on probation for grand theft. According to the State Attorney's Office, Humphrey took money from four customers without finishing their work. In each construction project, Humphrey used another man's contractor's license. Humphrey pleaded guilty to those charges. In California, Humphrey is under investigation for working without a license. In New Jersey, the state has indicted Humphrey for allegedly taking nearly $200,000 from nine people without doing the work. Humphrey has a court hearing for that case in June. Just like Gibbs, even the Better Business Bureau didn't know about Humphrey's past. They were not the only ones. Offices in New Jersey and Florida had no idea until 9NEWS told them. The Florida BBB posted about Humphrey pleading guilty to four separate counts of grand theft and four counts of contracting without a license after talking to 9NEWS. The New Jersey BBB updated their webpage as well, listing the pending indictment. 9NEWS also shared Humphrey's history with the Denver/Boulder BBB. "Thanks to you, we were able to do more research, and [9NEWS] brought this to our attention," Dale M. Mingilton, President & CEO, Executive Director of the Denver/Boulder BBB, said. After we shared the documents with the BBB, the nonprofit changed its "A-" rating for Humphrey's company to an "F." "We have a fairly good network," Mingilton said. "Obviously, this one was not caught or seen by other bureaus, because it was probably underneath [our] radar." The BBB only shows complaints for three years, and, because of that, Humphrey's 2005 New Jersey allegations and 2006 thefts in Florida would have disappeared before Gibbs could find out about them. "If you look at how credit is re-established, how the world works, some things are two years, some things are three years, data destruction on files are five years. I think we picked the best and fairest way to deal with businesses," Mingilton said. Also, the BBB did not thoroughly vet Humphrey because he had not paid to be an official BBB member. Paying members are considered "accredited businesses." If Humphrey had paid, Total Remodeling LLC would have checked out and listed as accredited business in the BBB system. Total Remodeling LLC is listed as a non-accredited business on the BBB website. The nonprofit does not do criminal background checks. That means there are no guarantees Humphrey's prior criminal record would've shown up to consumers. Even if the BBBs had posted the complaints, the website only allow consumers to search business histories by company name or phone number. A regular consumer like Gibbs would not have seen the complaints about Ed Humphrey, because he used a different company name in each state. "Is there things we can always do better? Everybody can do things better," Mingilton said. "Do we have a pretty good system? Yeah. Again, it goes back to we're data information. We give you as much information as we can. But how long do I penalize somebody?" For Gibbs, who also filed a complaint with the attorney general's office, the answer to that question is really simple. "I don't want to believe that somebody is out to cheat me, but he certainly was," Gibbs said. "He saw me coming." This week, another company approached Gibbs and offered to replace her roof for free. Humphrey 's company is registered with the Colorado Secretary of State. He is also a registered contractor in several cities, including Lakewood and Federal Heights. Neither the state nor the cities run a criminal background check. The applicant simply fills out the paperwork and pays the fees. The BBB says consumers need to do their homework and report issues to the nonprofit themselves. "Should you trust the Better Business Bureau? I hope so. We've got a lot of people nationwide searching, researching [and] finding as much data for you consumers for no cost. You have to look at that. That's not the total stopping point. You consumers have to also do your due diligence," Mingilton said.

Throwing Away 'Throw Away The Key' In Ohio

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Jessica Alaimo Judge Richard Berens knows there are problems with Ohio's corrections system and more needs to be done to help ex-prisoners adjust back into society. But the Fairfield County Common Pleas judge also thinks the people he sends to prison belong there. State lawmakers have proposed sweeping reforms to Ohio's corrections system. A comprehensive bill passed the House on a 96-2 vote Wednesday, and it's been the subject of ongoing Senate committee hearings. Gov. John Kasich supports the measure. While Berens supports the bill's efforts to reduce recidivism and boost rehabilitation, he fears some provisions will tie judges' hands and put more stress on county departments. The legislation would mean first-time, nonviolent, low-level felony offenders could not be sent to state prison, and instead would get three years probation. The bill also doubles the threshold for felony-level thefts, meaning more would head to the county jail on theft charges. When sentencing, judges say they already consider alternatives to prison and issue them when they see fit. "I consider this sentencing law to be an attempt to micromanage the court, which ultimately shifts costs from the state to the local level of incarceration," Berens said. Coshocton County Municipal Court Judge Tim France said he tries to alleviate overcrowding in the local jail through structuring sentences in different ways and offering alternative sentences. This includes reduction of total sentence imposed, suspending sentences and placing conditions on the suspension such as paying fines, community service, house arrest and various counseling to hopefully change behavior. France said he tries to do this about 95 percent of the time. "I give them an opportunity to make up for the wrong they did. It's one thing to throw them in jail, but the county pays for that, the city pays for that, the taxpayers pay for that because they're paying the room and board," France said. "I try to motivate them to make some changes and to motivate them to pay their fines and costs." Berens is not alone in his concerns. The chairman of a key Senate panel also has reservations, along with several other local leaders. However, bill sponsor Sen. Bill Seitz, a Hamilton County Republican, said the bill provides county jails with the means to save costs. Counties can establish Community Alternative Sentencing Centers for offenders sentenced to 30 days or less. These facilities will have less security thus cost less. However, the legislation doesn't provide funds to counties to construct these facilities. Seitz said funds for these programs will come as the state saves money in the prisons. "We're not going to pocket all the savings," Seitz said. Instead, the state would "reinvest that on community corrections and strengthening the probation system." France said he's not sure how such a center would work locally. He said he didn't think the city and county had the money or personnel to establish a center or work with one nearby. He also said about 80 percent of the defendants he sees request a public defender, meaning they're indigent and can't afford their own attorney. That means they couldn't afford to foot the bill for such alternate housing, either. "Most people here don't have the ability to pay for something like that. If they set one up, say in Newark, how are they going to get there? Will we be responsible for checking them in at our jail here and then take them there? If our sheriff's department has to take them, that's not going to work. You have to pay a deputy mileage over there, and gas. It's just not feasible to set that up," France said. A first-time felon still could have a laundry list of misdemeanor convictions plea-bargained down from felony charges, said state Sen. Tim Grendell, R-Chesterland, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee on Criminal Justice. Without prison as an option, officials said such felons would end up in a county jail. Most jails already are overcrowded, some with waiting lists and others paying about $100 a day to house inmates elsewhere. Coshocton County Sheriff Tim Rogers said the Coshocton County Jail does not use a waiting list and has not sent prisoners to other jails for incarceration for about 10 years. He said the jail can't afford the housing and transportation costs of sending inmates elsewhere. He said locally it costs about $70 a day to house a prisoner, plus medical and transportation costs, if needed. The county jail has 60 beds, not counting portable cots. The average daily jail roster is in the mid- to upper 50s. "The sentencing laws are changing. We know that. It's just a matter of time before more inmates are sent to local levels," Rogers said. "The state doesn't want to be in the prison business, and they're trying to get out of it. It's a financial burden on the state, but the county jails are a financial burden on the county." Rogers said he was anxious to see what form the sentencing changes would take when they ultimately are passed. He said the effect on the local level probably would not be instant, but would take several months to materialize. He did think there will be a new burden on the county jail system. "I think there's going to be more reliance on local sentencing because prisons aren't going to accept them. If our judge over here feels someone needs to be incarcerated for a drug offense or a case or sentencing issue the state doesn't want to do anymore, he's going to throw them in my jail, and understandably. There has to be consequences to actions," Rogers said. A judge should be able to use his own discretion, Berens said. "I'm against the Legislature painting with such a broad brush. Each county is different. Judges should decide who goes to prison, not politicians." Judge John Dewey of the Sandusky County Common Pleas Court agrees. "I'm a little concerned about where we put them," Dewey said. "A lot of times these people have a track record of 30 to 40 criminal incidents, and probably have worn out their welcome (in the community)." Most of the offenders the bill targets usually aren't prison-bound anyway, Grendell said. "A judge knows who's high risk, so the judge should have that authority," he said. Berens said it is rare a first-time, low-level felony offender goes to prison, but he still wants that option. The sponsor of the legislation said many of these fears are unfounded; the offenders would not end up in the county jail. Instead, they would go on probation, possibly monitored by a GPS device. Community control might not always be the answer, Berens said. "Many of these people have already been to the county jail," he said. "For some, this is going to be another ride on the revolving door." Another controversial provision in the bill increases the threshold for a felony level theft to $1,000. Under current law, any theft valued at more than $500 would send an offender to prison on a felony charge. France knows raises have been done in the past based on inflation, but thinks the current suggestion is in order to decrease the number of felonies. France thinks the sentencing changes will increase his caseload, but not to a level his court can't handle. He's projecting about 10 to 15 extra cases per year. "If you reduce the number of felonies, you reduce the felony population and less people in prison. Number one, I don't know if it will truly have that effect. The main effect here will probably be an increase in the number of theft cases, where before they would have been in felony court," France said.

Proposed Sentencing Reforms In Ohio

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Ohio lawmakers have called for a complete overhaul of the state’s corrections system, placing more emphasis on keeping inmates from returning after their release. Here are some of the highlights of the proposal, which passed the Ohio House on Wednesday: » Allow inmates to work off up to 8 percent of their sentence by participating in job training and rehabilitation programs. » Allow judges to sign off on a risk reduction program, which will allow inmates to shave 25 percent off their sentence if they participate in certain programs. » Remove prison as a sentencing option for first-time, nonviolent, low-level felony offenders, instead requiring three years of probation. » Allow communities to establish minimum security settings for those serving 30 days or less. » Increase the penalty for the highest-level felonies. » Increase the threshold for a felony level theft from $500 to $1,000. » Remove mandatory minimum sentences for marijuana and hash violations, and equalize the penalties for crack-cocaine and powder cocaine offenses. » Establish term limits on the parole board. Source: Ohio General Assembly

A Canadian Council Dumps Criminal Record Check Fee

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Volunteers can rest a little easier. The Sooke (Canada) council voted to amend and give third reading to Bylaw No. 488 Fees Bylaw. After a lot of discussion and community input, council voted to not institute a $10 fee for criminal record checks for volunteers. There will be a cost of $65 for regular criminal record checks. RCMP Staff Sergeant Steve Wright stated that criminal record checks are time consuming and funding has been taken away by the federal government. The funding used to pay a civilian to do the checks. The employee spends 70 to 80 per cent of their time on record. “We need a revenue source to hire someone from outside the detachment to keep up with the work demand,” said Wright. This sat well with the contingent of Girl Guides and Boy Scouts who came before council to state how these record checks and the fees were affecting their fundraising efforts and volunteers.

Data Shows Sharp Decline In 2010 Background Checks

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Erik Potter The number of criminal background checks requested by Brockton (Mass.) Public Schools fell 71 percent from 2007 to 2010 according to state records. Data obtained from the Massachusetts Department of Criminal Justice Information Services show a declining number of Criminal Offender Record Information requests made by the district every year since 2007. The 2007 total is high because that is the last year that the district re-checked all teachers and other staff with access to students, which the state requires every three years. That the 2010 number isn’t also high, when those same periodic checks were required again, illustrates in hard numbers the deficiencies in the district’s CORI procedures, brought to light after rape charges – later dismissed – were brought against a former Angelo Elementary School tutor last month. Superintendent Matthew Malone, who has admitted that CORI checks were not performed in 2010 as they should have been, said the numbers “confirm everything as fact what I’ve said.” Ward 4 School Committee member Patty Joyce said she also thought the data supported Malone’s statement that new hires are given CORI checks, but that the district was tardy in rechecking existing employees in 2010. “If you had a sharp decrease in numbers from one year to the next, I’d (worry), but it was pretty consistent from year to year,” Joyce said. “And as your budget tightens, you’re not going to have as many new people” that have to be checked each year. Ward 2 School Committee member Richard Bath said that the raw numbers of CORI requests aren’t enough for him to draw any conclusions without knowing how many CORI checks should have been requested. “I don’t know what (checks) were up for renewal, what weren’t,” Bath said. “Until I see all the other numbers – how many employees are in the system – the numbers won’t mean anything to me.” Those kind of numbers are what Malone hopes to have at his fingertips under a new electronic system for tracking CORI data. “This (data) tells me that I wish I’d had electronic systems when I got here (in August 2009), because this is what that would tell me,” Malone said. Malone has hired two human resource professionals to do an audit of the district’s HR department. Don McCallion, a former human resources director for Framingham Public Schools and director of the Commonwealth Leadership Academy, and Ray Shurtlef, former human resources director for Boston Publc School and the program manager for the College of Education and Human Development at University of Massachusetts Boston, will come in to the district in the next three weeks. The audit will focus on the systems in place to identify where they are deficient and where they can improve. Malone expects the audit it to be completed in June. School Committee Vice Chairman Tom Minichiello said he will breath easier after it is completed. “I think right now things are in the process of implementation. I don’t think we have a finished product yet,” he said. “Do I feel better now that we know there’s a problem and it’s being addressed? Yes, of course I feel better. But am I satisfied yet? No, I’m not.”

NSW SeeksTo Integrate Recruitment, CrimTrac Systems

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The NSW Government plans to integrate its whole-of-government recruitment software with data from national criminal history provider, CrimTrac. Tender documents called for a contractor to provide “best practice” integration of its Taleo recruitment software with CrimTrac and NSW Police systems. The solution would use Taleo’s middleware technology, Taleo Connect Client, to extract relevant interagency data. For agencies authorised to complete National Criminal History Records Check (NCHRC), the client would send and receive data from CrimTrac and update job-seeker records accordingly. The middleware would talk to NSW Police servers, instead of CrimTrac, for agencies without NCHRC accreditation. Since there was no scope to change CrimTrac message formats, the solution would have to use the national agency’s SOAP architecture. Contractors were required to attend and lead workshops, document the integration solution, develop the systems architecture, test and support the system. A final solution design was expected by 26 July, and integration was to be completed by October.

Vermont Courts Online Lacking

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Vermont Courts Online provides access to calendar information for all of Vermont's District and Family Courts and 12 of 14 Superior Courts; as well as detailed case information for 12 of 14 Vermont Superior Courts (civil and small claims cases). Records not open to public inspection by statute or court rule are not contained on this website. Detailed case information about District and Family Court cases is currently NOT accessible through VTCourtsOnLine. This includes cases such as criminal, domestic, juvenile, etc. Also, the information from VTCourtsOnLine is not guaranteed to be complete or accurate. Please realize that you use this information at your own risk, and understand that Vermont Judiciary is not responsible for any errors or omissions or misrepresentations made by persons based on the electronic records. Records not open to public inspection by statute are not contained on this website. If you believe any of the data contained in this database is inaccurate, please contact the court where the original record was created and filed Website: https:secure.vermont.gov/vtcdas/user

Fairfield County, PA Common Pleas Court Posting Some Decisions Online

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

In the past, if members of the public wanted to get copies of a significant Fairfield County Common Pleas Court decision, they had to go the courthouse and ask an employee of the clerk of courts to provide them. But now, a new page on the Fairfield County Common Pleas Court's website, www.co.fairfield.oh.us/CommonPleas, will contain the full text of selected decisions issued by the court. "Just as the Ohio Supreme Court and the Fifth District Court of Appeals provide online access to their decisions, the general public and attorneys will now have online access to significant decisions made by our court as well," said Fairfield County Common Pleas Court Judge Richard Berens. All decisions by the courts are public records and are filed with the Clerk of Courts. Berens said the Common Pleas Court judges will decide which decisions are posted to the website. They will include motions in civil and criminal cases dealing with suppression of evidence, motions to dismiss, restraining orders and verdicts. Court decisions which meet the judge's criteria, including complexity of the legal issues involved and whether the case involves issues of general public interest or involves the application of law to a novel set of facts will be posted. "Right now, we don't have enough employees to be posting all the decisions on the website," Berens said. "So it will only be those decisions that are significant to begin with." The decisions will be posted at least once a month, Berens said. There also will be link to the court's website on the Fairfield County Bar Association website, the professional organization for attorneys practicing law in Fairfield County. "Ready access to these decisions will hopefully lead to a better understanding by the public of how its court system operates and will assist attorneys in keeping current with our interpretations of the law," Berens said. Additional FactsON THE WEB: The Fairfield County Common Pleas Court website is www.co.fairfield.oh.us/CommonPleas. The Fairfield County Bar Association website is www.fairfieldcountybar.org.

Woman Sues Match.com After Alleged Sex Assault

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Mad Hatters Join A Long History Of Cap-Loving Criminal Suspects

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Joe Swickard Clothes may make the man, but hats can make the hoodlums. The Mad Hatters, a gang of grannies who authorities say have been ripping off unsuspecting shoppers throughout metro Detroit, are the latest suspects to get tagged by their toppers. The crew of older women -- at least six, if not more -- got their nickname from law enforcement because they're all wearing hats in surveillance photos. True crime files are brimming with accounts of hatted heisters, bank robbers, thieves and stickup artists who get identified by their headgear. "Yep, we had the Heavy D Bandit," said FBI spokeswoman Sandra Berchtold. "He got that name because he was wearing the cap with the Old English D when he robbed banks." Heavy D -- actually Alvin Murray -- was sent to prison for 14 years following his arrest in 2008 as he approached a bank in Dearborn. The FBI said he pulled 14 robberies or attempted robberies between May and July that year. Even a taste for a variety of caps will get you noticed. Authorities said Anthony Wilson switched his allegiance from the Philadelphia Phillies to the Red Wings to the Oakland A's and even the Ralph Lauren Polo pony, but still got indicted by a federal grand jury for a string of bank robberies from late 2010 through early this year.
As for the Mad Hatters, the larcenous ladies are still on the lam. Al Capone was so fedora-ble in his wide brim hats that it almost made bareheaded bad guys and gals outlaw outcasts. And now, Detroit-area authorities are on the lookout as Sterling Heights police reported Thursday that local shoppers are being targeted by a gang of older women who swipe wallets and other valuables from handbags and unattended shopping carts. The suspects' penchant for headgear has earned them the label of the Mad Hatters. But noted local milliner Luke Song said thefts aren't the only offenses: The women's taste in headwear is close to criminal, said the man who designed Aretha Franklin's famous bejeweled-and-bowed hat for President Barack Obama's inauguration. "Just casual hats," said Song of Mr. Song Millinery in Southfield. His professional eye said the hats are not very high quality, probably mass produced with a $10 price tag. Maybe, he said, the hats are the "ladies' version of the ski mask." Song said he didn't recognize any of the hats as coming from his shop: "I can spot my hats anywhere. It's very hard to commit a crime in one of my hats and not get implicated." He said a woman's hat is very personal: "It's as distinguishable as a fingerprint." It could be that hats are all the rage now, from high crimes to high fashion. Two examples of hat heaven are the 137th Kentucky Derby today and last week's wedding of Britain's Prince William and Kate Middleton. "Derby attendees spend as much time and money on their race-day apparel as they do at the betting window -- maybe more!" gushed the Kentucky Derby Web site, which includes 66 pictures of Derby fashionistas wearing their boldest brims. But in Sterling Heights on Friday, some ladies were frazzled by the heists and shocked by the alleged culprits. "It's unbelievable. I could not believe it when I heard it," said Genevieve Bonislawski, 87, of Sterling Heights as she left a Meijer store pushing a cart with flowers and gardening supplies. Bonislawski said she didn't see anyone wearing a hat, but when she does, she's going to think of the Mad Hatters. But Darlene Kuttruff, 64, of Sterling Heights said she wasn't surprised. She said she works in a Sterling Heights card shop and often sees elderly people trying to steal. "I don't know if it's a case of the economy, or if it's a case of merely to take what (they) want," she said. A bad economy and a gambling problem pushed 71-year-old Edmond F. Ketzler into bank robbery. But it was his sporty tweed hat and camel coat shown on security cameras in Troy last year that got him caught. Ketzler's son recognized him when the security camera pictures were featured in news media reports and accompanied him to the police station when he surrendered. Ketzler is serving a five-year probationary sentence. While police in some communities surrounding Sterling Heights said the Mad Hatters have not thrown their hat into their criminal rings, Clinton Township police forwarded the name of an elderly woman with an extensive criminal record who was caught last year. She wore a hat and stole from shopping carts and still is in custody, township police Capt. Richard Maierle said. Maierle said that a few years ago, police investigated middle-aged to elderly women wearing hats who stole purses from stores. He didn't recall any arrests, and the women operated alone. Bill McGraw, Compuware's director of media relations, said a legendary crime-fighter's costume was misappropriated on a misty night near the Fisher Theatre in 1975. McGraw was walking, "and I swear it was a foggy night; here comes this guy dressed like Sherlock Holmes, in a deerstalker hat and cape. He said, 'It's a stickup,' but he didn't have a British accent." The villain was taken aback when McGraw offered him all he had -- a Heineken beer, a small yogurt and some change. "He said, 'There's too many people ripping off people here' " and walked off into the night, McGraw said.

UPenn Speaks: "Can You Ask Job Candidates About Their Criminal Records?"

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Hiring officers, be aware: under a new Philadelphia law, you need to be very careful when it comes to asking job candidates about their criminal records. The Fair Criminal Record Screening Standards Act, signed into law on April 13, prohibits Penn from asking criminal record questions during the employment application process and before the first interview. The new law goes into effect on July 12, 2011. We’ve already modified Penn’s employment application to reflect this new law. It no longer asks applicants whether they’ve been convicted or pled guilty to a crime. Visit the Human Resources website at www.hr.upenn.edu/recruitment/recruitmentforms/upennapp.pdf to download the updated application. It’s very important to remember that you must wait until after the first interview if you plan to ask candidates if they’ve ever been convicted of a crime. Keep in mind this new law in no way eliminates background checks. Penn will continue to conduct background checks on the final, preferred candidates—a step that should be completed prior to you making the job offer. If the background check reveals that an applicant was convicted of a crime and may not be suitable for a particular job, Human Resources will notify and advise the hiring officer as necessary.

Nevada Set To Erase Certain Prostitution Convictions

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The Nevada Senate voted 21-0 in support of a bill to permit women forced into prostitution to have their convictions erased. The women often are arrested for prostitution or soliciting, but their criminal records follow them when they quit, putting them at a disadvantage when applying for a job. Assembly Bill 6 would allow a woman who was coerced into prostitution to ask a district judge to wipe out her convictions. The measure was previously passed 42-0 by the Assembly and now goes to Gov. Brian Sandoval for his signature. The bill gained support from law enforcement, Nevada’s legal brothel industry, women's rights groups and religious organizations. There was testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee that there were 5,000 arrests for prostitution in Clark County and 100 arrests of pimps last year.

Immigration Issues: When Facing Criminal Charges In The U.S.

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

When foreign nationals living and working in the U.S. face criminal charges, they are subject not only to U.S. federal and state criminal laws, but also to federal immigration laws if a conviction occurs. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 increased the number of deportable offenses for non-USA citizens. Any single felony or misdemeanor convictions may result in deportation. This could include crimes like drunken driving, drug possession, theft, domestic violence, fraud and sexual or other assault violations. Federal immigration officials may also consider guilty pleas or dropped charges as convictions in violation of immigration laws. Even if a lesser criminal conviction does not end in deportation of an immigrant, other problems may arise. Immigration consequences may include ineligibility for naturalization as a U.S. citizen and denied reentry into the U.S. after traveling abroad. If non-citizens have criminal records prior to entering the U.S., especially crimes of moral turpitude, they may be found inadmissible.

Criminal Background Checks Gone Awry

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

A UK badminton club says it is turning away under-18s because Criminal Records Bureau checks and other steps designed to protect children are leaving it little choice. High Woods Badminton Club, based at High Woods Sports Centre, Colchester, has halved its membership since legal restrictions were placed on the way it had to deal with minors. The club squarely blames the decline on the fact it is turning away young people because of the law. Chairman Chris Ransom said, "Problems began when a 17-year-old applied to join the club. It was told by the Colchester Council-run sports centre’s manager for one 17-year-old to sign up, the club would need: Coaches and officials whose qualifications had been checked and who met official criteria on “safe recruitment” They will need Enhanced Criminal Records Bureau checks and two references each for all coaches and officials; a written child protection policy, with copies give to any centre where courts were hired; plus a designated child protection officer. Different paperwork to hire courts at the centre. In a letter to the club, the centre manager admitted: “In a nutshell, it is a lot of administration for you guys, once you start to take under-18s into the group. “Once you do, there is a huge emphasis on clubs to show they have safeguards for minors in place.”

State Wants State Record Searches

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Connecticut lawmakers are mulling a bill that would require those who work with the elderly -- including home health aides -- to undergo statewide background checks. Late last year, the state received $1.9 million from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to help establish a comprehensive, statewide background check program for employees of long-term care facilities. Under Connecticut's proposed legislation, potential employees would need to be vetted in several ways, including through a review of the registry of nurse's aides maintained by the state Department of Public Health and through checks of state and national criminal history records. Workers' records would be reviewed for convictions of "disqualifying offenses," which include health-care fraud and neglect or abuse of patients in connection with the delivery of health-care services. In Connecticut, such checks aren't required for workers in most sectors of long-term care, including nursing homes and home health aides.

Employee Caught Stealing And His Boss Ends Up Paying

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

When this business owner attempted to teach a fraudulent worker a lesson, he ended up learning a few things himself. Here’s the background: A business owner in England found out one of his trusted employees wrote a company check to himself for £845 ($1,375.66 US) and then cashed it. Enraged, the owner decided to practice a bit of street justice. So he placed a sign — which read “Thief. I stole £845. Am On My Way To Police Station — around the thieving staffer’s neck and marched him through town before eventually handing him over to the police. But the police let the thief off with just a warning, and then he sued his boss for humiliation, false imprisonment and lost wages. In the end, the business owner was forced to settle the lawsuit for £13,000 ($21,164). Lesson learned: Justice is better left to the professionals.

New Guidelines Can Hurt Rather Than Help

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Steven Brownstein I'm still hemming and hawing about my recent experience with the NAPBS guidleline exam for USA domestic court record retrievers. Not about the exam, itself. Now it's comparing the USA domestic guidelines with the 'proposed' international guidelines. The international guidelines proposed by NAPBS are ambiguous at best and leave pre-employment screening comapnies at a loss. NAPBS is on the right track asking for feed-back from members about the international 'guidelines.' How I was included in the discussion of the guidelines or asked to contribute my thoughts about the proposal - I am not sure I was on 'their' list at all - I still do not know. I think there are many ways to do a criminal search. International AND domestic. NAPBS needs to be careful. The guidelines they put forth today might lead to employers doing their own 'nationwide' FBI searches tomorrow. Where will that leave us?

Oklahoma Plans To Unify Court Record System

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Plans are under way to roll out a new case management system for the state’s courts, moving away from paper-based to electronic processes and joining up all district and appeals courts under the same system. Currently, 13 counties in the state, including Tulsa and Oklahoma counties, use one case management system; 64 other counties use another. Officials say the state has outgrown the old systems. Mike Evans, administrative director of the courts said, “Our prime focus is a unified system across all 77 counties.” An integrated system will give the public remote access to electronic case files and court documents. Officials hope to have the system complete and all state trial courts online within the next five years.

IPC Cases To Reach Panchkula CBI Court

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Cases registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in Haryana under Indian Penal Code (IPC) have now been transferred to the CBI court in Panchkula. Earlier, only cases registered under Prevention of Corruption Act were transferred to the court of CBI Special Judge AS Narang.

Monmouth Probate Records Now Searchable Online

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The Internet can be used to search the Index of Probate Records at the Monmouth County Surrogate’s Office. “In this age of online access to information, this will allow the public to research part of the Surrogate’s probate index without the need to submit a written or telephone request,” Monmouth County Surrogate Rosemarie D. Peters said. Types of searches that can be conducted online include: estates where there is a will; administrations (estates with no will); affidavits of surviving spouse (estates under $20,000 with no will); and affidavits of next of kin (estates under $10,000 with no will). The index covers the years 1991 to the present. Once a name is found in the index, a request form to learn more about specific documents in the file can be printed, filled out and mailed to the Surrogate’s Office, along with a $10 check as mandated by state statute. Copies of specific documents can then be obtained. Records available for viewing in the Surrogate’s Records Room in the Hall of Records include those involving estates, such as wills, inventories, and accountings; guardianships of incapacitated persons; pre-1940 adoption records, and Orphan’s Court minutes. “Searching the online index saves a big step for everyone interested in researching estates,” Peters said. “By the time they get to our Records Room, they already know what they are looking for. “Our plan is to add more indexed information to the online search in the future,” Peters added. “Eventually, the index of all estates on record in the Surrogate’s Office will be online.”

Bob Dylan Cited Most Often In Legal Cases

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Legal experts say the song lyrics of Bob Dylan are cited more than those of any other musician in court briefs and opinions, including the U.S. Supreme Court. Michael Perlin, a New York Law School professor who used Dylan lyrics as titles for more than 50 articles published in law journals, said Dylan is so often quoted due to the impact he had during the young years of U.S. lawyers and judges, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday. Alex Long, a University of Texas law professor who has researched the impact of politically charged music on the legal system, echoed Perlin's sentiment. "Everyone wants to believe that the music they listen to says something about who they are," Long said. "Being a judge is a pretty cloistered existence, having to crank out these opinions in isolation. Dylan was popular at the time they were coming of age and trying to figure out who they were," he said. "The chance to throw in a line from your favorite artist is tempting, a chance to let your freak flag fly." The songwriter's work has made it into Supreme Court rulings, once by Chief Justice John Roberts in a 2008 ruling on billing firms hired by payphone operators. He paraphrased a lyric from "Like a Rolling Stone" -- "when you got nothing, you got nothing to lose," he wrote. Dylan's words again impacted the court last year when Justice Antonin Scalia wrote an opinion criticizing colleagues for failing to rule on a question of employee e-mail privacy, writing: "'The times they are a-changin' is a feeble excuse for disregard of duty."

New Court In PA For Sex-Offender Cases

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Pennsylvania’s first sex-offender court will be launched in in Allegheny County, state and local officials announced. The court is a test case for the state and will handle the roughly 300 cases the county sees each year, ensuring that they move through the system more quickly. The pilot program in Allegheny County could be expanded to other areas of the state in a year or so if it is deemed successful.

Ooops! Sealed Court Info Was Accessible in Ala.

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Crawford County, AR To Go Online

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Crawford County Circuit Courts will soon have a new computerized information system that provides public access to court records through the internet. There are three levels of access to the system: Contexte, which is the internal Courtconnect program court officials use to type in information; the secured login program, which has a special internet browser that requires a security password and is also internal; and the external Courtconnect, which allows limited public access. Eventually, there will also be a system for imaging so that actual documents can be scanned and viewed online. Those accessing the system will be able to look at a scan of the original document. Currently, 11 courts around Arkansas fully utilize Contexte, while another dozen use portions of the program for juvenile drug court statistics and dependency neglect programs. Crawford County is set to go online with its new system Sept. 12.

Advice for India: Screen Those Ex-Infosys Execs Well

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Don Tennant As top executives at Infosys Technologies leave the company and begin other pursuits, their prospective employers would be well-advised to subject those executives to a very thorough pre-employment screening process. It just might prevent an embarrassingly awkward situation down the road. As I noted most recently, "Infosys Is Becoming a Model of Non-transparency," Mohandas Pai, the former Infosys board member in charge of human resources, abruptly resigned from the company and expressed his concern about transparency in the CEO selection process. A couple of weeks later, Pai accepted an offer to co-chair a committee at Bangalore University that’s charged with establishing a school of economics at the university. The problem I have with Pai serving in such a role at a university is that I’m not sure what sort of example he would set for the students. When he became aware of the lawsuit that Infosys employee and whistleblower Jay Palmer filed against the company in the United States in February, alleging visa and tax fraud, this was Pai’s immediate response, according to an Indian media outlet: "[We cannot react as] the matter is sub judice but we shall rigorously defend ourselves." What’s so troubling is that Pai’s response should have been something along the lines of, “We take these allegations very seriously, and we will investigate them thoroughly.” By instead proclaiming immediately after the suit was filed that Infosys will “rigorously defend” itself, Pai was conveying one of two messages: Either he was already familiar with Palmer’s complaints but took no action to address them, or he was not familiar with the complaints and was going into defense mode without even investigating the allegations. In either case, it’s essential to note that Pai did not deny the allegations — to be clear, stating that Infosys will “rigorously defend” itself is not a denial. In fact, wearing my other hat as a specialist in the field of deception detection, I should point out that failure to deny in this manner is a glaring behavioral indicator that the subject considers the allegations to be true. Meanwhile, Narayana Murthy, the founder and outgoing chairman of Infosys, has said that he’s open to the possibility of working for the Indian government. Asked by a reporter if he would be willing to take up a government post if it was offered, this was Murthy’s response: "Of course, I will be willing to take it up. But the best thing would be if I get an opportunity to address the youngsters, to exhort them to [be] more disciplined, to have good work ethic, to work as a team, and to have aspirations, I would say that's the job I would enjoy most." Whether Murthy ends up working in the Indian government or in a different capacity that enables him to influence India’s youth, what needs to be considered are the age-old questions of what he knew and when he knew it, regarding the activities that led to Palmer’s whistleblower complaint and ultimate lawsuit. In any case, what’s inescapable is that any fraudulent activity that did occur, occurred under Murthy’s watch. It’s especially important to consider at this point the U.S. government’s ongoing criminal investigation of Infosys that was triggered by the Palmer case. If federal authorities file a criminal complaint against Infosys — and that prospect appears to be increasingly likely — which individuals will be listed as defendants? Might one be the individual in charge of Infosys’ global human resources operations? Might another be the chairman of the board of directors that was ultimately responsible for all of Infosys’ operations worldwide? Any private- or public-sector organization in India or anywhere else that’s considering employing Pai or Murthy in any capacity needs to make due diligence in the hiring process a top priority. The potential fallout from the civil case brought by Palmer could be damaging enough not only to the reputations of Murthy and Pai, but to the reputation of any organization that might employ them. If they were to eventually be named as defendants in a criminal case brought by the government of the United States, how might that reflect on any such organization? As uncomfortable as that question may be to ask, the questions that any employer of these individuals might have to ask and answer at some point down the line would be doubly uncomfortable. A better case for rigorous pre-employment screening would be difficult to make.

Nurisng Homes Bolting To National FBI Background Checks

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General investigated the number of individuals with criminal records working in nursing homes. According to their government report, more than 90 percent of nursing homes have employees with criminal records. The current patchwork system of criminal-background checks may contribute to the high number of individuals with criminal convictions working in nursing homes, and it leaves vulnerable nursing-home residents at risk of harm. The analysis revealed that, in 2009, 92 percent of the nursing homes employed at least one person with a criminal conviction. Further, almost half of the nursing homes employed five or more people with criminal convictions. At one facility with a total of 164 employees, 34 employees had at least one conviction each, said Daniel R. Levinson, Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Seven registered sex offenders were working at five different nursing homes, and 13 percent of the employees with criminal convictions were convicted of crimes against people. Most of the employees' convictions, 44 percent, were for crimes against property such as shoplifting, burglary or writing bad checks. Federal regulations declare that nursing homes that receive Medicare and Medicaid payments cannot employ people convicted of "abusing, neglecting or mistreating" nursing-home residents and cannot employ people entered in state nurse-aide registries for neglect, abuse or mistreatment of nursing-home residents, including theft of resident property. However, criminal-background checks are not required by federal law. Individual states may create their own background-check standards, but the lack of centralized screening of nursing-home employees puts nursing-home residents in danger. Currently, only ten states require pre-employment state and FBI criminal-background checks. Because only the FBI background check reports criminal convictions in multiple states, someone with a conviction in one state may find employment in a nursing home in a different state that does not use FBI criminal-background checks. On March 23, 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. According to the OIG report, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to implement a nationwide program for individual states to conduct both state and FBI background checks for nursing-home employees with direct access to nursing-home residents. Because criminal convictions are sometimes under different names, the National Background Check Program will perform fingerprint-based searches of state and federal criminal-conviction records.

The Background Investigator Goes To Botswana

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Faheem Ebrahim
In a continuing series, The Background Investigator, is sending its attorneys to various countries around the world to explore the justice systems and bring back to you their findings. This month Faheem Ebrahim visited Botswana. Here is his report: Obtaining Criminal Records in Botsawana Botswana isn't a country that is much talked about around African nations. The people of Botswana will tell you, that this is because there aren't as many problems in Botswana as other neighbouring nations, and the people are friendlier. During my visit to Gabarone, the capital, I certianly found the latter to be true. A visit to the magistrates court showed a colonial looking building with plenty of character. The criminal registry was serviced by a local lady who was very accomodating and took me for a tour of the courthouse, and more importantly, showed me the details of the criminal record system in place. The system was based on microsoft access with a wide option of identifiers, and we tested our names on the system (with both of our consent of course) to ensure we did not have a case filed in the country. The best part about the system in Botswana is that every court is linked by the same network, therefore even though a case is filed in a different town within the country, they can still view the file in Gabarone - and vice versa. I was impressed with what I saw, and complimented the team on their setup. If only some of the larger and more developed nations around the world would take a small country such as Botswana as an example; due diligence checks would be a much simpler process! I look forward to visiting again soon. Editor’s Note;
Because of Faheem Ebrahim’s excellent work, Straightline International can now offer COUNTRY-WIDE Searches for BOTSWANA.
Call 1-866-909-6679 for information and pricing.

Les Rosenâ€™s Corner,A monthly column by Lester Rosen, Attorney at Law Maryland Latest State To Res

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Joining four other U.S. states - Hawaii, Illinois, Oregon, and Washington - prohibiting the use of credit information by employers, Maryland has enacted new legislation placing restrictions on so-called credit checks by employers that use the credit report or credit history of job applicants or employees for employment decisions. The law, known as the 'Job Applicant Fairness Act,' was signed by Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley in April of 2011 and will take effect on October 1, 2011. Along with prohibiting an employer from using the credit report or credit history of an employee or job applicant for employment purposes, the 'Job Applicant Fairness Act' specifically prohibits most employers from using credit checks to determine whether to: -Deny employment to a job applicant; -Discharge an employee; -Decide compensation; or -Evaluate other terms and conditions of employment. -While the Act applies to Maryland employers of any size, some employers wishing to request or use credit information of job applicants and employees for a bona fide purpose must disclose the intent to do so in writing to the job applicant or employee. If an employer has violated the Act, individuals may file a complaint with the Maryland Commissioner of Labor and Industry for investigation, and the Commissioner may assess civil penalties of up to $500 for initial violations and up to $2,500 for repeat violations. Excluded from the Act's prohibitions Jobs such as managerial positions involving handling money or confidential duties, Employees with expense accounts or corporate credit cards, and Employees with access to confidential business information.

The Public Record Update, A Service from BRB Publications, Inc.

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Reminder - SSNs Soon to be Issued Randomly The Social Security Administration has decided it will no longer issue new SSNs with a logistical sequence of numbering that indicate the state of issue and year of issue. Effective June 25, 2011, all new SSNs will be issued on a purely random basis. The SSA will eliminate the geographical significance of the first three digits, currently referred to as the area number (assignment to individuals in specific states). The significance of the fourth and fifth digits of the SSN for validation purposes will also be eliminated. Randomization will still exclude area numbers 000, 666 and 900-999. Thus, the existing tables and validation services will be frozen in time - they can be used for validation of SSNs issued prior to the randomization implementation date, but not going forward. If you have a question, email to ssn.randomization@ssa.gov or visit www.ssa.gov/employer/randomization.html. One general question often asked about SSNs is "Under what circumstances will the SSA issue a different number to a number holder?" The SSA reports it will do so only per one or more of the following conditions: Sequential numbers assigned to members of the same family are causing problems; -More than one person is using the same number; -An individual has religious or cultural objections to certain numbers or digits in the original number. -A victim of identity theft continues to be disadvantaged by using the original number. -Situations of harassment, abuse or life endangerment (including domestic violence). The web site listed above gives specific references to documentation of these issues.

Oklahoma Okmulgee County Combines District Courts Last month the Okmulgee County 24th Judicial District Court closed its Branch Court in Henryetta and moved the operation including closed case files to the main branch in Okmulgee. The District Court handles Felony, Misdemeanor, Civil, Eviction, Small Claims, Probate cases. Previously, an on-site records search necessitated visiting both locations. Riverside California Courts' Changing All Phone Numbers During May and June, the Riverside Superior Court in California is transitioning to a new phone system which will require all court telephone numbers to be changed. At present the Court has changed only a handful numbers, but many will be changed over the next several weeks. The Court is maintaining a web page that shows the old and new numbers as they are changed. See this list at http://riverside.courts.ca.gov/transitionphonelist.pdf

Dennnis Brownstein's Extreme Court News - Updated June 23, 2011

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Fear - Trio Of Odd Occurrences At Pittsburgh Courthouse A man who pleaded guilty to spray-painting a death threat against Judge Jeffrey A. Manning on the side of the Allegheny County Courthouse last year was barred from watching the trial of Richard Poplawski in his courtroom, Sheriff William Mullen said. The incident on was one of a trio of minor but bizarre security concerns that have arisen since the high-profile proceedings began. Paul Rodriguez Sirmons, 40, of North Huntington was sentenced to four years of probation for writing in red "Judge MAN must die" near a courthouse entrance. He told sheriff's deputies he was in the building on Tuesday for a hearing in his own case and that he wanted to watch the Poplawski trial while he waited. His probation officer corroborated his story, but deputies nevertheless kept him away from Judge Manning's courtroom and chambers. Sheriff Mullen said the intense public interest in the case means he can't take any chances. Deputies also arrested Mr. Sirmons in September 2007, after he snapped a photo of a prosecution witness during the death penalty trial for the man who killed state police Cpl. Joseph R. Pokorny. A contempt charge was later dismissed. Mr. Poplawski is charged with killing Pittsburgh police Officers Eric G. Kelly, Paul J. Sciullo II and Stephen J. Mayhle, a case that has captured national attention and resulted in heightened security at the courthouse. Also, deputies towed a car from outside the courthouse that raised suspicions because it had phony plastic license plates. A deputy noticed that the keystone emblem that appears in the center of Pennsylvania plates was missing and the plate contained a sequence of letters and numbers that the state doesn't issue. Sgt. Rich Begenwald of the city's auto squad, which is trying to identify the car's owner, said it was not stolen and confirmed the plates were fraudulent. And in a third rare discovery, deputies took what looked like a cell phone but was really a stun gun from a woman on Wednesday as she entered the family court facility. Deputies said the Taser looked like a phone, with a camera and applications. The woman won't be charged, as she relinquished the device to deputies at the door. Link: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11174/1155669-53.stm#ixzz1Q6fT0sAo Stripping Man Disrupts Court Police responded to the Cumberland County Courthouse after someone called to report a man was stripping in front of the building. A 47-year-old city man was sitting on a low wall at the front of the building with his pants down around his ankles when an officer arrived, police said. "The subject was thankfully wearing underwear," Police Chief Mark Ott said in a news release. Police arrested the man, Bruce Williams of the 200 block of Belmont Avenue, and charged him with defiant trespassing. He was released on a summons. In the past, city police and the Cumberland County Sheriff's Department have repeatedly ordered Williams to refrain from loitering at the courthouse, authorities said.

Behave At Work Or It's Jail For You

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Victoria, Australia's Parliament House has passed a bill that would send individuals convicted of workplace bullying to prison for 10 years. The bill was promoted by the parents of a 19-year-old woman who committed suicide in 2006 after being bullied by her coworkers. The five employees who bullied the woman were eventually convicted and fined a total of $335,000. The passage of the bill in Victoria's Parliament House could eventually lead to similar legislation being passed by Australia's federal government.

Puerto Rico Mother's Maiden Names Make A Difference In Record Searches by Steven Brownstein

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Steven Brownstein You can have a problem if you lack providing the mother's maiden name with your Puerto Rico search. Provide the maiden name and your hit ratio climbs dramatically. An example would be Carlos Torres for a search in San Juan. No record found. Include the mother’s maiden name and voila! Or should I say Caramba! Carlos Torres Rodriguez, Carlos Torres Ramirez, Carlos Torres diaz… you get the picture. Get the mother's maiden name.

Airline Background Check-Less Security Shocker

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

By Larry Celona and Bill Sanderson In a colossal failure of 9/11 security measures, an illegal immigrant used the stolen ID of a Bronx man with an arrest record to get hired as an airline flight attendant, and flew several trips as a trainee before he was busted, authorities said. Besides getting a job at American Eagle, Jophan Porter, 38, used the stolen ID to obtain a US passport, a US Department of Transportation ID card and at least three Florida driver's licenses, law-enforcement sources said. Porter was caught after ID-theft victim Anthony Frair of The Bronx was denied food stamps because government records matched him to the airline job. A law-enforcement source confirmed that Frair, 40, has an arrest record. Public records show a man with his name and age was busted in Florida in 2008 on domestic-assault charges. It's unclear how long Porter used Frair's identity, sources said. American Eagle hired him in March, and he worked from the airline's Miami base, said company spokesman Tim Smith. Smith and spokespersons for several federal agencies couldn't explain how Porter cleared the security checks needed to become a flight attendant -- or why the airline didn't realize the ID he had stolen belonged to a criminal suspect. Smith couldn't say whether the airline even did a Google search, which would have uncovered Frair's arrest in Florida. Porter was born in Guyana, and records show he's also a former Bronx resident. He was arrested at Miami International Airport early yesterday just after he'd returned from a personal trip to London on an American Airlines flight, Smith said

FTC Says "Yes" To Facebook Activity Inclusion In Background Checks

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Rich Harris You now have another reason to check your privacy settings. According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, Social Intelligence Corp, has been given the legal thumbs up to archive seven years worth of your Facebook posts. These archives will be used by SIC (oh the applicability of the acronym) as part of their background checking service for job applicants. There are a couple sides to this argument that have been hashed out many times over. A hiring manager could say that they were glad they discovered that Johnny the master of the great resume also drank heavily every night and posted all his parties on Facebook - so they could avoid hiring him. The other side of the argument has been that if someone is functional, professional and sober at work, then why is it fair to factor in what they do outside of work when deciding if you should schedule an interview? As long as they are not a violent criminal or addicted to hard drugs, who cares? The biggest issue I have with this is that my Facebook activity (i.e. the pieces of my personal life that I chose to post) might not jive with the individual hiring manager, regardless if I’m amazing at my job, it’s a good fit, and everything else matches up. But what if said hiring manager, who maybe didn’t drink alcohol, had a bad experience with some jerk in Cabo who drank too much tequila at a club and picked a fight with him unprovoked while he was on his honeymoon? All of a sudden that photo of me sharing a pitcher of margaritas on Cinco de Mayo with my buddies bounces me off his short list of contenders. The problem with allowing personal life activities to play a factor in background checks and hiring decisions is that there are many in life that work hard and play hard. There are many things that people do for fun that offend others or make them uncomfortable, regardless of how harmless it actually is. Will companies now spend more time looking for the penultimate employee who has not only the required skills and education, but also has a specific name, favorite food genre, never attended Burning Man, likes to wear t-shirts on the weekend, loves gardening, and hangs with a certain circle of friends that are “comfortable” enough for that manager to emotionally accept? That is a slippery slope…..like the U.S. workforce doesn’t have enough subtle instances of discrimination that slip by in several top companies. But that’s another post for another blog. Here’s to hoping that those hiring managers that check the Facebook profiles of potential candidates are level-headed enough to realize that everyday life happens and that while someone may do something different than they do in their spare time, they may also be good employees and high-quality people to boot.

Likening The Criminal Justice System To A Baseball Game

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Steven Brownstein I came across this analogy while I was looking for information about the North Dakota (of all places) Judiciary. Read on: First Umpire: I sit there behind the plate and I watch the ball come down the groove and I call it what it really is. Second Umpire: I can't do that, the best that I can do is watch its pattern and call it as I see it. Third Umpire: It ain't nothin till I call it. The prosecutorial part of the system operates under the influence and direction of the first umpire. Like balls and strikes people are either in the groove or they are not. Judges and juries often appear to operate under the influence and direction of the second umpire as homage is paid to the great historical charge of responsibility to listen to all of the evidence before making up their minds. To the defense lawyer, however, it most often appears that in reality it is the world of the third umpire that most accurately describes what in fact is happening. Pretty good stuff, right? After watching on television the constant barrage of Law and order, CSI, Criminal Minds, Without A Trace, NCIS, Closer, etc., the above does a fine job of breaking down the sytem into simpler terms.

High Tech Medical Exam Cheats Busted

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Two B.C. men are facing criminal charges for allegedly attempting a high tech scam to cheat on a medical school entrance exam using secret cameras, wireless transmitters and three suspicious tutors. According to documents filed in provincial court in Richmond, B.C., Josiah Miguel Ruben and Houman Rezazadeh-Azar are each facing six charges including theft, unauthorized use of a computer, using a device to obtain unauthorized service and theft of data. Police allege that on January 29 Rezazadeh-Azar sat down in a room at the University of Victoria to write the Medical College Admissions Test, or MCAT, run by the Association of Medical Colleges. Police allege he used a pinhole camera and wireless technology to transmit images of the questions on a computer screen back to his co-conspirator, Ruben, at the University of British Columbia. Investigators believe Ruben then tricked three other students, who thought they were taking a multiple choice test for a job to be an MCAT tutor, into answering the questions. The answers were then transmitted back by phone to Rezazadeh-Azar, as he continued on with the test in Victoria, police allege. However, the would-be tutors became suspicious by the poor quality of the images of the test questions, and the fact that they were allowed to discuss the question together before giving Ruben their answers. When Ruben left the room to transmit some of the answers, the would-be tutors checked online and determined the MCAT exam was being held that day in locations around the world. They also found evidence on the computer's hard drives that the owner had been looking into pin-hole cameras and wireless networks. So the three students called campus security and began submitting wrong answers to the scammers while they waited for the officers to arrive and arrest Ruben. The documents said phone records also showed Rezazadeh-Azar was on an open phone line with Ruben during the exam. Teddi Fishman, the director of the International Centre for Academic Integrity in the Unites States, says most cases of cheating harm the testing organization and other students who are writing the test. "This is unusual. This is just above and beyond what usually happens," said Fishman. "What's unusual here is that they actually conned the people who are going to be supplying the answers." The organization which administers the Medical College Admissions Test told police the incident cost them more than $200,000 because the compromised test had to be discontinued and replaced.

Criminal Background Checks Upend Job Search For Some Unemployed

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Janell Ross First, the college sent a letter. It welcomed Curtis Andrews, Ed.D, Ph.D, to its adjunct faculty. A few days later, the emails about faculty orientation sessions and department meetings started arriving in Andrews' email inbox. But when a college human resources officer called him three times to ask for details about his 2006 wire fraud conviction, Andrews started to suspect that the job was no longer his. “He just said, 'We’ll be in touch,'” said Andrews. “By that point, I had filled out, I guess, 70, 80 applications. So, I knew all about the box I have to check saying I have been convicted of a crime and that the applications all say that having been convicted may not prevent you from being hired. But you do get the sense that they get one look at a conviction and they put you in the technological trash … This time, they apparently thought I was qualified, then changed their mind.” About 65 million Americans -- that’s one in four adults -- have an arrest or conviction that can show up on a routine criminal background check. What’s found can effectively upend their search for work or put them out of a job amid one of the most difficult job markets in recent history, according to a new report released by the National Employment Law Project. In fact, in the years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, criminal background checks calibrated to detect everything from arrests on dismissed or expunged charges to misdemeanor and felony convictions have become an increasingly common part of the job application process. A 2010 survey of the Society for Human Resources Management's member firms found that more than 90 percent routinely probe job applicants' backgrounds. The trade group’s members are mostly large employers. A booming private criminal background industry has made clients of all kinds of companies doing everything from cleaning offices and delivering pizzas to sorting and delivering retail merchandise, said Maurice Emsellem, a policy co-director for the National Employment Law Project and one of the researchers behind the NELP report. The National Association of Professional Background Screeners, a North Carolina-based industry trade group, could not be reached for comment.

“The industry of private screening firms, they make a big buck off of these practices,” Emsellem said. “They’ve got better and better at identifying and isolating employers who don’t use criminal background checks. The marketing pitch goes something like this: 'All your competitors are doing criminal background checks. Do you want to take the alleged risk?'” What’s never mentioned is the growing body of evidence suggesting that after as few as three years –- depending on the person’s age and original crime -- people released from prison are no more likely than the general population to commit more crime, Emsellem said. But failing to find legitimate work is a major predictor of a return to jail, according to the NELP report. That’s part of the reason why nonprofit agencies and even some corrections departments throughout the country are working to help ex-offenders find jobs. "I think we’ve finally reached the point where people are starting to realize that if we have 3 percent of the world’s population but 20 percent of its prisoners, disqualifying that many people from work once they get out just isn’t sustainable," said Todd Berger, the managing attorney with the Rutgers School of Law-Camden’s Federal Prisoner Reentry Project. Berger oversees a law school clinic in which students seek to resolve some of the issues preventing federal parolees in the area from obtaining work. In Maryland, Catholic Charities of Baltimore established the Our Daily Bread Employment Center four years ago. The center helps people with criminal backgrounds and limited job skills find work. The program reports serving more than 3,000 people in fiscal 2010. Since July, Our Daily Bread has helped place in jobs 296 of the 540 people who committed to the most intensive part of its program, according to Karen Heyward-West, a program manager for employment services. Our Daily Bread informs employers about tax credits available to companies that hire ex-offenders, but Heyward-West said one of the program’s most effective tools is the mock interview. About 80 percent of the companies that send volunteer representatives to conduct mock interviews wind up offering to hire the center's clients, putting in a good word at their company for the program or referring clients to job opportunities elsewhere, she said. “I am just going to be really honest -- there is a fear,” Heyward-West said. “There are people, employers who think we don’t want to hire those people, people with (criminal) backgrounds, people who were previously homeless. That’s a big part of what we have to overcome.” In 1987, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the nation’s workplace discrimination watchdog agency, issued a statement that declared employer policies that disqualify any job candidates with a criminal record likely illegal. Employers are supposed to consider the age and nature of a conviction and its relevance to the job. Because a disproportionate share of African American and Latino adults have criminal records, blanket policies can effectively discriminate against groups protected by U.S. civil rights law, the commission said. Still, the National Employment Law Project report found ample evidence of job ads that overtly exclude anyone with a criminal conviction. In a review of ads posted on Craigslist during a four-month period in five major cities, researchers found more than 300 ads in which employers stated that applicants with criminal records would not be considered. One ad for a sewer cleaning technician read, “***Do not apply with any misdemeanors/felonies.***” “This is a major civil rights issue and a violation of the law,” NELP's Emsellem said. There are entire industries where people with any type of criminal history –- no matter how minor or old –- will have difficulty finding work. After 9/11, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security began requiring truck drivers to undergo background checks in order to pick up or drop off loads at certain locations, such as ports. Truck drivers with a criminal record can request a waiver, but if the waiver is declined, a driver’s ability to work just about anywhere on the east or west coast is virtually destroyed, Berger of the Rutgers-Camden law clinic said. At least three or four times per semester, Berger said, his clinic hears from a truck driver who is having problems getting the necessary clearance to work at a port. The situation defies reason, Berger said. “You can understand how someone with an embezzlement conviction should not work in a bank or why someone with a child pornography charge should not work with kids," he said. "But you cannot understand how a drug conviction should disqualify someone from driving a truck or working as a janitor for the rest of their lives.” A series of lawsuits filed last year against staffing companies and corporations has highlighted just how common blanket bans on hiring applicants with criminal records have become. A 2010 suit filed against First Transit, Inc. alleges that the busing company won’t hire anyone who has been convicted of a felony or served a single day in jail. The practice isn’t limited to private employers. A class action lawsuit filed last year claims that the U.S. Census Bureau has refused to even consider applicants with criminal records for temporary Census jobs. “Another part of the problem is the total lack of regulation on background check providers and the extremely high number of errors that pop up in their reports,” said Elizabeth Farid, deputy director of the National HIRE Network. HIRE is a New York-based nonprofit founded by the Legal Action Center, an advocacy group that opposes hiring discrimination against those with criminal records, HIV/AIDS or a history of addiction. HIRE distributes information and advocates for policies that may expand job opportunities for people with criminal records. It also runs The Rap Sheet Workshop, in which job seekers with a criminal record are taught how to discuss their past in a frank but productive way. Participants are also shown how to identify duplications and errors and find help getting their records corrected. Some cities, including Chicago, and states such as Michigan have implemented policies that require public agencies or private employers to stop automatically screening anyone with a criminal record out of the applicant pool. But, there are also places like New Jersey. Andrews called the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General after the community college backed away from his job offer. Andrews said office staff told him that they were no longer taking on criminal background check-related civil rights cases. In an email, the New Jersey attorney general's office declined to comment on Andrew's case or its plans to pursue cases involving employers and criminal background checks. “If I had a hard time, I don’t know what the hell some of the people who are being released form jail are supposed to do,” said Andrews, who has found an adjunct slot teaching liberal arts courses at another New Jersey community college. “People have to be able to work.”

Isle Of Man Court Info To Go Online?

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The public and press may get improved access to information on court proceedings. Treasury Minister Anne Craine told the House of Keys that the General Registry was currently carrying out a review of access to information. ‘I will be happy to liaise with the chief registrar to bring in procedures regarding court lists so that information is available on matters before the courts,’ she said in reply to a question from Peter Karran (Lib Van, Onchan). But she added: ‘The review needs to balance accessibility with confidentiality requirements, when necessary, the best use of resources, which are primarily concerned with supporting the administration of justice, and ensure the information is accurate.’ Mrs Craine said unlike in the UK, there was currently no integrated court management system in place but work was currently being undertaken to provide information on court business on the courts website. ‘It is acknowledged the justice system on the island should be open and transparent,’ she said. But providing more on information on court business was subject to the availability of resources, she added. ‘Will she make sure that there is no excuse for trying to hide behind financial constraints,’ Mr Karran said. ‘Financial constraints are not an excuse; they are very real,’ Mrs Craine replied.

Man Wrongly Branded As A Criminal

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500

We all know to check our credit scores at least once a year for errors, but what about your background check? One Fort Myers man learned to do just that the hard way! A veteran of the Iraq war, he is now in a battle with his condo association over a background check he says is completely wrong. Joel Rosario didn't think he'd have any problem passing the background check with the condo association of his new complex. He's an army vet and in school under the GI bill studying homeland security. But what happened to him will make you ask more questions about what information companies are keeping on you! Joel Rosario carries the pictures of his service with him everywhere. "I was in the army. I was a parachute infantryman. I parachuted behind enemy lines March 26th 2003. I was 19 at the time," he told us. He also carries his lease to his condo in Venetian Palms. That's because he's always on the defense. Even though through the GI bill the Veteran's Administration is paying for him to live here, the condo association wants him out. "I just moved in last week and the second day I moved in I received a knock on my door from the maintenance man and a neighbor," Joel recalled. "The maintenance man proceeded to tell me I was not supposed to live here and the association had not approved me to move in; that I failed a background check." The Venetian Palms condo association gave him this letter just stating he failed their criminal background check. It gave no reason why. "I was a little confused because I have no criminal background. I'm a veteran from the Iraqi war and I am going to school for homeland security," he said. Joel even pulled his own criminal background check and it came back clear. "I provided it to the management here to a lady named Erin and she did not want to accept it. She said I had to go through their own background check and she did not provide me any paperwork or anything that said I failed a criminal background check," Joel told WINK News. Using his name and birth date, we ran Joel's background too. First by requesting it through the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. FDLE sent us a letter saying they could find no criminal record. We also checked it through our own service, the same one cited on the letter Joel received from the condo. It too came back clear. Then we ran him through the local court system and that's when we discovered something; another Joel Rosario, born a few months earlier, with a lengthy criminal past. Remember that background check Joel pulled on himself? At the very bottom it says "check ID because there is another Joel Rosario." "All I know is they probably have me confused with somebody else, obviously and I have veterans housing. In order to have that I can't be a criminal," Joel explained. We contacted the condo association. The property manager told us that Joel has all of the information he needs to fix the situation and referred us to their attorney who told us "no comment." But all Joel was provided to fix this situation was a phone number which lead to a series of automated messages. "Hopefully I can get an apology from them and they can go to my neighbors and tell them I am not a criminal and let me go to school and not have to worry about my car being here when I wake up in the morning or my things. I don't want my stuff taken," said Joel.

Victims Of Sex Trafficking Get Legal Protections Under New Nevada Law

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Sean Whaley A bill allowing victims of sex trafficking to clear their criminal records of prostitution-related crimes in order to get a fresh start in life was signed into law by Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval. Assembly Bill 6 is the most recent effort by Assemblyman John Hambrick, R-Las Vegas, to combat the illegal sex trade in Nevada that frequently involves underage children. “I am humbled by the support shown for the victims of sex trafficking,” Hambrick said. “It is a serious problem for our community and our country, and I’m proud that we have taken a step to help the victims who were not only forced into the sex trade but had to bear the burden of being convicted of prostitution.” The bill, which will take effect Oct. 1, received unanimous approval in both the Assembly and Senate. “It was hard work,” Hambrick said. “We had a lot of people within the community, particularly in the south, a large spectrum from the faith communities, the Jewish Federation, the Religious Alliance in Nevada, the two Catholic bishops, the Episcopal bishop, they all worked hard. I’m just very pleased it got through the way it did.” Efforts will continue to combat this problem, he said. “We have to continue this journey,” Hambrick said. “We started this last session going after the traffickers, this one is relief for the victims. The journey is not over with yet. Next session there will be additional bills coming forward.” According to Nevada law, it is a crime for anyone to engage in prostitution outside of a licensed Nevada brothel; however, AB6 will give Nevada courts the ability to vacate a judgment if the person was a victim of sex trafficking or involuntary servitude. “The victims of sex trafficking are often recruited as children, and this legislation can give them a fresh start without the conviction for prostitution, something completely beyond their control,” Hambrick said. The bill is a continuation of Hambrick’s successful efforts in the 2009 legislative session to combat human trafficking. He won unanimous support for a bill in 2009 providing for civil penalties of up to $500,000 against those convicted of human trafficking of minor children. Funds collected under the law can be used to provide care to those minors exploited for sexual purposes. Las Vegas was identified in 2009 by the FBI as one of 14 cities around the country with high rates of child prostitution.

Proposed Filipino National ID Will Control Crime

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Giving each Filipino one identification number for all transactions with the government will improve the delivery of public services, Senator Panfilo Lacson said. Lacson, who has revived a proposal for a singular ID system for the Philippines, said having just one ID number will simplify transactions with the Bureau of Internal Revenue, Social Security System, and other agencies. He said Filipinos have to keep track of so many different identification numbers on documents like driver's licenses, passports, and tax forms. "It is rare for a person to remember all these different multiple digit codes and to compound one's misery, some of these numbers need to be changed every so often. A person is thus forced to carry several different cards or documents," he said in the explanatory note to his bill. If Lacson's bill is passed, the national ID can be used for transactions with the SSS and the Government Service Insurance System. It will also serve as a valid ID for applications for driver's licenses, passports, marriage licences, death certificates, police clearances, and business permits. The proposed national ID will also serve as a Philippine Health Insurance Corp. card, as reference for job applications, and as a prerequisite for a voter's ID. Lacson added having a national ID system will help keep crime under control. He said that with so many IDs in use by different government agencies, it is a simple matter for a criminal to just change his name and get a new ID. He said some drivers have several licenses in their wallets in case they get stopped by traffic enforcers. "When they're apprehended for a serious traffic violation, they can just give away the license since they have four or five more (in their wallets)," he said. Having just one identification system will help prevent this, he said, since it will be easy to check an ID holder's criminal records. However, Lacson made it clear that the smart cards that he wants used for the national ID will not carry sensitive information like financial records and bank account numbers. "[The ID] will have the date of birth. Year, month, and date, so it can be cross referenced. And other basic information about the individual," he said

NYC Playground Fire - Bad You Tube Idea

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Hopes of being Internet daredevils is what led to P.S. 29's new playground set being charred and four teens being busted, fire officials said. Max Layton and Bairn Sweeney, both 16, along with two other neighborhood teens, surrendered to fire marshals at the 76th Precinct stationhouse, said FDNY Chief Fire Marshal Robert Byrnes. All the teens involved were charged with arson, reckless endangerment, trespassing and criminal mischief. The teens had wanted to make a YouTube video of one of them sliding through a trail of fire, Byrnes said. Their plan was to pour rubbing alcohol on the plastic slide and then record the action. They stuffed clothing and trash at the base of slide and lit the blaze, said Byrnes. But when the flames got too intense, they ran off — without filming anything. The blaze damaged the slide, swing, rock wall and rubber matting. All in all, the teens allegedly caused $50,000 worth of damages. That exact amount was deposited into an account opened by Attorney Sam Gregory on behalf of the teens parents. When officials at P.S. 29 were approached by Gregory, said Byrnes, they called the fire marshals. "They must be held accountable for their actions," Byrnes said. Gregory, who is representing Layton, called him a "good kid." "I just hope for the best. I hope everything turns out well for him," he said. Byrnes said the teens were caught with help from witnesses and the community. P.S. 29 parent Ariane Ben Eli, who penned two blog posts for Patch on the fire at the school, commended the teens for coming forward. "Despite being demonized and subjected to poor-little-rich-kid criticism, this boy came forward and is willing to subject himself to the legal process," she said. "That is admirable." "I would be thrilled if they offered to apologize to the students next," she added.

Les Rosen's Corner Eight Truths Employers Should Know

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Employment screening background checks have become a mission critical task to ensure employers avoid the legal and financial nightmare of hiring employees who are unfit, unqualified, dangerous, or dishonest. However, some employers have misconceptions concerning background checks. Here are eight simple truths every business, both large and small, should know about employment screening background checks. Truth #1. "Gut instincts" are not enough: It does not matter how good an employer is at interviewing, "gut instincts" are rarely enough to base a hiring decision on. There is a growing body of scientific evidence that suggests that people are not nearly as good at detecting liars as they think. The old phrase, "Trust but Verify," applies when hiring for a sensitive position. Truth #2. The higher the risk, the more due diligence is needed: A higher degree of due diligence is needed when hiring someone to work with vulnerable people such as children, the aged, and individuals with special needs. For example, infirmed individuals in a home are vulnerable and require a higher duty of care in selecting workers. Truth #3. Don't let background checks give a false sense of security: The term "background check" all by itself is practically meaningless, and can include anything from an in-depth private investigation to a near worthless instant online database search. Employers need to know what type of background check was done and the qualifications of the firm that performed the background check. They should look for a background check provider accredited by the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®). Truth #4. Background checks are not perfect: Even the FBI and the CIA do not always get background checks right. Although mistakes are uncommon, there are technical reasons why a person can come up "Clear" when in fact they have a criminal record. The crime may have been committed in a county not searched, or the applicant may have used an alias name. Also, a person that has never been convicted before may still commit a crime. This is especially a problem when employers use just databases. Truth #5. Stay away from cheap online databases: There are numerous web sites that claim to give online background checks, but these "online" sites have practically no value in many states. They are only useful to background check firms as another research tool. Most of these online sites do not even bother to inform employers of their legal obligations under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) that regulates the collection, dissemination, and use of informationwhich for employment screening background checks. Truth #6. The gold standard of background checks is the county court level search: Unless authorized by law to use LiveScan for fingerprints, the only in way in some states for employers to check a criminal report is to search at the county court level for each county where a person has lived, worked, or attended school. The gold standard of background checks is searching by county courts, supplemented by other searches. Anything short of that may be useless. It is also important to keep in mind that even fingerprint checks are not perfect. Truth #7. Remember the legal stuff: Employers performing background checks must sign a certification with the background screening firm they use and have their job applicants sign a Release and Disclosure form. A background screening firm willprovide those documents. This Release and Disclosure form is taken very seriously in most U.S. states. Truth #8. A background check is not enough all by itself: No matter how well done, a background check is not enough all by itself. In fact, the most effective tools to keep a business safe are usually free. They include the employment application, job interview, and past employment verification process. If employers do those three things well, the chances of hiring a bad employee are greatly reduced.

Family In Chicago Sues Bus Company

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The family of a 26-year-old woman fatally struck by a tour bus as she walked in a Chicago neighborhood filed a lawsuit claiming the owners of the bus were negligent in hiring a driver who had a history of traffic violations. The suit, filed in Cook County court by the family of Justyna Palka, names Pontarelli Group Charters, which operated the bus driven by David Soto. The vehicle struck Palka as she crossed Columbus at Illinois — with a green light — on May 3, the family’s attorneys said in a written statement. Soto, 47, of the 8600 block of West Berwyn, was charged with aggravated DUI resulting in death. He is being held without bond in the Cook County Jail. Soto allegedly tested positive for cocaine, the statement said. The suit claims Pontarelli was negligent in hiring and retaining a convicted felon who had 20 citations for traffic violations and whose Commercial Drivers License was temporarily suspended in 2008. “Pontarelli’s utter failure to ensure that its professional drivers were appropriately qualified resulted in a truly unnecessary loss of life,” attorney Thomas Demetrio said in the statement. “This lawsuit will expose the flaws in Pontarelli’s hiring and retention practices.” The suit also claims that if Pontarelli had done proper background checks, it would have known that Soto was also wanted for molesting children. After Palka was hit, police discovered Soto was wanted by authorities; he was also charged with predatory criminal sexual assault of a child and aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a victim under 13. Those charges involve 8- and 6-year-old girls who were attending a sleepover at his home in December 2008, Cook County prosecutors said at a court hearing earlier this month. Palka, who lived in the area, was an art director at the Ogilvy & Mather communications firm who had studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. “The Palka Family is justifiably devastated by the loss of Justyna. ... While their memory of this bright, loving, talented and beautiful young woman will endure, their grief is immeasurable,” attorney William Gibbs said in the statement.

Cook County Court Clerk Advocates Expungement

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown appeared before the City Council to help people remove minor offenses from their criminal records. Expungement, if granted, results in an offense being removed from one's record. Brown said it benefits the rest of society by making it easier for the individual to gain employment -- rather than rely on welfare or crime. "It spares them a lifetime of low employment or no employment," Brown said. "It also spares the victims of future crimes or the rest of us from paying the cost of social welfare." Not all criminal offenses are eligible. Generally, convictions on charges related to violence cannot be erased. Brown said it is possible for a person's first offense on a drug-related charge to be removed, along with up to a second offense for a prostitution-related charge. "There are a lot of people who have offenses on their records that are expungable, except that they didn't know," she said. Brown also said just about any juvenile charge occurring before age 17 can be expunged once a person turns 21. "Juveniles have the best chance to get things expunged from their records," she said.

Mind Your Business CEO Karen Caruso Honored at Small Business Week 2011 in Washington, DC

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Karen Caruso, CEO of Mind Your Business, Inc. and North Carolina Small Business Person of the Year for 2011, was honored in Washington, DC at the U.S. Small Business Administration's Small Business Week 2011, "Empowering Entrepreneurs." Based in Hendersonville, NC, Mind Your Business conducts pre-employment screening, applicant background checks, and drug and alcohol testing services for national and international clients, including individuals, corporations, and government entities. Caruso's inspiration to start her innovative business occurred in 1995 when she and her 10-month old daughter watched an episode of The Oprah Show on abusive child care providers. In 1996 - with $2500, one employee, a personal computer, and a vision - Caruso launched Mind Your Business in the basement of her New Jersey home. Caruso describes her initial thoughts on creating the company: "I immediately saw a huge void that needed to be filled. As a single mother, I recognized the importance of having a trusted service to ensure that children, customers, and other employees are not at risk." Caruso continues, "I'm proud that what started as a simple dream has grown into the thriving company Mind Your Business is today. I'm grateful to those who have helped us achieve this level of success." With the assistance of SBA sponsored counseling and training through SCORE and the North Carolina Small Business Technology and Development Center, Caruso has grown Mind Your Business exponentially from its humble beginnings. Today, Mind Your Business employs 15 full time employees and several hundred sub-contractors, and serves over 1500 businesses worldwide. Despite the tough economy, Mind Your Business posted record profits in 2009 and 2010, due in large part to its dedicated management team. The empowering story of Mind Your Business's inception - combined with Caruso's continued corporate leadership - perfectly align with the characteristics required of a U.S. Small Business Person of the Year honoree.

Pro-Marijuana Laws Don't Trump Employer Bans

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Medical marijuana seems to be a moving target with conflicting state and federal laws contributing to a confusing playing field. Employers having to deal with workers who may have Colorado medical marijuana cards just want to know what they’re supposed to do. Grant Butterfield, legal counsel for Pinnacol Assurance, the state's leading worker compensation insurer, offered his company's take on the issue at a business seminar Tuesday morning. The explosion in recent years in both medical marijuana patients and providers has made it an issue for a growing number of employers, Butterfield said. ‘‘There seems to be, and I don’t want to alarm anyone, an epidemic of chronic pain among 20-something males,’’ Butterfield joked. Butterfield reminded the group that marijuana remains an illegal drug under federal law, according to The Gazette newspaper. Colorado’s state law allowing medical marijuana doesn’t change that, he said. Nor does the state law require employers to change their drug policies. ‘‘Nothing in Amendment 20 requires an employer to accommodate the use of medical marijuana in the workplace,’’ he said. ‘‘There is no requirement to allow for smoke breaks.’’ Also, pre-employment drug screening, zero tolerance policies and random testing are all legal and a great way to screen for potential problems, Butterfield said. He acknowledged that such testing may get costlier in Colorado. ‘‘I gave this talk up in Estes Park and they were saying, 'We’d love to have zero tolerance, but our summer employees all come from Boulder,' ’’ Butterfield said. Mandatory drug testing after a workplace injury is another important policy for companies to have in place, he said. ‘‘Magically, a lot of claims go away if you require mandatory screening,’’ Butterfield said. ‘‘We can’t preach it enough.’’ Another step employers can take is to speak with their medical providers to learn their views on medical marijuana, he said. If desired, they can take their business to another provider, he said. Although the state law precludes health insurance plans from covering medical marijuana, it doesn’t say anything about worker compensation companies, Butterfield said.

So far, Pinnacol’s policy is not to pay for medical marijuana prescriptions and no one has challenged that, he said, but he expects the issue to come up at some point. Several employers at the presentation said that they haven’t had significant problems with employees using medical marijuana, but that it’s something they expect to keep an eye on. ‘‘We’ve only seen one case for a person with a (medical marijuana card),’’ said Jeff Kiersch, regional manager for Jiffy Lube. ‘‘We want to stay on top of it and make sure we’re fair to all our employees and that we’re keeping our employees and customers safe.’’

ROG Will Provide Background Checks To 500 Employee Food Service Comapany

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Cash Wa Distributing Co., a large regional food and tobacco wholesaler headquartered in Kearney, Neb., with locations in Nebraska, South Dakota and Kansas and with more than 500 employees, has chosen Retail Optimization Group LLC to be its provider of pre-employment background screening services. ROG will be supplying a full range of screening options via their online portal to help Cash Wa Distributing in making the best hiring decisions possible. In addition, Cash Wa Distributing has added the background screening solution to its Street Smart Program, allowing its customers access to the background screening program at a reduced cost. The Retail Optimization Group, Trumbull, Conn., is a consulting company working with single-store operators to 30-store chains. It implements retail technology for inventory control, best practices for human resourcing (including background checks), detailed knowledge of co-branding and negotiating with suppliers and offers the know-how to create effective store merchandizing. What ROG Says About Background Checks And Background Screeners There are many service providers and even more claims of lower prices, faster turnaround times and greater accuracy. While most providers are honest, some are not. It is confusing when one states that they can offer various searches that another says do not exist. Details can be left out so that it may appear that you are getting a court search when you are really getting a database search we make sure that everything is clearly explained and you can always find out exactly what information you are getting and from what source before you purchase it. Also: Many of our searches can be done online with results returned to you in less than one minute - You won't have to worry that the applicant may get another job offer before you can make your decision. Website: www.retailopgroup.com/screening.php#/1

University To Flash Names Of Students With Criminal Records

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500

To keep a check on students involved in misconduct of any kind,Panjab University plans to create a separate website with the names of such students on it so that the head of department, while granting admission, cancheck whether the student seeking admission is entitled to admission on account of previous conduct. Names of the students who indulged in any crime or sexual harassment in the campus, and against whom action has been taken by PU, will be uploaded on this site. The university's handbook printed for 2011-12 academic session clearly mentions that once a student has indulged himself/herself in misconduct of any manner whatsoever on the university campus and action has been taken against him/her, shall not be entitled to admission in any department of the university. The head of department shall ensure checking the website before granting admission and give a certificate on the admission form to that effect. PU vice-chancellor R C Sobti said, ''These are the precautionary steps taken to ensure that students who have been involved in misconduct earlier, do not get admission again in any course. All such names will be uploaded on the page to keep a record.'' The university plans to come-up with the website next month by the time admissions begin and upload names for misconduct on the site. Earlier university had printed the names of students involved in ragging and criminal activities in the university hand book to deter students from indulging in such acts.

We've Caused Problems In Canada

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500

With a substantial growth in residential building projects and an increase in government investment in the non-residential sector, the construction industry in Canada shows great progress and potential. Construction pumps $130 billion into Canada's economy, and all of these economic growth indicators signal that it's an ideal time to search for a construction job. Job numbers are forecasted to increase steadily across Canada in years to come, but unfortunately, because of the rising demand for skilled workers along with a large demographic of baby boomers retiring, the construction industry is expected to experience harsh labour shortages. On top of this, issues around criminal record checks are rising as a major barrier in the recruitment process when it comes to hiring skilled workers. Most companies who complete record checks do not screen past the "yes"or "no", don't look into what the record was for, when it was obtained or how it may or may not impact the working environment.

The Real 'Without A Trace,'NamUs, Reaches 15,000 Cases

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (http://www.namus.gov ), a national repository for information about missing and unidentified persons, recently reached a combined total of 15,000 cases in its two databases. The number of registered users has grown to 10,000 since NamUs was launched in January 2009. NamUs has been credited with resolving 62 missing and/or unidentified person cases. "Reaching 15,000 cases illustrates the exponential growth of NamUs," says John Laub, director of the National Institute of Justice. "In 2009, we doubled the number of missing person cases in the system, and last year we nearly tripled it. This continued growth is critical because with more cases in the system, more cases can be solved and more families can get the resolutions they have been seeking for so long." The public may register to search and report information in the missing person database and may search, but not add, information about unidentified persons. Law enforcement officers, coroners and medical examiners and other professionals may register to search and report information to both the missing person database and the unidentified persons database. More than two-thirds of the 10,000 registered NamUs users are members of the general public; the balance are death investigation professionals such as coroners, medical examiners and law enforcement officers.

FTC Says "Yes" To Facebook Activity Inclusion In Background Checks

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Rich Harris You now have another reason to check your privacy settings. According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, Social Intelligence Corp, has been given the legal thumbs up to archive seven years worth of your Facebook posts. These archives will be used by SIC (oh the applicability of the acronym) as part of their background checking service for job applicants. There are a couple sides to this argument that have been hashed out many times over. A hiring manager could say that they were glad they discovered that Johnny the master of the great resume also drank heavily every night and posted all his parties on Facebook - so they could avoid hiring him. The other side of the argument has been that if someone is functional, professional and sober at work, then why is it fair to factor in what they do outside of work when deciding if you should schedule an interview? As long as they are not a violent criminal or addicted to hard drugs, who cares? The biggest issue I have with this is that my Facebook activity (i.e. the pieces of my personal life that I chose to post) might not jive with the individual hiring manager, regardless if I’m amazing at my job, it’s a good fit, and everything else matches up. But what if said hiring manager, who maybe didn’t drink alcohol, had a bad experience with some jerk in Cabo who drank too much tequila at a club and picked a fight with him unprovoked while he was on his honeymoon? All of a sudden that photo of me sharing a pitcher of margaritas on Cinco de Mayo with my buddies bounces me off his short list of contenders. The problem with allowing personal life activities to play a factor in background checks and hiring decisions is that there are many in life that work hard and play hard. There are many things that people do for fun that offend others or make them uncomfortable, regardless of how harmless it actually is. Will companies now spend more time looking for the penultimate employee who has not only the required skills and education, but also has a specific name, favorite food genre, never attended Burning Man, likes to wear t-shirts on the weekend, loves gardening, and hangs with a certain circle of friends that are “comfortable” enough for that manager to emotionally accept? That is a slippery slope…..like the U.S. workforce doesn’t have enough subtle instances of discrimination that slip by in several top companies. But that’s another post for another time. Here’s to hoping that those hiring managers that check the Facebook profiles of potential candidates are level-headed enough to realize that everyday life happens and that while someone may do something different than they do in their spare time, they may also be good employees and high-quality people to boot.

West Virginia Courts Catching Up To 21st Century

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Monongalia County's (WV) magistrate court is the second in the state to begin using a new computer system that will likely link court records throughout West Virginia by 2016. The Unified Judicial Application (UJA) system eventually will allow area residents to obtain information about crimes that occur elsewhere in the state without leaving Monongalia County -- or their homes. A new public-access terminal was set up at Monongalia County Magistrate Court last week. Supreme Court Administrator Steve Canterbury hopes court records will be available to the public online after a third of the state's 55 counties begin using the UJA system at the magistrate court level.

Quarter Of UK Population Will Be On New Police Database

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The personal details of 15 million people, a quarter of the population of Britain, will be held on a new police database which will include information about victims of crime, it has emerged. The Police National Database, which will be launched by UK ministers next week, will hold the records up to six million apparently innocent people, including every victim of sexual assault and domestic violence. Civil liberties groups and senior MPs yesterday expressed concern at the scale of the database and the number of people who will be able to access it. According to official figures a total of 9.2 million people in the UK have criminal records, which means the new database will hold information about up to six million people who have not committed an offence.

San Diego District Attorney Putting Basic Criminal Case Info Online

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The San Diego County District Attorney's office announced that it has set up a new web page so the public can access basic information on open criminal cases, as well as receive email notification of court dates for specific cases. A link to "Case Information" can be found on the front page of the District Attorney's public website, which is at www.sdcda.org. Available information includes the defendant's name, next court date, time and location, Superior Court case number, District Attorney case number, and the name of the judge hearing the matter. Users can also sign up for email alerts for future information about particular cases. Only active cases issued by the district attorney's office will be available on the website.

More Than One Million Crimes Not On UK Police Database

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500

More than one million crimes, including murders and rapes, are not on the Police National Computer because forces are refusing to pay a fee to obtain the criminal history of offenders. A fifth of all crimes committed before 1995 are not on the national database because police must pay £100 to access each one from microfiche. It means suspects could have slipped through the net or offenders have been handed softer sentences because the police and courts were unaware of their full criminal past. The revelation has "profound implications" for public safety and puts police operations at risk, the HM Inspectorate of Constabulary warned. And yet employers may be handed the details because bodies doing criminal record checks for employees are not charged. A spokesman for the National Police Improvement Agency (NPIA), the body which runs the microfiche library, said there are now plans to reduce the fee by charging others. The Police National Computer (PNC) was introduced in 1995 and has electronically recorded all offences since then. The national database is used by all police officers to check a suspect or offender to see if they have any previous convictions. Police also use it to draw up an individual's criminal history to pass on to the Crown Prosecution Service to inform a sentencing court. Prior to 1995, offences were documented on microfiche and contained 5.2 million records at its height, many of which have since been transferred to the PNC. However, since April last year forces have been charged £100 for every request to access such a file and requests fell by half to around 40 requests a month. The HMIC report said police are no longer requesting details of early convictions because it costs too much money. Some 1.2 million records, including murders, rapes, arson and GBH, have still not been entered on to the PNC. It means police investigating an individual will not know their full past and courts may hand out a lesser sentence because they are unaware of a long previous history.

One HMIC source warned police investigating a rape and searching for suspects may not be aware of a convicted rapist in the area because their crime was historic and not on the system. The report concluded: "Police forces believe this charge to be excessive and consequently are not requesting the details of pre-1995 convictions. "Since the charge was introduced in April 2010 the number of 'fiche requests from forces has decreased. The inescapable conclusion is that police forces are not updating records with 'fiche-based convictions because the charge is considered to be excessive." It added: "This can only impact adversely upon operational police efficiency and public safety." It said it was a "matter is of concern" and that the issue "should be addressed as a matter of course with a view to reducing the unrealistic financial burden upon forces by the NPIA". A joint statement from the NPIA and the Association of Chief Police Officers said: "Public safety is at the heart of the NPIA and the police service's work. "Police officers will make a professional judgement about when they need to seek further information concerning an individual. "This would routinely include incidents where an arrest or charge has been made. "Where the PNC does not hold a full record of a known individual, it will have a marker alerting police officers that information is held on microfiche. "We have no evidence that police forces are not performing their public duty by requesting the details held on microfiche. We would find it hard to believe that any force would put public safety at risk for an interim charge of £100."

Costa Rica Catches On To Criminal Pasts

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500

A total of 324 people who wanted to join the ranks of the Costa Rica Fuerza Pública (police) were rejected for having a criminal records, many for participating in riots, having a record for theft, use or possession of illegal drugs, for disobedience to authority and even for the manufacturing of explosives. According to the Ministerio de Seguridad Pública (MSP), the 324 were part of the 1.512 aspiring to be a police official during this year. The number of rejections represents 21% or 2 out of every ten applicants to the Escuela Nacional de Policía (National Police Academy). The MSP says that the rejections also included people who did not pass the "vida y costumbres" (life and customs) requirement introduced in 2010 and required of every police recruit.

Warren (OH) Municipal Court Records Available Online

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500

As part of an ongoing upgrade to the computer system used by Warren Municipal Court, the court’s records system is now available online. By visiting the website www.co.trumbull.oh.us and using the link at the lower left, visitors can now access civil and criminal records so that users can keep track of their own cases, see court hearing dates, court cost amounts, and status of warrants.

Panchkula Court To Put Data Online

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Litigants, who are contesting cases in the district court here, will soon be able to access the cause list and daily judgments at the click of a mouse. This will happen when district gets its website. Such a facility is available at Punjab and Haryana high court. A senior district administration official said they were creating the portal with the help of National Informatics Centre. ''This will allow us to provide these facilities. That was not possible earlier. E-infrastructure committee of Supreme Court is providing every kind of help to us for this purpose,'' he added. Litigants and advocates of the region had been demanding the facility since long. Cause lists contain schedule of cases to be heard in the respective courts on any given day. A court official said daily orders of the Panchkula court will be made available on the website within 48 hours of the judge delivering those.

Czech Ombudsman's Analysis Shows Job Announcement Discrimination

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500

A recent analysis published by the Czech ombudsman, Pavel Varvarovský, has revealed an unflattering fact: Of more than 1 200 job announcements published on the internet server www.prace.cz, the largest web portal for job offerings in the Czech Republic, one-sixth contain at least one discriminatory requirement. Job-seekers are thus being pre-emptively excluded from employment opportunities. In more than 600 job ads, the ombudsman found the requirement that candidates present evidence of whether they have a criminal record. In the vast majority of cases, a clean criminal record was a requirement. The ombudsman warns that unless the job requirement of a clean criminal record is established by law, consideration must always be given to whether submitting documentation of a criminal record is essential and proportionate. The ombudsman considers it discrimination in situations where a firm requires a clean criminal record of persons applying as unskilled laborers for construction or landscaping work. The requirement of a clean criminal record for unqualified manual labor is inadequate and negatively impacts convicts doing their best to gain legal employment after serving their sentences. Varvarovský says such requirements significantly complicate the process of preventing recidivism through re-socializing former prisoners. The ombudsman believes employers may request criminal records if it is necessary given the nature of the work involved. Should an employer come to the conclusion that such information is necessary, the nature of the crime committed should also be taken into account. If the job candidate committed a crime that is unrelated to the job he or she is seeking, it is not proportionate for the candidate to be rejected solely on the basis of his or her criminal past. For example, it would be legitimate to reject a person convicted of maltreatment of persons in their care for the position of an educator, or to reject someone convicted of theft for the position of cashier. However, it would be disproportionate not to hire such persons for gardening work.

How Far Back Does Your Vendor Search?

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500

A register of medieval court rolls, surveys and maps, has been released online for the first time. Information about 200 Nottinghamshire manors is accessible to the public thanks to the county council's archives team. "Manorial documents are the earliest records for any local community," said archivist Mark Dorrington. The register, with documents dating back to the 13th century, was funded by The National Archives. Manors were agricultural estates compromising a village whose inhabitants would work the land for the estate's lord. The manorial documents, which pre-date Parish records started in 1538, include such details as the hanging of a thief, men accused of sheep theft and a fight in 14th century Mansfield. "We've got documents dating back to the 13th century and with some manors they continue right up until the 20th century," said Mr Dorrington. He added that they could help people discover more about their family history. "There's information on individuals, on relationships, particularly where land is being transferred from father to son," he added. Anyone who wishes to search for a manorial document has to go through The National Archives website. The original documents are spread across 49 different locations; most of them are kept in the UK and some reside in the USA.

Dennis Brownstein's Xtreme Court News (Updated July 25)

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Sex And Stealing from The Blind A man was arrested after stealing from the blind cashier at the Hamilton County Courthouse deli on Tuesday. According to police, Reese Philpot, 58, of Cincinnati, walked into the Courthouse Deli and asked Kent Parker, the visually impaired owner of the deli, to give him change for a $5 bill, when in fact, Philpot gave him a $1 bill. Parker gave Philpot four quarters and four dollar bills. When Parker went to make change for the next customer, that customer was short changed and told Parker that he handed her a $1 bill instead of a $5. Sheriff Deputies were immediately notified and the surveillance video was reviewed. According to police, the video clearly showed Philpot presenting the $1 bill and receiving change for a $5 bill. At the time of the theft, Philpot was picking up trash and cleaning outside of the courthouse as part of his community service requirements for his probation. Philpot is a registered sexual predator. He was indicted in January 2010 for being in violation of his sex offender registration duties. He didn't notify the Sheriff's Office about his change of address. Philpot was arrested Wednesday afternoon and charged with one count of theft of a visually impaired victim; a 5th degree felony. He was taken to the Hamilton County Justice Center to await arraignment.

Straightline International Criminal Record Background Checks Opens Office In Mumbai

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Steven Brownstein announces that a Straightline International office is being established in Mumbai, India to handle the growing global presence of their criminal record checking business in India. Brownstein says that because the current companies offering criminal record checks in India are performing well below the expected standards, the need for a professional company like Straightline International has never been greater. "I'm tired of their excuses." The Mumbai office will be headed by Faheem Ebrahim, Director of Asian Operations, from his Hong Kong based office.

EEOC Reconsiders Policy On Criminal Background Checks

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Lisa Rein The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is reexamining its requirement that employers do criminal background checks on job applicants, scheduling a hearing Tuesday on whether arrest and conviction records are a hiring barrier for minorities. An increasing number of employers are seeking background checks out of security concerns. Federal policy currently prevents companies from using criminal records to screen out job applicants unless the criminal conduct is job related. The EEOC and other anti-discrimination advocates argue that because African Americans and Hispanics have higher rates of arrest and convictions than whites, they could suffer discrimination if companies do blanket criminal background checks that eliminate them from consideration for a job. But civil rights groups and some EEOC members argue that background checks don’t necessarily prevent someone from being hired, but provide employers with more information than they otherwise would have. Credit background checks, which are permitted under federal law, are not up for reconsideration. The commission heard a plea last week from the sister of an Orlando, Fla., woman who opened her home in 2001 to a convicted sex offender working for a local air-duct cleaning company and was raped and beaten to death by him. “Is this too much to ask, that employers take appropriate steps to ensure the safety of their customers from their employees?”Lucia Bone, founder of the Sue Weaver C.A.U.S.E. (Consumer Awareness of Unsafe Service Employment), wrote to the commission. Bone’s group is campaigning for legislation requiring criminal background checks on service employees. In recent years, the EEOC has filed at least two lawsuits against companies that have adopted criminal history policies the commission believes have a disparate effect on African Americans and Hispanics.

Steve Brownstein Has Not Retired (The Background Investigator)

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Steve Brownstein, the Background Investigator, has not retired. (dated August 18,20011). I have found there are many individuals with my same name, one has a posting 'Steve Brownstein Has Retired.' Not me. That Steve Brownstein; I have found there are many individuals with my same name, the one I'm writing about one has a posting 'Steve Brownstein Has Retired.' I have had several conversations with him when he first joined the Chicago PD, he's retired. Too soon, I might add. He could have been on an animal cop show. He was that good. As a matter of fact, all of us Steve Brownstein's, we work hard.

Random Sampling Of Pilots' Criminal Records Unlawful In NZ

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The Civil Aviation Authority will no longer be able to randomly sample the criminal records of pilots, following a court decision. The High Court ruled on Wednesday that sampling done under a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Justice is unlawful. However, the judge has made it clear his ruling does not mean the authority is prohibited from obtaining access to pilots' criminal record information. CAA director Steve Douglas will review the judgment and consider options available and says he is determined to act in a lawful and appropriate way. Mr Douglas says access to information regarding conviction records is an essential element of monitoring safety.

Should Teachers Be Warned About Students' Criminal Histories?

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0500

On the morning of September 23, 2009, music therapist and special education teacher Todd Henry reported for duty at John Tyler High School in Tyler, Texas. It was just two weeks into the school year, and Henry was still getting acquainted with his new crop of students, including 16-year-old Byron Truvia. Henry was never told about Truvia's troubled past. At the age of 10, the boy's mother had him committed to a psychiatric hospital. At 14, Truvia stabbed his sister, and was detained by the Texas Youth Commission for two years. He was released in the fall of 2009 just in time to start the school year in Mr. Henry's class. On that fateful September morning at 8:50 a.m., Truvia attacked 50-year-old Henry, stabbing him repeatedly in the neck and shoulders. The beloved music teacher died later that day. Henry's tragic death prompted Texas to change its policy on juvenile disclosure. Gov. Rick Perry recently signed a new law giving educators more access to information about students' criminal histories. The measure requires law enforcement agencies to provide school superintendents with all pertinent details of offenses committed by juvenile justice system parolees. Superintendents must then pass the information on to principals and teachers, who would also receive written notification of student arrests. Rep. Jerry Madden, the legislation's sponsor, said that the law ensures "a safe learning environment" for teachers and students. Texas educators agreed, and strongly supported the measure.

Over 900 UK Police Staff Caught Misusing Databases

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0500

More than 900 police personnel were disciplined for unlawful data protection practices in the past three years, privacy campaigners have said. Figures released by 36 police forces in England and Wales under freedom of information (FOI) requests by Big Brother Watch (BBW) stated that 904 police officers and civilian employees were disciplined for offences under the Data Protection Act in the three years up to 1 June 2011. Under the Act organisations that are responsible for holding personal information have a number of legal obligations, including ensuring that the data is processed fairly and is secure from accidental loss, damage or destruction. The figures also showed that 98 police officers and civilian staff left the force after management discovered their unlawful activity. One police officer accessed information about their neighbour, while a police sergeant passed information about his ex-wife to his solicitor, the statement said. In Dorset a police officer resigned and was referred to crown prosecutors after disclosing information about the supply of class A drugs to a third party, the statement said. "Our investigation shows that not only have police employees been found to have run background records checks on friends and possible partners, but some have been convicted for passing sensitive information to criminal gangs and drug dealers," Daniel Hamilton, Director of Big Brother Watch, said in a statement. "This is at best hugely intrusive and, at worse, downright dangerous," Hamilton said. Police forces must adopt a zero tolerance approach to this kind of behaviour. Those found guilty of abusing their position should be sacked on the spot," Hamilton said. Seven police officers from the West Midlands force were criminally prosecuted within the three-year period under violations of the Data Protection Act, the highest number recorded by any of the forces, the BBW statement said. Kent police force reported that 10 staff had had their employment terminated for data protection law breaches, according to the BBW statistics. Merseyside and West Midlands reported that seven staff left, the BBW said. Merseyside police reported that 208 staff were legally cautioned for "viewing a computer record relating to a high profile arrest", according to the BBW statement. A spokeswoman for Merseyside police said that of the 208 Merseyside personnel noted in the report one person had been prosecuted. The majority of the other 207 had received "management advice" on the forces' data protection policies while seven resigned, the spokeswoman said. Seven forces either did not reply or did not provide information, the BBW said. In a statement sent to OUT-LAW, a spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) said that a high standard of conduct is expected of police staff. "All officers are subject to the standards of professional behaviour set out in the Police Conduct Regulations," the statement said. "These regulations are very clear and state that police officers must be honest, act with integrity and do not compromise or abuse their position. Officers hold a position of trust, with privileged access to data and systems, and they have a positive duty to demonstrate that trust to the communities we serve," it said. "When an officer's conduct, on duty or off duty, falls below the standards, there will be an investigation into what has occurred and if the allegation is proven then appropriate action will be taken," the statement said. The UK's data protection watchdog, the Information Commissioner's Office said that police personnel have a duty to observe data protection principles. "Police officers and civilian staff can have access to substantial collections of often highly sensitive personal information," the ICO said. "It is important that they do not abuse this access and only use the information for their policing duties." "We expect police forces to make substantial proactive efforts to check that any access to their records is for legitimate police purposes and to take action where they discover wrongdoing. Public officials who abuse their positions can face serious consequences including criminal prosecution under the Data Protection Act," the ICO said.

Muskegon County, MI Removes Free Court Record Searches

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0500

An April 1 decision to remove two public computer terminals is coming under fire by residents, attorneys and private investigators. The terminals were removed to make room to process concealed weapons permits, reports the Muskegon Chronicle. Officials for the county point out that people can search the court records both online and in the clerk offices. Opponents, however, note that both options require a person to pay for access to the search. Private investigator Karen Harvey says the loss of the public terminals has impacted her business already. Harvey said she has been searching Muskegon County criminal and civil records since 1996. As a private investigator, she accesses circuit court records for pre-employment background screenings, bonding purposes and landlord-tenant matters, among others. Harvey said companies need to be aware that private investigators are finding it more difficult to perform background checks. She said she is considering legal action. "They are jeopardizing workplace safety," Harvey said. We just can't do our jobs thoroughly enough anymore. Courts are allowed under the Freedom of Information Act to charge reasonable fees for providing access to public documents, as well as for searching for those documents. However, the courts in Michigan tend to charge significantly more in fees than most public bodies. The courts have set fees for copying court files usually a dollar per page. That can lead to hefty fees to access court files.

New Study: Black Men Survive Longer In Prison Than Out

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Black men are half as likely to die at any given time if they're in prison than if they aren't, suggests a new study of North Carolina inmates. The black prisoners seemed to be especially protected against alcohol- and drug-related deaths, as well as lethal accidents and certain chronic diseases. But that pattern didn't hold for white men, who on the whole were slightly more likely to die in prison than outside, according to findings published in Annals of Epidemiology. Researchers say it's not the first time a study has found lower death rates among certain groups of inmates -- particularly disadvantaged people, who might get protection against violent injuries and murder. "Ironically, prisons are often the only provider of medical care accessible by these underserved and vulnerable Americans," said Hung-En Sung of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. "Typically, prison-based care is more comprehensive than what inmates have received prior to their admission," Sung, who wasn't involved in the new study, told Reuters Health by email. The new study involved about 100,000 men between age 20 and 79 who were held in North Carolina prisons at some point between 1995 and 2005. Sixty percent of those men were black. Researchers linked prison and state health records to determine which of the inmates died, and of what causes, during their prison stay. Then they compared those figures with expected deaths in men of the same age and race in the general population. Less than one percent of men died during incarceration, and there was no difference between black and white inmates. But outside prison walls, blacks have a higher rate of death at any given age than whites. "What's very sad about this is that if we are able to all of a sudden equalize or diminish these health inequalities that you see by race inside a place like prison, it should also be that in places like a poor neighborhood we should be able to diminish these sort of inequities," said Evelyn Patterson, who studies correctional facilities at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. "If it can be done (in prison), then certainly it can happen outside of prison," Patterson, who wasn't linked to the new work, told Reuters Health. As in the general population, cancer and heart and blood vessel diseases were the most common cause of death among inmates -- accounting for more than half of deaths. White prisoners died of cardiovascular diseases as often as expected and died of cancer slightly more often than non-prisoners. Black inmates, by contrast, were between 30 and 40 percent less likely to die of those causes than those who weren't incarcerated. They were also less likely to die of diabetes, alcohol- and drug-related causes, airway diseases, accidents, suicide and murder than black men not in prison. All told, their risk of death at any age was only half that of men living in the community. For white men, the overall death rate was slightly higher -- by about 12 percent -- than in the general population, with some of that attributed to higher rates of death from infection, including HIV and hepatitis. When the researchers broke prisoners up by age, death rates were only higher for white prisoners age 50 and older. "For some populations, being in prison likely provides benefits in regards to access to healthcare and life expectancy," said study author Dr. David Rosen, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. But, he added in an email, "it's important to remember that there are many possible negative consequences of imprisonment -- for example, broken relationships, loss of employment opportunities, and greater entrenchment in criminal activity -- that are not reflected in our study findings but nevertheless have an important influence on prisoners' lives and their overall health." For Rosen, one of the main messages from the study is the need to make the world outside of prison walls safer, and to make sure people living there have adequate access to healthcare.

Some Indiana Records Soon To Disappear

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Thousands of Indiana residents with old low-level criminal records can now ask a judge to seal information about those convictions from employers and others under a new state law meant to give those who've turned their lives around a second chance. The law that took effect covers those who completed their sentences more than eight years ago on misdemeanors or low-level felonies that aren't violent crimes or sex crimes. Police could still view the court records, but they would be off-limits to non-criminal justice uses. State Rep. Bill Crawford, D-Indianapolis, said he hoped it would help remove barriers to employment for former offenders. "The best crime-fighting tool we can have is a good job," he said. The law approved by legislators this spring also allows people to ask for restricted access to their court records if the charges were dismissed, if they were acquitted or if the conviction was later vacated. Those who get approval for the limited access wouldn't be required to disclose their arrests on an employment application or any other document unrelated to the criminal justice system. "We really don't have any idea what kind of numbers we could be looking at for applicants," Scott Hohl, chief of staff with the Marion County clerk's office said. One example: Quinn Minor of Indianapolis filed to seal the records of his two convictions for receiving stolen property in 1997 and 1999. Minor, now 35 and working in customer service at the insurance company Anthem, said he is not the same man he was in his early 20s. "These cases that I have, they're older than my kids," said Minor, a married father of three. "I just need to move forward, and I'm happy that this is an opportunity I can have today." Previous state law allowed an ex-offender to petition a judge to seal his or her records after 15 years.

California Statewide Criminal Search Flawed

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The criminal records system California is so poorly maintained that it routinely fails to alert officials to a subject's full criminal history. The computerized log exists to provide an instant snapshot of a criminal past, informing police, regulators and potential employers of offenses such as murder, rape and drug dealing in a person's background. But nearly half of the arrest records in the database don't say whether the person in question was convicted. Information from millions of records buried at courts and law enforcement agencies has never been entered in the system. "There are obviously serious public safety implications if that database is incomplete," said Dennis Henigan, president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. California has a shoddy system for collecting case results from 58 county courts and hundreds of local prosecutors and police agencies, said Travis LeBlanc, a special assistant attorney general who oversees technology operations in the state Department of Justice. The final outcome "- guilty, not guilty, case dismissed" is missing for about 7.7 million of the 16.4 million arrest records entered into state computers over the last decade, according to LeBlanc. More than 3 million of those are felony arrests.

Ohio Company May Nab Local Background Screening Account

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Luzerne County commissioners are considering hiring Ohio-based IntelliCorp Records Inc. to conduct background checks of prospective employees. The cost is $19.95 per check. The county does about 240 pre-employment checks a year, and prison employees had been doing the checks on the state's criminal-record computer database, county Manager/Chief Clerk Doug Pape said. But the state recently informed the county it could no longer use the state criminal-record database for pre-employment screening except for prison employment, Pape said. Sheriff's department and 911 employees can use the database to screen prospective employees, but also only for employment in those departments, Pape said. In 2006 and 2007, the county paid two companies more than $50,000 for screening services. Those companies were tied to Bill Maguire, then the county municipal coordinator, and Doug Richards, then the county's human resources director. Richards and Maguire have pleaded guilty to corruption charges and have been cooperating with federal authorities. Maguire has not been sentenced, and Richards is seeking a reduction in a 15-month prison sentence for helping run a dummy payroll-preparation corporation that received a no-bid county contract and secretly paid him thousands of dollars. William Grub, a former New York City police officer, wined and dined county officials on trips to Manhattan and gave each of them key chains attached to small boxes stuffed with up to $4,000, according to a pre-sentence report prepared by federal probation officials in Richards' case. The report says Maguire and Richards received cash-stuffed key chains. Grub had a financial interest in companies paid by the county for personnel services and law-enforcement consulting. Pape said IntelliCorp was "the least expensive" company that offered pre-employment screening services. The company provides services to Miami-Dade County in Florida and the city of Phoenix, Pape said. County commissioners (at the time of this publication) plan to vote on the IntelliCorp motion at their meeting in Wright Township.

Should Abuse History Be Revealed To New Partners?

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Alyssa McDonald A senior NSW policeman says Australia would be foolish to dismiss a move for a "Clare's Law" to let women find out if their partners have a history of domestic violence. The UK government is considering introducing the legislation, in part as a reaction to the growth of online dating. The NSW Police Force's spokesman on Domestic and Family Violence, Assistant Commissioner Mark Murdoch, said it would be interesting to see the outcome of the British debate over the law. Advertisement: Story continues below "We'd be foolish to dismiss it," he said. "The internet is part of our lives and we potentially can't do without it. So we need to be able to live with it, be able to manage it." He believes the background of the proposal for Clare's Law is a significant issue "and it will probably become more significant as people use the internet more and more".

He pointed out that a broader strategy of internet safety education was also needed, and that a balance needs to be struck between protecting potential victims and safeguarding individuals' records. "Clare's Law" is named in reference to Clare Wood, who was killed in February 2009 by a man she met through Facebook. George Appleton strangled the 36-year-old from Salford, Greater Manchester, before setting her body on fire and hanging himself. It was later revealed that police were aware of Appleton's violent history, which included the knifepoint kidnapping of a former girlfriend. He was known to look for women through social networking sites. As online dating has grown, increasing numbers of people are meeting new partners over the internet about whom they have little or no background information. In New South Wales, like the UK, reports of domestic violence have also risen: the Bureau of Crime Statistics found a 3.3 per cent increase in Sydney, and a 1.2 per cent increase statewide, in the 24 months to March 2011. Under the Clare's Law proposal, women and men would be able to raise concerns about a partner with the police. More controversially, it has also been suggested that police could alert someone to a partner's history of violence, even if an approach for information had not been made. The British proposal has backing from the Association of Chief Police Officers, from government figures and from Clare Wood's father, Michael Brown, who told the UK's Mail on Sunday: "My daughter wasn't stupid. If she had known about that man's past she would have taken herself out of there in a heartbeat." However, Janet Loughman, Principal Solicitor of Women's Legal Services NSW said: "A criminal record check would not expose the significant amount of domestic violence that goes unreported or without convictions." "The absence of a record may give women a false sense of security." "Another concern would be that disclosure of past violence may not affect a woman's decision about entering a relationship, depending on the point in the relationship at which the check is made." "The cyclical nature of domestic violence can mean that women stay with men they know to be violent, believing that it won't happen again."

Clare's Law is equally problematic for civil liberties campaigners.

"Sometimes these laws do have the consequence of vigilante behaviour," said David Burnie of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties. Judging people on past convictions also undermines the concept of rehabilitation, he said. How do you determine if something is a history of violence or a one-off event? It does really raise these questions about people wanting to put their past behind them not being able to do so.

There are also practical issues: to obtain somebody's criminal record normally requires a complete name and date of birth. Not everybody has access to these in the first stages of a relationship, whether or not their partner might have a motive for concealing them. There are also potential problems for the police, Murdoch said. "Without being unkind to anyone, there would be people who change their partners like they change their underwear," he said.

Trying to keep track of every new relationship would just become ridiculous. The idea behind Clare's Law follows legislation known in the UK as Sarah's Law, and as Megan's Law in the US. Both laws allow the public to access information about the whereabouts of convicted paedophiles. The potential for similar legislation in Australia been discussed for over a decade, but fears that such a system would encourage the kind of vigilante behaviour which has been seen in the UK and US have persisted.

EEOC Reconsiders Policy On Criminal Background Checks

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0500

By Lisa Rein The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is reexamining its requirement that employers do criminal background checks on job applicants, scheduling a hearing on whether arrest and conviction records are a hiring barrier for minorities. An increasing number of employers are seeking background checks out of security concerns. Federal policy currently prevents companies from using criminal records to screen out job applicants unless the criminal conduct is job related. The EEOC and other anti-discrimination advocates argue that because African Americans and Hispanics have higher rates of arrest and convictions than whites, they could suffer discrimination if companies do blanket criminal background checks that eliminate them from consideration for a job. But civil rights groups and some EEOC members argue that background checks don't necessarily prevent someone from being hired, but provide employers with more information than they otherwise would have. Credit background checks, which are permitted under federal law, are not up for reconsideration. "Is this too much to ask, that employers take appropriate steps to ensure the safety of their customers from their employees?" Lucia Bone, founder of the Sue Weaver C.A.U.S.E. (Consumer Awareness of Unsafe Service Employment), wrote to the commission. Bone's group is campaigning for legislation requiring criminal background checks on service employees. In recent years, the EEOC has filed at least two lawsuits against companies that have adopted criminal history policies the commission believes have a disparate effect on African Americans and Hispanics.

Iowa Supreme Court: Records Remain Even When Defendant Wins

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Winning a criminal court case does not mean that defendants are allowed to have their electronic court records hidden from public view, Iowa Supreme Court justices has ruled. But justices left the door open to possible further action by them to address concerns raised in two Linn and Polk county court cases where lower-court judges had moved to shield the records from public view. The opinion noted that the justices are mindful of concerns about on-line public access to criminal cases that were terminated in the defendant's favor.

Oklahoma Online Court Records To Be Uniform

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Two case management systems and 77 county clerks have created a hodgepodge of electronic court records available online for public review in Oklahoma. That could change starting next year, when the first four counties to join a statewide management system go online. In 2007, the Oklahoma State Courts Network began raising money to fund a searchable electronic system to replace a largely paper-based system. The decision about whether to post the electronic court records that have been collected in past years has been left to individual county clerks. But that could soon change. The new statewide system, which will cost about $28 million, will allow users to read specific court filings online. Plans call for each county to post the same type of records, thus turning the hodgepodge into a uniform state filing system across all 77 counties. Currently, only a few counties post a wide range of electronic documents, and Tulsa County is not one of them. "I have the full expectation from the time we run this out ... we'll be adding the same records for every county in the same way," said Mike Evans, administrative director of the courts. "That's not how it's been done in the past." Evans said it's still unclear what records will be posted online and in what form. The Tulsa County Court Clerk's Office posts online only specific filings related to small claims court cases. Sally Howe Smith, Tulsa County's court clerk, said concerns about publishing private information, such as Social Security numbers, have kept her office from putting additional court filings online. Smith said she wouldn't mind posting more documents as long as county clerks are protected from lawsuits alleging a violation of privacy. Possible ways to tackle confidentiality issues include a law or court ruling stating that the filer has to advise the court of any confidential information in the documents or a law stating that the filer would not hold the court clerk liable for the information's release, Smith said. But other court clerks, including those in Oklahoma, Cleveland and Garfield counties, already post a wealth of documents online. Garfield County posts about 15 types of records online, including those related to traffic tickets, wildlife tickets, criminal felonies and most criminal misdemeanors, Court Clerk Margaret Jones said. The office began posting records online in 2000 and expanded the effort when she became clerk in 2007, Jones said. Publishing the records makes researching information convenient, she said. "Law enforcement will have immediate access to needed information; attorneys can review documents to assist with their cases; people with rental property use it to check the background of renters; and genealogists find it very useful," Jones said. Although the state Supreme Court has yet to decide what information would be posted online under the new system, Jones said she's looking forward to the statewide system. "With the completion of the new system, I expect to manage our time more efficiently, improve collections and provide the citizens of Garfield County the best service possible," she said. "It is a win-win situation for everyone."

DeSoto, MS Records Go Online

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0500

DeSoto County is next on the list of counties to try out the new Mississippi Electronic Court system, which will allow attorneys to file court proceedings online. Mississippi Supreme Court Chief Justice William Waller Jr. traveled to DeSoto County Monday to explain the Mississippi Electronic Court pilot system to DeSoto County attorneys and legal officials. "We're excited we have the system coming to DeSoto," said Chancery Clerk Sluggo Davis. "We've been waiting two years, and we are ready and able to make it work." The program was tested first in Madison County where it is now mandatory in their chancery and circuit courts. The system is similar to the federal Pacer system because it has been developed on a contract with the federal government. The state pays service fees and staff salaries. "We felt like we needed to get into this and see which system was right for us," Waller said. "We kept coming back to the federal system because they have been using it 19 years and they spent tens of millions of dollars developing it so we thought it would be a good system." The system has been implemented in Madsion, Scott and Warren counties and is now expanding to DeSoto, Harrison, Holmes and Yazoo counties. Currently, only civil cases are filed online but the state is working on a system for filing criminal proceedings and expects to launch it by the end of the year. The program will give attorneys access to their case files, allow them to file cases and will allow public access to anyone who wants to see court records. The system will cost attorneys $10 per year and the public will be required to pay $.20 per page they view. "This will make things more efficient as well as save time and money," said Bill Jolly of Holland Law in Horn Lake. All filed cases will be saved in a mainframe in Jackson which is backed up in New York and Denver for increased security. Attorneys will be able to file 24 hours per day, seven days per week and from anywhere they have internet access. To access the online court records, go to www.mssc.state.ms.us and click on the Mississippi Electronic Courts (MEC) link on the left side of the page.

Canadian Police Dept. Apologizes For Flaw In Checks

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The Fredericton Police Force is apologizing to community groups after discovering a flaw in its criminal record check system that may have overlooked out-of-province people who received pardons for sex offences. "We are prepared to do whatever is necessary to restore the faith of these agencies in our department, and in their employees and volunteers," the Police chief said.

Les Rosen's Corner Internet Background Checks Subject to Fair Credit Reporting Act per the FTC

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The Internet has recently buzzed with stories about how the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has given the official "OK" for Internet background checks of job applicants that would include up to seven years of information from social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter that are in compliance with the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) regulating the collection, dissemination, and use of consumer information.
However, contrary to reports calling the FTC's action an official endorsement, a recent blog on the FTC web site, The Fair Credit Reporting Act & Social Media: What Businesses Should Know indicates that Internet background checks using social media information simply must follow the same FCRA rules that apply to the more traditional information - employment and salary history, criminal records, and credit reports - that FCRA compliant background screening firms and employers have used in the past.
The FTC blog states that regardless of the type of information in a report that employers use when making hiring decisions, the rules are the same. "Companies providing reports to employers - and employers using reports - must comply with the Fair Credit Reporting Act." The blog also mentions an investigation that the FTC recently dropped. "The FTC staff recently looked at a company selling background reports that include information from social media to see if they were complying with FCRA. Staff's letter to the company emphasized that when reports include information derived from social media, the same rules apply. For example, companies selling background reports must take reasonable steps to ensure the maximum possible accuracy of what's reported from social networks and that it relates to the correct person. They have to comply with other FCRA sections, too - like providing copies of reports to people and having a process in place if people dispute what's said about them in a report. In addition, companies must give employers who use their reports information about employers' responsibilities under FCRA - like their obligation to provide employees or applicants with advance notice of any adverse action taken on the basis of the reports. Another key requirement: Companies selling background reports for employment must require that employers certify the report won't be used in a way that would violate federal or state equal employment opportunity laws or regulations. Of course, given the sensitive nature of the information in reports, everyone - companies selling the reports and employers using them - has a legal obligation to keep them secure and dispose of them properly." The FTC - the government's consumer protection agency - had been investigating an Internet and social media background screening service that offered employers background screening reports containing information gathered from social networking sites. In a letter from the FTC dated May 9, 2011, the agency indicated they had completed the investigation and determined that no further action was warranted. The FTC letter concludes: "This action is not to be construed as a determination that a violation may not have occurred, just as the pendency of an investigation should not be construed as a determination that a violation has occurred. The Commission reserves the right to take further action as the public interest may require." A major issue facing both employers that use Internet background checks, and the firms that provide such services, is whether the information found in the Internet about job applicants is credible, accurate, and authentic - in other words, true. Employers should consider if what a job applicant says online is true, and if true, whether it would be a valid predictor of job performance, or whether it would be employment related at all, as well as non-discriminatory. After all, people have been known to exaggerate or make things up. Employers need to make sure what they see online actually refers to the job applicant in question. There are cases of false postings under another person's name on the Internet - a sort of "online identity theft." If negative information is posted anonymously online, it may be "cyber slamming" where a person commits defamation without anyone knowing their real identity or sets up a fake website that does not belong to the supposed owner. Also, most people have "computer twins," people with the exact same names online. Under FCRA section 607(b), a Consumer Reporting Agency (CRA) performing background checks needs to exercise "reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy." The issue is how to know what information is real or authentic before reporting it to an employer. If a social networking site contains negative information, how is the firm that supplies the information to go about verifying that it is accurate, authentic, and belongs to the applicant? If the search happens to turn up a criminal record, the obligations are even heavier.

BRB Public Record Update

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0500

New Hampshire Courts Reorganization: The New Circuit Courts Effective July 1, 2011, a new Circuit Court system in New Hampshire will consolidate the existing 32 District Courts, 10 Probate Courts, and 25 Family Courts. Under the new system each county will have a Circuit Court with three Divisions: District, Family, and Probate. All current District Court locations will remain open. In most counties, the probate case records will be maintained in the District Court located at the county seat. The District Division will continue to handle misdemeanor, traffic, civil actions under $25,000, small claims, and landlord-tenant cases. The Probate Division will still have jurisdiction over wills, trusts and estates, guardianships and involuntary commitment proceedings, adoptions, name changes and partition of real estate. In most counties, the probate case records will be maintained in the District Court located at the county seat. Family Division cases include divorce/parenting action, child support, domestic violence petitions, guardianship of minors, termination of parental rights, abuse/neglect cases, children in need of services, juvenile delinquency, and some adoptions. At present, each District Court maintains its own database of records and most case records have not been placed into electronic format; they are in paper format. The new law does not provide for a centralized Circuit Court repository for the existing or future District records. The assumption is that a search of District level records in a county will still require a search at each of the District Divisions in that county, unless the Circuit Clerk decides to consolidate the records. Also keep in mind there can be District Courts that cover portions of two counties. For example the Franklin District Court jurisdiction includes towns from two counties - Merrimack and Belknap.

SSN Randomization Issuance Begins

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0500

June 24th, 2011 was the last day the Social Security Administration (SSA) assigned a Social Security Number (SSN) based on the numeric order within a state's allocation of the first 5 digits. All unassigned numbers within the numeric sequence have now been placed in a random pool. Effective June 27, the assignment of a new SSN is much like a lottery; a random number is drawn from the unassigned pool of 420 million numbers available for assignment. For example, the Series of 048-15-xxxx was assigned to CT and was used to issue new SSNs. Effective June 27, all of the possible unassigned numbers within that Series have been assigned to the random pool. Therefore someone in any state or an immigrant coming into the country could be assigned an SSN in the 048-15 series this year or any year in the future. There are 755 Series groups that were in the process of being assigned as of June 2011. There are over 75,000 groups have had all possible numbers within the group previously assigned. For years employers, investigators and background screening firms have used software with the assigned SSN groups and corresponding state/date range to validate the state and year of issuance an SSN. The fact that the SSA will no longer provide the ability to validate newly issued numbers has upset quite a few businesses and employers. However, these validations will still be useful, although they will diminish in value over time. Most people entering the workforce were assigned an SSN well before June 27, 2011. The primary people entering the workforce with a new randomly assigned SSN will be immigrants. The Social Security Administration will continue to provide opportunities for direct name based SSN verification. Internet based verification services include: The Social Security Number Verification Service (SSNVS) which is free to use for wage reporting purposes eVerify Consent-Based SSN Verification Service (SBSV) There are stipulations. For example, the cost for SBSV is $5,000 to sign-up and $5.00 per verification. For questions about the randomization process, email ssn.randomization@ssa.gov or visit www.ssa.gov/employer/randomization.html.

Dennis Brownstein's Extreme Court News (updated August 30th, 2011)

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The Ultimate Shoe-down: Christian Louboutin S.A. v. Yves Saint Laurent America
In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy taps her ruby red slippers three times to go home. What if the ruby colour found themselves on a pair of five-inch wedged heels? If the Wicked Witch of the West could get her hands on that pair, would she then hold the power to transport herself to Kansas too? Christian Louboutin, the famed French shoemaker celebrated by everyone from Jennifer Lopez to Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City, would answer in the positive. For Louboutin – and for those who swear by his stilettos as a means to elongate legs, boost confidence and even seduce men – the magical power of his shoes lies with the signature red-coloured sole. That may not be the case any more. Last week, a judge in the United States denied a preliminary injunction sought by Christian Louboutin against Yves Saint Laurent (YSL), another high-end French label, for producing a pair of high heels that featured red soles similar to those on Louboutins. This is the first victory in the continuing battle between these two fashion houses. Judge Victor Marrero of the Federal District in Manhattan ruled that Christian Louboutin’s trademark – “lacquered red soles” – was overly broad and therefore not likely to be protectable. There has been no timeline released as to when the judge will come out with a final decision. Judge Marrero has asked for more time. The implications from this week’s court proceedings are two-fold: first, Yves Saint Laurent can continue producing these shoes for the time being; more importantly, though, the denial of the preliminary injunction may embolden other manufacturers to add a scarlet wash on their shoes.
Facts of the Case: Christian Louboutin first filed a lawsuit against Yves Saint Laurent in April of this year. Louboutin argued that YSL’s red-soled shoes were “likely to cause and is causing confusion, mistake and deception among the relevant purchasing public.” That is, hoards of female shoppers at Barneys would mistake a YSL creation for a Christian Louboutin creation in their shopping frenzy. Further, the plaintiffs claimed that Louboutin was “the first designer to develop the idea of having red soles on women’s shoes” over twenty years ago. YSL decided to countersue last month. They challenged the trademark on the red sole that Louboutin was purportedly granted. The YSL legal team took the position that the trademark should never have been granted in the first place, reasoning that no “fashion designer should be able to monopolize any colour.” Even if a colour could be trademarked, YSL’s legal team is not convinced that the trademark belongs to Christian Louboutin. They delved into fashion history, citing a pair of shoes from 1962 that featured the disputed red colour. The shoes were made by YSL. Further, the legal team point to real and imaginary figures like King Louis the XIV of France and Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz as sporting shoes with those very qualities that Christian Louboutin claims to be theirs exclusively. Can a Colour be Trademarked? Yes; but only in very specific circumstances. It is understood in American law that a colour can only be trademarked if they serve to identify the source of the product. This is all that the colour can serve. For example, Tiffany & Co., the famed jewelry maker, owns a trademark on a blue colour produced privately by Pantone. This is colloquially known as Tiffany Blue. In addition to making women weak at the knees and hearts flutter, that colour marks the pendant or ring as made by Tiffany & Co. Veuve Cliqcout, which makes high-end champagne, owns the trademark to the orange colour that is found on their bottles. Less glamorously, Owens-Corning has trademark protection over the pink colour of its fiber insulation products. The problem with Christian Louboutin’s trademark is that the red colour on the soles of his shoes seems to serve another purpose. It is less about identifying the source of the product than evoking a certain feeling, conjuring a kind of sensuality, elegance and panache for the wearer. In court documents, Louboutin describes it in such a way: “The location of the bright colour on the outside of a woman’s pump is said to provide an alluring “flash of red” when a woman walks down the street, or on the red carpet of a special event.” Not convinced that the colour of the sole serves to identify the source of the product, Judge Marrero makes an apt analogy: allowing Louboutin to claim the scarlet colour as his own would be akin to prohibiting Monet from using a specific shade of blue in his Water Lilies series because another artist, say, Picasso, had been there first with his paintings from his Blue Period. What about Copyright? Besides pitting two of the world’s most influential shoe designers against each other, the reason why this case has garnered such intense publicity is that it marks the possible trajectory of the copyright bill that the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) has been lobbying Congress for for the last five years. Although this case concerns trademarks while the CFDA has its sights on copyright, in fashion, the two are inextricably linked. The lacquered red soles for which Christian Louboutin claims to have exclusive rights is really comparable to the Proenza Schouler prohibiting any other designer from creating a blouse with the same cut on the sleeves as they have done in the past. The scarlet colour would mark the shoe as created by Christian Louboutin in the same way as the cut of the sleeves on the blouse would mark it as created by Proenza Schouler. The CFDA has endeavoured for five years to push this apparel design copyright bill in Congress. Earlier in June, a new bill was proposed, whereby the threshold for copying was changed from “substantially similar” to “substantially identical” designs. It was specifically noted that similarities in colour and pattern would not count. While this bill would pay homage to the originality of such creators as the late Alexander McQueen, it would mainly be a symbolic victory. The real outcome of a law like this, as Judge Marrero alluded to earlier this week, would be less than desirable. Should the law really tackle questions of who made the first asymmetrical dress? And should the law really try to locate the origins of the red-soled shoe? Link http://www.thecourt.ca/2011/08/15/the-ultimate-shoe-down-christian-louboutin-s-a-v-yves-saint-laurent-america/#more-9414

The Background Investigator Goes To London

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0500

In a continuing series, The Background Investigator, is sends its staff to various countries around the world to explore the justice systems and bring back to you their findings. This month steven Brownstein visited London. Here is his report:
Going To London
by Steven Brownstein Can criminal background checks can be obtained in england without the CRB or police records?
That was the purpose of my investigation.
Granted the CRB gives you nation wide records but the problem for pre-employment screeners' is one of access, cost, and turnaround.
England 's CRB only offers two types of disclosures (see Background Investigator's article on disclosures). They can not be accessed by third parties nor by USA companies. Turnaround time can be weeks and that translates into an unhappy customer.
But what about the courts? Can a court search be done in England similar to the ones that are done in the USA? After all, we do not access the FBI database for records here. And that is what the CRB is offering. A simialr "FBI" search.
So what about the courtts - are they available?
And I can tell you, firsthand, they can be done. Easily.
First, England has an open court system. They also have a privacy act in place. But, the courts are exempted from the Act. That doesn't mean that you won't run into clerks quoting the Act.
It is just that they do not know its contents thereby making our job more difficult.
I find that happens more often when one tries to get the information telephonically rathher than by in person.
It can take some prodding and a supervisor or two, and possibly written correspondence to get the information you are requesting by phone.
But it can be done.
Easier and the best way, still, is to go to the court and get the information yourself.
Today's trip was to Middlesex Crown Court and Horseferry Magistrate Court.
Both these courts are in populous areas of London and at Straightline International we get many requests for these jurisdictions.
Starting with the Middlesex Crown Court. Remember, the Crown Courts have jurisdiction over all felony cases (called indictables).
Since 2005 all indictables are tried and sentenced at the Crown Court. I mention this because there is a lot of information on the Web and (just plain out of date knowledge) that most cases are tried at the Magistrate Court.
Since 2005 that has changed. Misdemeanors (summary offenses) are heard at the magistrate courts and as mentioned earlier, indictacles are heard at the crown courts.
Back at the Middlesex Crown Court.
The Middlesex Crown Court is an older building; one with history. The outside facade is beautiful and the intereir is reahbbed to its original glamour - gorgeous woodwork.
The Clerk's office is on the second floor. that was my frst stop.
The clerk's were friendly, quite excited to have a visitor from the USA, and willing to help. Their was no delay and it took just a matter of seconds to check a name on their computer. Their computer system goes back to 1983.
Now it was several blocks away to Horseferry Magistrate Court. A short walk.
Horseferry Magistrate Court is an unimposing structure that blends well into the similar architecture of the area - small high rise offices.
It surprised me how small a building could handle such a large vilume of cases. Then it came to me that the British are a very orderly society.
The Clerk's office is near the doorway entrance behind a window where the clerk's transact busines with the public.
Summary offense cases are heard at the magistrate court as well as traffic offenses. The clerks' have access to a computer that has records back to 2005.
Older cases are archived at Old Bailey.
There were no public access computers at either courts. But it wasn't necessary. I am not sure how the court would react to a multiple name request - not four or five names, but sixty or seventy.
I suppose that would create a burden for their staff. Probably there would be some sort of delay.
But the trip was a suucess. I love London. And I wouldn't hesitate to become a researcher there.

New Price Sheet Available from Straightline International

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0500

An updated price sheet is now available from Straightline International. Contact customer service at 1-866-909-6678 or by E-Mail to orders@search4crime.com Additionally, the prices and turnaround times can be found at www.straightlineinternational.com

Puerto Rico Criminal Record Searches Made Easy

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0500

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Do The Arizona Diamondbacks Perform Background Checks?

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Arizona Diamondbacks manager Wally Backman will keep his new job despite revelations of two arrests and financial problems in his past. "I've made a few mistakes in my life, and I think everybody has," Backman told The Associated Press on Tuesday night. "It's a matter of whether you learn from your mistakes and move on. That's what I'm doing." The Diamondbacks were unaware of his problems until they surfaced in a New York Times story on Tuesday. Backman met with Diamondbacks owners and other management personnel about the issues and was told he still had the job, he said.
"It was part of the past that I thought was the past, to tell you the honest truth," Backman said. "They probably should have asked me about it, and I probably should have brought it up."
General manager Joe Garagiola Jr. referred questions to managing partner Ken Kendrick, who did not return a telephone message. Kendrick told The Arizona Republic that the Diamondbacks had asked former employers about Backman but did not do a financial or criminal background check.
Backman, The Sporting News minor league manager of the year last season, was given a two-year contract to manage the Diamondbacks on Monday. The Arizona Republic reported that the deal has two, one-year club options and that Backman will be paid $500,000 in the first year of the contract. Kendrick cited Backman's fiery attitude as one of the attributes that led to the hiring.
Backman acknowledged that he was arrested in 2001 after an altercation with a female family friend at his home in Prineville, Ore. He said he agreed to plead guilty to fourth-degree assault. He was placed on 12 months' probation, ordered to undergo an anger management evaluation and donated $1,000 to the local Boys and Girls Club.
Backman was arrested on a charge of driving under the influence in Kennewick, Wash., in 1999, when he was manager of the Tri-City franchise of the independent Western League. He said he fought the charge for two years before pleading guilty.
He also has had financial problems, and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy last year, The Republic reported. Backman said many of the financial problems, including several tax liens he said he has paid, were caused by dealings of his then-wife that he was unaware of.

Better Dot Your I's And Cross Your T's

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Two men from Bangladesh have been found working illegally at a Droitwich (UK) Spa restaurant. The immigration offenders were caught following a UK Border Agency raid at the town’s Raj Tandoori restaurant, Queen Street. Officers from the local immigration team for Warwickshire and West Mercia visited the site on Thursday, August 11. Immigration checks revealed that two male members of staff – a 35-year-old who had entered the UK illegally and a 22-year-old who had overstayed his visa - were working illegally. The UK Border Agency is working to remove both men from the country. The Raj Tandoori also faces a potential fine of up to £20,000 - £10,000 per illegal worker – unless it can prove that the correct pre-employment checks were carried out. Employers unsure of the steps they need to take to avoid employing illegal workers can visit ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/employers or they can call the UK Border Agency’s employers helpline on 0300 123 4699.

From Jail To Jobless

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Precious Daniels is not what you'd call a hardened criminal. In 2009, she was arrested for blocking a doorway during a peaceful protest against a health insurer in Michigan charges that were later dropped. But Daniels claims that single arrest was enough to prevent her from getting a job with the U.S. Census Bureau a few months later when the agency ran her name through a criminal records database. About 92 million Americans more than one in four adults have some kind of criminal history, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Whether it was an arrest or a conviction, the charge was for a felony or misdemeanor, the verdict was guilty or innocent or the person was tried as a juvenile or an adult, the records can all show up in background-check databases that have proliferated on the Internet. As employers increasingly use such background checks to screen prospective workers, the practice is creating a minefield of employment law issues and has caught the attention of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. On July 26, the EEOC held a packed public meeting in Washington focusing on how the use of background checks adversely affects minorities, since blacks and Hispanics are much more likely to have criminal histories. The commissioners hinted that they plan to revise the EEOC's 20-year-old background-check guidelines, a prospect that has alarmed the business community and triggered fears of burdensome new regulations. Employers argue that they have a legitimate need to check out prospective workers to protect customers and co-workers and, indeed, that failing to do so could expose them to lawsuits for negligent hiring. According to a recent survey by the Society for Human Resource Management, 92% of employers conduct criminal-background checks some of the time, and 73% do so for every position. "We have to strike a balance between having a safe workplace and giving someone a second chance," said Buena Vista Lyons, a Dallas partner at Ford & Harrison who defends businesses in labor and employment matters. "Employers don't want the EEOC to create rigid regulations. If they come up with unrealistic standards, it's not going to help anyone, and it's not going to help the economy." The National Retail Federation, the National Restaurant Association and 11 other trade groups, which together claim to represent industries that account for more than 55 million jobs, sent a letter to the EEOC in late July urging the agency not to bar criminal background checks. "As long as there is workplace violence, fraud, theft, and a need to protect vulnerable populations, there will always be a need to review the criminal histories of applicants for certain positions," the letter stated. "We want the flexibility to conduct criminal background checks that are fair and appropriate." For the EEOC, the question is: What does fair and appropriate mean? The policy implications are profound. As EEOC Chairwoman Jacqueline Berrien noted at the meeting, it costs taxpayers $56 billion a year to keep people locked up. Ex-offenders who don't find employment are three times more likely to return to prison than those who have jobs. "We recognize the importance to individuals of dismantling unnecessary roadblocks to employment, if and when arrest and conviction records are used inappropriately or unnecessarily," Berrien said. Of particular concern to the EEOC is the effect on minorities. One in 106 white men is currently incarcerated, compared with one in 36 Hispanic men and one in 15 African-American men, according to Amy Solomon, who is senior adviser to the assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs. "To me, there will be a disparate impact if [employers] are going to be using criminal histories," said EEOC Commissioner Chai Feldblum, a Democrat, at the meeting. Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, an employment policy may be considered illegal if it has a discriminatory effect even if the employer didn't intend to discriminate. The counterweight for employers is to show that the policy is a business necessity and has a "manifest relationship" to the job in question. Current EEOC guidelines make it clear that an absolute ban on hiring anyone with a criminal conviction is unacceptable. Instead, the guidelines call for employers to make individual assessments of ex-cons, taking into account the nature and gravity of the offense, the time passed since conviction and the job itself. It's not always an easy call. "Obviously you're not going to hire a convicted embezzler to work as a bank teller or a child molester to work with children, but for every no-brainer like this, there are 10 combinations in a gray area," said Travis Gemoets, a partner at Jeffer, Mangels, Butler & Mitchell in Los Angeles. "You have to look at what someone would do in the course and scope of employment." For example, Juan Cartagena, president and general counsel of Latino Justice, cited a pending case involving a young Latino man who worked for an Eckerd Pharmacy stocking shelves and was promoted to supervisor. But after the drug store chain was bought by Rite Aid Corp., he was fired because he had a prior drug conviction. On one hand, a drug store refusing to employ someone with a drug conviction sounds logical. But Cartagena argues that the policy is too broad. "Large chains are not simple pharmacies," he said they're more like variety stores, selling everything from lawn chairs to frozen pizza. These were the kinds of items the man handled not drugs. "The pharmacy stocks their own shelves and accounts for their own inventory," Cartagena said, arguing that the ban was needlessly restrictive. EEOC Commissioner Stuart Ishimaru shared the concern. "One thing that's been troubling to me is that so many employers use this in an overbroad fashion, so that it affects all their jobs, and all their applicants for jobs," said Ishimaru, who is a Democrat. "Are they losing out on good employees who would do a fine job for them?" One impetus for the EEOC to update its guidelines comes from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3d Circuit. In a rare appellate decision on the use of criminal-background checks, the court in 2007 complained that the EEOC's guidelines were too vague to be of much use. The plaintiff in the case, Douglas El, claimed that the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority improperly disqualified job applicants because of prior convictions. El, who drove a bus, was fired when his employer learned of his 40-year-old conviction for second-degree murder. The court expressed "reservations" about the transportation authority's policy, but ruled against El because he didn't hire an expert witness and couldn't rebut the defense's expert testimony that someone who committed a violent crime once is more likely to do so again, no matter how much time has passed. The court complained that the EEOC's guidelines don't explain how employers are supposed to consider the nature and gravity of the offense in crafting any bright-line policy on criminal convictions, nor do they address whether an employer can decide that certain offenses (like murder) are serious enough to warrant a lifetime ban on being hired. "The EEOC's guidelines are not entitled to great deference," wrote Judge Thomas Ambro for the unanimous panel. "The policy document itself does not substantively analyze the statute." What new EEOC guidelines might look like is not clear, but one option discussed at the meeting was banning employers from asking about old convictions. Solomon of the Justice Department cited a study on the "point of redemption" when a person with a prior arrest becomes no more likely than members of the general population to commit another crime. The study found the point exists between three and eight years after release from jail, depending on the severity of the crime and the person's age. "Should [employers] just stop asking at some point?" Ishimaru said. "There's a time at which it's no longer relevant statistically," Solomon replied. But George Washington University Law School professor Stephen Saltzburg argued that this would be of little practical use. When people are released from jail, he said, "They need jobs now. You can't tell them to wait three or four years and if you have a clean record, great, because if they can't get a job, they're not going to have a clean record." Some lawyers fear the agency going forward may tell employers not to ask about criminal history in initial job applications (though they can ask later in the hiring process). Such "ban the box" rules are in place in the states of Massachusetts and Hawaii, plus cities such as Philadelphia. It's not a popular option with defense-side employment lawyers, who say it places an extra burden on employers. "They're investing resources in interviewing people who would not be considered," said Susan Lessack, a partner in the Berwyn, Pa., and Philadelphia offices of Pepper Hamilton. At the same time, there are also thousands of federal and state restrictions barring employers from hiring people with certain convictions, especially in the financial services, child care, health care and transportation industries restrictions that go all the way down to local rules for licensed barbers. The EEOC guidelines do not have the force of law they're most useful for helping companies avoid being sued. Overall, litigation over criminal background checks has been scant, though there's been a recent uptick in activity. Lawyers are watching EEOC v. Freeman Cos., pending in U.S. district court in Maryland, which challenges the use of criminal-background checks, as well as the use of credit checks, as a screening tool for new hires. Another recent effort by the EEOC to challenge a company's criminal background policy ended in humiliation for the agency, which was hit with $750,000 in attorney fees and court costs in March. After a three-year investigation, the EEOC in 2008 sued temporary staffing company Peoplemark Inc. in Michigan federal court for allegedly refusing to hire any person with a criminal record. The EEOC named 286 so-called victims of the policy except it turned out that 22% of them had in fact been hired by the company despite their felony records. "The complaint turned out to be without foundation from the beginning," wrote Magistrate Judge Hugh Brenneman Jr. Peoplemark was represented by Barris, Sott, Denn & Driker in Detroit and Southern firm Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz. The biggest pending case what plaintiffs' lawyer Adam Klein, a partner at Outten & Golden in New York, calls "the megatsunami of background check cases" is one against the federal government, challenging the hiring policies used for the 2010 census. According to the complaint filed last year in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the U.S. Census Bureau, as a precondition of employment, required nearly all job applicants to provide within 30 days "official court documentation" for any and all arrests, regardless of whether a conviction resulted, the nature of the offense or when it took place. Among the applicants was Precious Daniels, who was told by her local court that there was no record of her arrest in the health care protest since the charges were dropped. Nonetheless, Daniels, who is black, was disqualified for a job with the census. According to the complaint, the requirement eliminated 93% of applicants with criminal histories about 700,000 people who couldn't find their records or submit them quickly enough, or who just gave up. For the few who did send them in, they found virtually all available positions had already been filled. The plaintiffs allege that the policy violated Title VII. If the case is certified as a class, Klein sees potential for hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. Still, the case is an anomaly. As Klein noted, it's "very difficult as a private lawyer to litigate these cases. The guidance becomes critical." From Texas Lawyer Website

ACLU Goes To War With Police

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The American Civil Liberties Union is bringing its heavy artillery to bear on the mobile location privacy debate. The civil advocacy group has coordinated 34 of its offices to send 375 public records requests to police and law enforcement agencies across the nation, requesting comprehensive information about how police obtain and use cellphone locations and other Internet data to hunt criminals. "All too often, the government is taking advantage of outdated privacy laws to get its hands on this valuable private information by demanding it without a warrant," the ACLU said in a statement on its website. "The public has a right to know how and under what circumstances their location information is being accessed by the government - and that is exactly what we hope our information requests will uncover."

Tips About Cook County, IL Civil Cases Online

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Steven Brownstein
The Clerk of the Circuit Court offers on-line access to the full electronic docket for cases filed in the Civil, Law, Chancery, and Domestic Relations divisions. The Electronic Docket Search includes information similar to that found on the Clerk's Public Access terminals located in the various courthouses. The cases are searchable by litigant name, case number, or filing date. Search Results are limited to the first 1000 cases. That could be rather daunting. It pays to use a researcher in Cook County. Website:
http://198.173.15.34/?section=CASEINFOPage&CASEINFOPage=2400

Will County, IL Cases Go Online

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Steven Brownstein The Clerk of the Circuit Court offers on-line access to limited electronic docket for cases filed in the Circuit Court. The information seems similar to that found on the Clerk's Public Access terminals located in the various courthouses. Their disclaimer may be due to the fact that the cases might not be uploaded to their Web Site as quickly as it is entered into their computer system. Felonies, misdemeanors, traffic, ordinance violations, and civil cases are found on their results page, as well as defendant identifiers. How long that will last no one knows. The cases are searchable by party, case number, ticket number, or business name. Website:
http://66.158.72.242/pa/cms/SearchPrompt.php

About Cuyahoga County Cases Online

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Steven Brownstein The Cuyahoga Common Pleas Court offers on-line access to electronic docket for cases filed in the Circuit Court. The information found did not include misdemanor and lessor cases normally found at the Cleveland and other Municipal Courthouses. Those need to be researched separately. Felonies are found on their results page, as well as defendant identifiers. The cases are searchable by name or case number. Website:
http://cpdocket.cp.cuyahogacounty.us/p_PickSearch.aspx

The New Cost Of Candian Criminal Pardons

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500

By Paula Mallea The Conservative government, with the collaboration of opposition parties, hastily passed a piece of legislation (Bill C-23A) last year which makes it more difficult for offenders to obtain a pardon for their offences. This was the government's response to the news that notorious child-molester Graham James had received a pardon, and that Karla Homolka would soon be eligible to apply. In its efforts to deal quickly with a perceived gap in the law, the Harper government has again passed legislation which will adversely affect thousands of offenders needlessly. From introduction to royal assent, the new procedure for obtaining pardons became law in 49 days. The new law sets out longer eligibility dates for offenders, and makes it much harder to convince the National Parole Board that a pardon should be granted. As a consequence, it will now take much longer to process each application. The government thus needs to increase the NPB's budget. It proposes to recover the costs by charging a higher fee for applications. The Harper government is about to raise the cost of obtaining a pardon to $631 from $150. Yet when the fee was raised from $50 to $150 last year, one person who helps offenders obtain pardons said it was "earth-shattering for hundreds of our clients." Quadrupling the new fee will ensure that very few offenders can afford to apply. For most offenders, obtaining a pardon is absolutely essential in order to obtain housing and employment. These are necessary components for the rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders when they have served their sentences. Even Public Safety Minister Vic Toews agrees: "I certainly believe in the concept of pardons, they're an absolutely essential part of the rehabilitation of individuals." Mr. Toews engaged the public in a short consultation process about raising the fees, as he is required to do under the federal User Fees Act. Of the 1,086 individuals and organizations that responded, only 12 were in favour of raising the fee. 98% said the proposal was "appalling", "outrageous", "preposterous", "downright criminal", and a "cash grab." They said that the new fee would affect disproportionately the poor, disadvantaged, and marginalized. Nonetheless, the government is forging ahead. 4.2 million Canadians have criminal records. Most people who apply for pardons do so in order to get a job. Offenders who have no job, or have a low-paying job, will not be able to afford the application process, and so they will not be able to improve their circumstances. This is Catch-22 writ large. The government says that $631 is what it costs to process a pardon application. The government has not made public the report that contains the cost breakdown or the rationale for the new fee. The government also takes the position that offenders should pay for their own applications, and not the taxpayer. Yet the government knows pardons are an essential component of rehabilitation. Leaving aside the humanitarian aspects, the government must know that people will not be able to contribute to the economic productivity of the nation if they are saddled with criminal records. Bill C-23 is a mean-spirited law. It will keep thousands of former offenders from obtaining pardons, a process which used to be straightforward, affordable and sensible. Lest the reader think that pardons are being granted to violent, repeat offenders, it is important to point out that 38.6% of pardons granted in the last 10 years went to victimless offenders: impaired driving, driving over 80, drug offences and failing to appear in court. About 50% went to property offences: theft, break and enter and theft, theft under $1,000 and mischief. Only 12% went to offenders who were convicted of assault. In the past 10 years, 247,438 people obtained pardons. Now all applicants will have to go through a longer and more expensive process, with less likelihood of success. Many of them will not even be able to start the process. Was all this necessary in order to keep Karla Homolka from obtaining a pardon?

As Criminal Laws Proliferate, More Are Ensnared.

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500

By Gary Fields and John R. Emshwiller Eddie Leroy Anderson of Craigmont, Idaho, is a retired logger, a former science teacher and now a federal criminal thanks to his arrowhead-collecting hobby. In 2009, Mr. Anderson loaned his son some tools to dig for arrowheads near a favorite campground of theirs. Unfortunately, they were on federal land. Authorities "notified me to get a lawyer and a damn good one," Mr. Anderson recalls. There is no evidence the Andersons intended to break the law, or even knew the law existed, according to court records and interviews. But the law, the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979, doesn't require criminal intent and makes it a felony punishable by up to two years in prison to attempt to take artifacts off federal land without a permit. Faced with that reality, the two men, who didn't find arrowheads that day, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and got a year's probation and a $1,500 penalty each. "We kind of wonder why it got took to the level that it did," says Mr. Anderson, 68 years old. Wendy Olson, the U.S. Attorney for Idaho, said the men were on an archeological site that was 13,000 years old. "Folks do need to pay attention to where they are," she said. The Andersons are two of the hundreds of thousands of Americans to be charged and convicted in recent decades under federal criminal laws as opposed to state or local laws as the federal justice system has dramatically expanded its authority and reach. As federal criminal statutes have ballooned, it has become increasingly easy for Americans to end up on the wrong side of the law. Many of the new federal laws also set a lower bar for conviction than in the past: Prosecutors don't necessarily need to show that the defendant had criminal intent. These factors are contributing to some unusual applications of justice. Father-and-son arrowhead lovers can't argue they made an innocent mistake. A lobster importer is convicted in the U.S. for violating a Honduran law that the Honduran government disavowed. A Pennsylvanian who injured her husband's lover doesn't face state criminal charges instead, she faces federal charges tied to an international arms-control treaty. The U.S. Constitution mentions three federal crimes by citizens: treason, piracy and counterfeiting. By the turn of the 20th century, the number of criminal statutes numbered in the dozens. Today, there are an estimated 4,500 crimes in federal statutes, according to a 2008 study by retired Louisiana State University law professor John Baker. There are also thousands of regulations that carry criminal penalties. Some laws are so complex, scholars debate whether they represent one offense, or scores of offenses. Counting them is impossible. The Justice Department spent two years trying in the 1980s, but produced only an estimate: 3,000 federal criminal offenses. The American Bar Association tried in the late 1990s, but concluded only that the number was likely much higher than 3,000. The ABA's report said "the amount of individual citizen behavior now potentially subject to federal criminal control has increased in astonishing proportions in the last few decades." A Justice spokeswoman said there was no quantifiable number. Criminal statutes are sprinkled throughout some 27,000 pages of the federal code. There are many reasons for the rising tide of laws. It's partly due to lawmakers responding to hot-button issues environmental messes, financial machinations, child kidnappings, consumer protection with calls for federal criminal penalties. Federal regulations can also carry the force of federal criminal law, adding to the legal complexity. With the growing number of federal crimes, the number of people sentenced to federal prison has risen nearly threefold over the past 30 years to 83,000 annually. The U.S. population grew only about 36% in that period. The total federal prison population, over 200,000, grew more than eightfold twice the growth rate of the state prison population, now at 2 million, according the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. Tougher federal drug laws account for about 30% of people sentenced, a decline from over 40% two decades ago. The proportion of people sentenced for most other crimes, such as firearms possession, fraud and other non-violent offenses, has doubled in the past 20 years. The growth in federal law has produced benefits. Federal legislation was indispensable in winning civil rights for African-Americans. Some of the new laws, including those tackling political corruption and violent crimes, are relatively noncontroversial and address significant problems. Plenty of convicts deserve the punishment they get. Roscoe Howard, the former U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, argues that the system "isn't broken." Congress, he says, took its cue over the decades from a public less tolerant of certain behaviors. Current law provides a range of options to protect society, he says. "It would be horrible if they started repealing laws and taking those options away." Still, federal criminal laws can be controversial. Some duplicate existing state criminal laws, and others address matters that might better be handled as civil rather than criminal matters. Some federal laws appear picayune. Unauthorized use of the Smokey Bear image could land an offender in prison. So can unauthorized use of the slogan "Give a Hoot, Don't Pollute." The spread of federal statues has opponents on both sides of the aisle, though for different reasons. For Republicans, the issue is partly about federal intrusions into areas historically handled by states. For Democrats, the concerns include the often lengthy prison sentences that federal convictions now produce. Those expressing concerns include the American Civil Liberties Union and Edwin Meese III, former attorney general under President Ronald Reagan. Mr. Meese, now with the conservative Heritage Foundation, argues Americans are increasingly vulnerable to being "convicted for doing something they never suspected was illegal." "Most people think criminal law is for bad people," says Timothy Lynch of Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. People don't realize "they're one misstep away from the nightmare of a federal indictment." Last September, retired race-car champion Bobby Unser told a congressional hearing about his 1996 misdemeanor conviction for accidentally driving a snowmobile onto protected federal land, violating the Wilderness Act, while lost in a snowstorm. Though the judge gave him only a $75 fine, the 77-year-old racing legend got a criminal record. Mr. Unser says he was charged after he went to authorities for help finding his abandoned snowmobile. "The criminal doesn't usually call the police for help," he says. A Justice Department spokesman cited the age of the case in declining to comment. The U.S. Attorney at the time said he didn't remember the case. Some of these new federal statutes don't require prosecutors to prove criminal intent, eroding a bedrock principle in English and American law. The absence of this provision, known as mens rea, makes prosecution easier, critics argue. A study last year by the Heritage Foundation and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers analyzed scores of proposed and enacted new laws for nonviolent crimes in the 109th Congress of 2005 and 2006. It found of the 36 new crimes created, a quarter had no mens rea requirement and nearly 40% more had only a "weak" one. Some jurists are disturbed by the diminished requirement to show criminal intent in order to convict. In a 1998 decision, federal appellate judge Richard Posner, a noted conservative, attacked a 1994 federal law under which an Illinois man went to prison for three years for possessing guns while under a state restraining order taken out by his estranged wife. He possessed the guns otherwise legally, they posed no immediate threat to the spouse, and the restraining order didn't mention any weapons bar. "Congress created, and the Department of Justice sprang, a trap" on a defendant who "could not have suspected" he was committing a crime, Judge Posner wrote. Another area of concern among some jurists is the criminalization of issues that they consider more appropriate to civil lawsuits. In December, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is considered liberal, overturned the fraud conviction of a software-company executive accused of helping to issue false financial statements. The government tried "to stretch criminal law beyond its proper bounds," wrote the Circuit's chief judge, Alex Kozinski. Civil law, he said, is a better tool to judge "gray area" conduct actions that might, or might not, be illegal. Criminal law, he said, "should clearly separate conduct that is criminal from conduct that is legal." Occasionally, Americans are going to prison in the U.S. for violating the laws and rules of other countries. Last year, Abner Schoenwetter finished 69 months in federal prison for conspiracy and smuggling. His conviction was related to importing the wrong kinds of lobsters and bulk packaging them in plastic, rather than separately in boxes, in violation of Honduran laws. According to court records and interviews, Mr. Schoenwetter had been importing lobsters from Honduras since the mid-1980s. In early 1999, federal officials seized a 70,000-pound shipment after a tip that the load violated a Honduran statute setting a minimum size on lobsters that could be caught. Such a shipment, in turn, violated a U.S. law, the Lacey Act, which makes it a felony to import fish or wildlife if it breaks another country's laws. Roughly 2% of the seized shipment was clearly undersized, and records indicated other shipments carried much higher percentages, federal officials said. In an interview, Mr. Schoenwetter, 65 years old, said he and other buyers routinely accepted a percentage of undersized lobsters since the deliveries from the fishermen inevitably included smaller ones. He also said he didn't believe bringing in some undersized lobsters was illegal, noting that previous shipments had routinely passed through U.S. Customs. After conviction, Mr. Schoenwetter and three co-defendants appealed, and the Honduran government filed a brief on their behalf saying that Honduran courts had invalidated the undersized-lobster law. By a two-to-one vote, however, a federal appeals panel found the Honduran law valid at the time of the trial and upheld the convictions. The dissenting jurist, Judge Peter Fay, wrote: "I think we would be shocked should the tables be reversed and a foreign nation simply ignored one of our court rulings." Robert Kern, a 62-year-old Virginia hunting-trip organizer, was also prosecuted in the U.S. for allegedly breaking the law of another country. Instead of lobsters from Honduras, Mr. Kern's troubles stemmed from moose from Russia. He faced a 2008 Lacey Act prosecution for allegedly violating Russian law after some of his clients shot game from a helicopter in that country. In the end, he was acquitted after a Russian official testified the hunters had an exemption from the helicopter hunting ban. Still, legal bills totaling more than $860,000 essentially wiped out his retirement savings, Mr. Kern says. Justice Department officials declined to comment on Messrs. Kern and Schoenwetter. One area of expansion has been environmental crimes. Since its inception in 1970, the Environmental Protection Agency has grown to enforce some 25,000 pages of federal regulations, equivalent to about 15% of the entire body of federal rules. Many of the EPA rules carry potential criminal penalties. Krister Evertson, a would-be inventor, recently spent 15 months in prison for environmental crimes where there was no evidence he harmed anyone, or intended to. In May 2004 he was arrested near Wasilla, Alaska, and charged with illegally shipping sodium metal, a potentially flammable material, without proper packaging or labeling. He told federal authorities he had been in Idaho working to develop a better hydrogen fuel cell but had run out of money. He had moved some sodium and other chemicals to a storage site near his workshop in Salmon, Idaho, before traveling back to his hometown of Wasilla to raise money by gold-mining. Mr. Evertson said he believed he had shipped the sodium legally. A jury acquitted him in January 2006. However, Idaho prosecutors, using information Mr. Evertson provided to federal authorities in Alaska, charged him with violating the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, a 1976 federal law that regulates handling of toxic waste. The government contended Mr. Evertson had told federal investigators he had abandoned the chemicals. It also said the landlord of the Idaho storage site claimed he was owed back rent and couldn't find the inventor allegations Mr. Evertson disputed. Once the government deemed the chemicals "abandoned," they became "waste" and subject to RCRA. He was charged under a separate federal law with illegally moving the chemicals about a half-mile to the storage site. "If I had abandoned the chemicals, why would I have told the investigators about them?" said Mr. Evertson in an interview. He added that he spent $100,000 on the material and always planned to resume his experiments. Prosecutors emphasized the potential danger of having left the materials for two years. "You clean up after yourself and don't leave messes for others," one prosecutor told the jury, which convicted Mr. Evertson on three felony counts. Prosecutors said clean-up of the site cost the government $400,000. Mr. Evertson, 57, remains on probation, working as night watchman in Idaho. In a statement, Ms. Olson, the Idaho U.S. Attorney, said that by leaving dangerous chemicals not properly attended he endangered others and caused the government to spend more than $400,000 in clean-up costs. "This office will continue to aggressively prosecute" environmental crimes, she said. Critics contend that federal criminal law is increasingly, and unconstitutionally, impinging on the sovereignty of the states. The question recently came before the Supreme Court in the case of Carol Bond, a Pennsylvania woman who is fighting a six-year prison sentence arising out of violating a 1998 federal chemical-weapons law tied to an international arms-control treaty. The law makes it a crime for an average citizen to possess a "chemical weapon" for other than a "peaceful purpose." The statute defines such a weapon as any chemical that could harm humans or animals. Ms. Bond's criminal case stemmed from having spread some chemicals, including an arsenic-based one, on the car, front-door handle and mailbox of a woman who had had an affair with her husband. The victim suffered a burn on her thumb. In court filings, Ms. Bond's attorneys argued the chemical-weapons law unconstitutionally intruded into what should have been a state criminal matter. The state didn't file charges on the chemicals, but under state law she likely would have gotten a less harsh sentence, her attorneys said. Last month, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled Ms. Bond has standing to challenge the federal law. By distributing jurisdiction among federal and state governments, the Constitution "protects the liberty of the individual from arbitrary power," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court. "When government acts in excess of its lawful powers, that liberty is at stake." During oral arguments in the case, Justice Samuel Alito expressed concern about the law's "breadth" by laying out a hypothetical example. Simply pouring a bottle of vinegar into a bowl to kill someone's goldfish, Justice Alito said, could be "potentially punishable by life imprisonment."

Australia's New Background Check Laws

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500

A new scheme to provide more thorough security checks for those working with children and vulnerable adults will be introduced in the ACT next year. The Government has reached agreement with the mental health and drug and alcohol sectors to implement the new laws over six years. Community Services Minister Joy Burch says the new scheme will bring uniform standards to background checks. "All services to children and vulnerable Canberrans will have the same checking process. Also part of this is the issue of a card so workers will have a clearance card, a suitability card, that they can transfer regardless of what job they're in," she said. "Volunteers form a key part of work across our community. So volunteers will also be issued with a card and there will be no charge for that card for volunteers." The mental health and drug and alcohol sectors had previously been reluctant to move to the new scheme because of concerns on how it would impact on employees who have 'lived experience'. "What we've done with this is make sure there's a common assessment and we will phase in this checking system over a couple of years," Ms Burch said. "The drug and alcohol and mental health sector will come in at the latter part of this so all the systems will be very clear and transparent when those workforce are checked." Ms Burch says there will now be a final round of community consultation over the next month.

Make Money- Background Checks For The The Medical Industry

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Steven Brownstein You can help physicians take simple steps to protect themselves from becoming subjects of lawsuits or losing substantial revenue. Obviously, these steps include conducting background checks of staff and other physicians. It is not, at least to us in the employment screening industry, common knowledge that no federal health benefit payments are permitted for services furnished by persons excluded by the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services 'Centers for Mediacre and Medicaid Services (CMS)'. Additionally, the government may impose a civil monetary penalty of up to $10,000.00 for each item or service furnished during the CMS exclusion period. Considering this prohibition, many physician practices hire excluded individuals. Surprsing as that is, it is a money make for us. Checking an employee's or physician's background status for exclusion is relatively simple and there are readily available sources of information to you to search. These include the Health Depts.Office of the Inspector General's Exclusion List (http://oig.hhs.gov/fraud/exclusions.asp) and the General Service Administration's Excluded Parties List System (www.epls.gov) These lists are updated constantly and provide enough information to determine if a candidate has been excluded.

Interesting Chemistry - Arranged Marriages And Background Checks

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Arranged marriages continue to be a popular tradition in India, with a majority of men and women between the ages of 17 and 25 in major metros such as New Delhi and Mumbai approving of them. The way these marriages get arranged, however, in the fast-changing urban centres is changing with the times. In the past, parents or relatives searched their own social networks for suitable prospects. Today, family members and prospective brides and grooms browse matrimonial Web sites, which offer a convenient alternative to the traditional matrimonial sections in newspapers. As people who meet online know little about each other, the anonymity offers huge potential for fraud and deception. So people are now hiring detectives to check out the prospective brides and grooms and the requests for their services have steadily risen in the last few years. The most common requests are related to finances and past relationships. The number has almost doubled in the last two years, says Sanjay Singh, CEO of the New Delhi-based Indian Detective Agency. Earlier it was just high-profile and very rich families that were engaging our services. But now, it's mostly the middle class. The number of premarital investigations, say detectives, is higher in arranged marriages, as opposed to love marriages. The total registration base of India's biggest online matrimonial portal, Shaadi.com, was 91 lakh in 2007 and the site reported that 7.2 lakh marriages were enabled by it. Registration on Bharatmatrimony.com is close to 90 lakh. It is necessary to get some kind of check done on a partner before marriage, says Prashant Rana, Marketing Manager, Fireball Investigation Services. But people don't have that kind of time or resources to do a thorough check. New Delhi has over a hundred registered detective agencies and thousands of smaller one-man shows. The Indian Detective Agency alone receives at least 30 inquiries a week for premarital investigations. Investigations typically take between a week and 10 days, and can cost up to approximately Rs 56,000, depending on the company and the depth of the investigation. Families or prospective brides or grooms often hire them for the first part of the screening process, when personal finances and character are the most important considerations. Considering that families now spend several lakhs on a wedding, the cost for a seven-day investigation isn't considered too big an expense. Investigations are very discreet; only the parents are usually privy to the results, hence there is no shame or taboo if something negative turns up. Even if it's all positive, the fact that an investigation was undertaken is not mentioned to anyone. It's a sensitive issue, says Singh. If your prospective spouse finds out you've been sending detectives after him, he's not going to like it. Simple. Investigators provide details about previous and present relationships, education, career, financial position and the family. Experienced investigators, pretending to be on some other mission, get inside the house, talk to the family and try to establish what kind of people they are, how they treat others and, most important, how they treat one another. In order to do this, detectives follow their subject's every move. A team monitors their target for 7-10 days, dressing up as rikshaw-wallahs, bouncers at a night-club or, as Rana says, even a cleaner in their doctor's office. Its human nature that within seven days, you'll repeat every habit, says Rana. If I have a girlfriend, once a week, I'll go see her. If I drink, I'll do it at least once a week. If I enjoy partying, again, I'll do it at some point during the week. That's why we do our surveillance for seven days. Within that time, we make the report. Just like in the movies, he adds. Women clients Of the hundreds of cases that come to him each month, Rana says 80 per cent are women or their parents who want future spouses investigated. As women are often required to live with their husband's family after marriage, some consider it essential to know as much as they can about the family they'll be spending the rest of their life with. Men, on the other hand, are only concerned about past relationships. If the investigation turns out well, the woman and her parents take things forward. If it does not, there is rarely a confrontation, detectives say. Matches can be blown when major obstacles resurface from the past, or sometimes for small transgressions, such as lying about a smoking habit. And since the intended are not romantically involved, the parties cut their losses and move on. Ankita Kohli, 23, a single advertising professional, disapproves of the trend. You're starting the relationship by questioning his very identity and then keeping it from him, she says. Because it's a matter of life, take control and do the investigation yourself. There are so many ways of finding the truth about a person; why trust a second-hand source and risk your relationship in the process? Of the investigations undertaken by Fireball, Rana says about 40 per cent of the people they've scrutinised have been very dishonest about their life and work. One such case involved a man whose mother was certain that the intended fiance was not honest about her background and hired Rana's company to verify. The investigation threw up a previous marriage and a son; the woman's husband had left her and fled to Iraq. If the marriage had happened, it would have been a big problem for that family, says Rana. But the mother opted for verification, and they were saved.

Texas Man Can't Clear His Name

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by steven Brownstein A Frisco, TX man has been unable to clear his name for over four years. An appeals court has decided he has no right to seek equitable justice after a local judge found for the defendant. Though he has never been found guilty of any crime, he is shackled with a record he is unable to clear. The District Attorney had dismissed the charges after the State admitted it could not obtain a guilty plea, telling the court that, it has been determined that the State is unable to make a prima facia case. The District Attorney's Office also argued that the complainant has never recanted her testimony, therefore the case should not be expunged. The local judge disagreed but has been overruled by the Texas apellate court. His record remains. And a job, forget about it.

Rape Victim Gets Expelled From School

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Steven Brownstein A Missouri school district has been accussed in a federal lawsuit that they failed to protect a middle-school girl from being raped, saying the girl "neglected to use reasonable means to protect herself." The 7th grade special education female student, was raped twice during the course of two school years, according to the lawsuit. The school told the mother that they thought that her daughter made it all up. Then she was suspended from school for "disrespectful conduct" and "public display of affection," finally being expelled. Since then, a boy pleaded guilty in juvenile court to unspecified charges (sealed) after the girl was raped a second time. The scholl calls the girl's charges 'frivoluous."

Admin Says: "Your Customer Needs To Be Fair"

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Among all racial groups, African-American unemployment hovers at 16.2 percent, the highest in the nation. For Black males, it's 17.5 percent, and for Black teens, it's nearly 41 percent. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) believes that its not by chance that Black unemployment numbers are so high. The EEOC considers criminal background checks as a possible contributing factor to Black unemployment because 92 percent of employers conduct the screenings on some or all job applicants, according to a 2010 Society for Human Resources Management survey. In 1996, the number of criminal screenings was only 51 percent. Due to the large increase of criminal screenings in less than 20 years, the EEOC is investigating how the federal government is dealing with employers who illegally screen out applicants based on prior arrests or convictions without investigating the applicant's age, relevance of the criminal record or seriousness of the crime, as described under the EEOC's guidelines based on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The EEOC guidelines regulating employers' use of criminal records dates back over twenty years to 1987. In it the EEOC makes clear that "an employer's policy or practice of excluding individuals from employment on the basis of their conviction records has an adverse impact on Blacks and Hispanics in light of statistics showing that they are convicted at a rate disproportionately greater than their representation in the population."

Hire that Felon, You Racist!

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500

A Blog by Amy Ridenour ...One the one hand, the EEOC is telling employers, "Don't worry, hire criminals, they are contributing members of society." But on the other hand, an EEOC spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal, "If ex-offenders are not given jobs the chances are that they may re-offend." So these folks will commit more crimes if companies don't hire them, but they will be model employees if corporations do employ them? Yeah, that makes sense. The EEOC needs to abandon this misguided guidance and let employers resume hiring based on valid business considerations. America does not have a crisis of too few regulations. It has a crisis of too few jobs. Perhaps, if we got rid of some of the former, we could have more of the latter.

No Unemployed Need Apply (NUNA)

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500

If you are employed, chances are you have not heard of NUNA. However, if you are actively seeking a job and have been doing so for a while, you are probably familiar with the phrase "No Unemployed Need Apply." This is a standard that many businesses are adopting and simply means they will not hire an applicant who is not currently employed or has recently been laid off. It's no secret that companies prefer not to hire workers who have gaps in their employment, as it often signals that something about the applicant is undesirable to other companies. In fact, it's not difficult to find companies on various job boards that post their preference for candidates who are currently employed. The question many have for this practice, however, is can companies legally do this?

Line Up At Jefferson County, AL Courthouse

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Many would argue that the lines at the Jefferson County Courthouse for everyday services, such as car tag renewals, are already too long. Now with the forthcoming illegal immigration law, those lines could grow even longer. Needless to say, taxpayers don't like it. "My legs. My back. I don't like staying in those lines," Tracy Sanchez said. Alabama's new immigration law is set to take effect September 1 and county workers believe it could have an effect on service at the courthouse, preventing people from conducting business online. A provision of the law says "Any person entering into a business transaction or attempting to enter into a business transaction with this state or political subdivision of this state shall be required to demonstrate his or her United States citizenship." This means people can no longer apply for car tags or drivers licenses online because they won't be able to prove their citizenship. "I don't think we have enough employees at the courthouse to do that," Greta Hogg said. "That's going to be a problem, he added." "Our lines are going to get longer and longer, and it's unnecessary," County Commissioner George Bowman said. "One of the purposes of automation is to shorten the lines." At the time of publication, Commissioners were hoping for a special legislative session, or for a federal court to order an injunction to prevent the law from going into effect.

And Portage Makes All - Indiana Complete?

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500

This fall, Portage County will join the statewide case management and record system, making it the final county to do so. After joining an agreement this week with the system's bank, the county is on pace to join the Consolidated Court Automation Programs in October, clerk of courts Bernadette Flatoff said. The system has been in place since 1987. The county decided to join because so many counties and state agencies use it to share documents, track cases and publicize records. Wood County joined in 1999, and Marathon County in 1991. Until now, only probate cases in Portage County could be viewed on the county's website. After the switch, the county's court history and database will be available. The online court record application, known as Wisconsin Circuit Court Access, "receives between two and three million requests a day," A. John Voekler, the state's director of state courts, wrote in a blog post. "To say the clientele of CCAP is diverse is an understatement."

California Consumer Credit Employment Bill Clears Committee

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500

A bill that would prevent California employers from using consumer credit reports to screen and evaluate potential employees has passed a key state Senate committee. Assembly Bill 22 would ban the use of credit reports in hiring decisions unless the position is a management one and that the information in the credit reports is substantially job related. It passed the Senate Appropriations Committee with six Democrats supporting it and two Republicans voting against. Opponents have claimed the reports provide solid background information on a job candidate, while existing law already provides safeguards against abuse by requiring employers to notify existing and potential employees that they're seeking credit report information and requiring them to provide a copy of the report. Supporters have said it's an unnecessary intrusion. The bill will next be considered by the full Senate.

Morris County,TX Court Cases Accessible Online

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Morris County has joined a growing consortium of counties to display court information on the Internet. Both Morris County Clerk Vicki Falls and District Clerk Gwen Oney announced the inclusion of court case information from Morris County and District Courts in an Internet database at www.idocket.com. Currently, 55 counties and 81 county and district clerks across the State of Texas participate in iDocket.com's online database including other east Texas counties such as Dallas, McLennan, Cherokee, Navarro, and Montgomery to name just a few. IDocket.com is adding other counties to its database on a regular basis. Both clerks state they are excited to offer this new service to the attorneys who practice in the county and state courts of Morris County. This service will also benefit other individuals and entries that require and can use easy access to court case information, such as bail bondsmen and of course, the general public. The clerks agree this service increases courthouse access 24/7/365, providing constituents better service, less customer traffic, leading both offices being more efficient, and saving tax payer dollars.

The Public Record Update A Service from BRB Publications, Inc.

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Trademarks, Trade Names and Notaries in Wisconsin The management and record keeping of the Notary, Trademarks and Trade Names in Wisconsin has transferred from the Secretary of State's Office to the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions. Effective July 2011, the addresses, phone numbers, and URLs have changed. The new physical location is 345 W Washington, 3rd Fl, Madison WI 53703. The new phone number is 608-266-8915, the fax is 608-264-7965. The home page is now http://www.wdfi.org/. Both divisions offer online search capabilities at the new URL. Search trademark and trade name information at http://dfi.nmtvault.com/Trademarks.aspx. Search the Notary Public database at http://dfi.nmtvault.com/Notary.aspx. Driver's License Status Check in Kansas Kansas recently unveiled a new service that allows one to check the status of a KS issued driver's license. The DL #, full name and DOB are required. The information must be entered as it appears on the driver's license, with no dashes or spaces. The direct link is: https://www.kdor.org/DLStatus/login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fdlstatus%2fsecure%2fdefault.aspx. (Or you can go to home page at www.ksrevenue.org/ and click on the appropriate link.) Illinois Public Record Searchers The Illinois Department of Professional Regulation recently issued a "cease and desist" letter to a PRRN (Public Record Retriever Network - www.prrn.us) member based in Illinois for performing public record research and not having a private investigator's license. The Department interpreted that the act of researching public records is considered to be performing an "investigation." This is regardless if the PRRN Member was merely researching and reporting to a attorney, private investigator, or consumer reporting agency (CRA) what is found in a court's public record docket. The licensing of Private Investigators is governed by 225 ILCS 447. Article 5 defines, in part, that a private investigator is someone who "...engages in the business of, accepts employment to furnish, or agrees to make or makes investigations for a fee or other consideration..." Articles 10 and 15 list exemptions. See the statute at www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs2.asp?ChapterID=24 Interestingly, similar situations occured several years ago in Arizona and Texas. The states had similar laws to IL. A PRRN members was actually thrown in jail in Texas. But the issues were resolved and the end result is that public record researchers are not required to be licensed as PIs when simply hired by private investigators or Consumer Reporting Agencies (CRA) to report facts in the public records. If this issue is of interest, there is an older, but still applicable article titled "The Trouble With PI Licensing Statutes" written by Carl Ernst, found on the BRB Publications site at www.brbpublications.com/articles.aspx.

Illinois Pulls Health Care Licenses of Sex Offenders

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Illinois yanked the licenses 11 of health care workers citing a new law that bars registered sex offenders and people convicted of violent felonies from working in the field. The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation released the names of the health professionals, including six doctors and five registered nurses, after giving them 20 days to alert the department of any overturned convictions. The law, which took effect over the weekend, allows the state to permanently revoke licenses without holding a hearing. Department officials said they'll release additional names later. "The State takes its responsibilities to protect our residents seriously," Brent E. Adams, Secretary of Financial and Professional Regulation said in a statement. "This new law establishes tough outcomes that are intended to shield Illinois patients from health care workers who have been convicted of sex offenses and certain violent crimes." Of the 11 announced Monday, nine are registered sex offenders and two others were convicted of violent crimes. The convictions of the 11 include child pornography, indecent solicitation of a child, aggravated criminal sexual abuse and battery. In at least two cases the victims were patients. The names of the health care workers were posted online at the website of the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. The six doctors had been licensed in Carmi, Darien, Long Grove, Moline, Skokie and Streator. The nurses had been licensed in Beach Park, Blue Island, Chicago, Elgin and Lake Villa. Attempts by The Associated Press to reach the 11 health care workers for comment Monday were unsuccessful. Illinois Department of Corrections records show one of them is serving time at Stateville Correctional Center for felony sexual abuse, sexual assault of child patients and manufacturing child pornography. Three of the doctors, all retired, declined to comment when contacted by the AP. One registered nurse lives in Michigan, according to the state's sex offender registry, and didn't have a listed phone number. The others had phone numbers that were either disconnected, unlisted or rang numerous times without going to voicemail. After receiving the state's notices, several health professionals filed lawsuits against the department arguing the law shouldn't apply to them. Spokeswoman Sue Hofer said the department won't release the names in those pending cases until they've been decided in court. The state could add more names to the list because it doesn't include those who are involved in pending litigation. The Chicago Tribune reported that two Chicago-area doctors are among the professionals who filed lawsuits against the state. Mohammed Khaleeluddin of Rockford and Ashvin Shah of Flossmoor claim in their lawsuits, filed last week in Cook County, that they've already been disciplined and their medical licenses were restored after temporary suspensions. They claim the state is violating their right to due process by creating a "double jeopardy" situation for them. Khaleeluddin was suspended from practicing medicine for three years after a conviction for sexual misconduct with female patients, according to Illinois regulatory records. He's been allowed to practice since 2000 and was fined $30,000. Ashvin Shah's license was suspended for six years after a conviction for battery, the Tribune reported. He's been allowed to practice since 2001, according to Illinois records. Neither physician returned phone messages from AP. The new law also allows the state to impose restrictions on doctors and others in health care after charges have been filed, but before conviction. The state can require health care workers who've been charged with sex crimes or forcible felonies to see patients only in the presence of another health care worker who acts as a chaperone. In Illinois, forcible felonies include crimes involving violence or the threat of violence. The Illinois State Medical Society supported the legislation. "No patient, under any circumstance, should have to worry about the specter of sexual abuse when seeking health care," said Dr. Wayne Polek, the doctors group's president, in a statement after Gov. Pat Quinn signed the measure into law. State Sen. Kirk Dillard, a Hinsdale Republican, said state regulators are acting to protect patients. "I do not believe these doctors have a double jeopardy claim," said Dillard, an attorney, when asked about the lawsuits filed in Cook County by Khaleeluddin and Shah. "They're free to go practice medicine somewhere else. We just don't want them in Illinois."

Fake Diplomas In Russia No Longer Buy a University Education

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500

By Khristina Narizhnaya Filipp's high school grades were so bad that eventually he stopped going. After a few months he decided to make a fresh start in college. Re-enrolling in high school would take too long, he figured. Buying a high school diploma seemed like a good solution. But when Filipp, then 18, showed up to apply to a university several years ago with the diploma he purchased in the metro station, the admissions officer laughed. "Boy, you better leave quick, before I call the police," she told him. With the start of the new school year Thursday, many young people, like Filipp, are willing to pay to take the easy way out. But getting by with a fake diploma is not as easy as it once was.
Employers and educational institutions have become more discerning while applicants for schools and jobs have grown more qualified. Spotting a Fake "A fake diploma is not that hard to identify," said Yury Virovets, president of recruiting agency Head Hunter. Real diplomas, both college and the less often imitated high school ones, contain intricate patterns that cannot be replicated, Virovets said. A Russian university diploma is a document with the school's name, the graduate's name and some stamps inside a blue folder — for those with excellent grades the folder is red. The names of the university and the student and stamps are different, but the basic document is the same for all schools, depending on what year it was awarded. Most counterfeit diplomas are made using an original document. The client's name is written on a real blank diploma, which is then signed and stamped. The documents are stolen or obtained from corrupt university workers. Some are left over from the 1990s. During the "wild '90s" a large number of college diploma documents were stolen. They soon became a hit on the black market. Why Use a Fake? "People got career opportunities and thought why not?" said Viktoria Burkovskaya, head of Egorov, Puginsky, Afanasiev & Partners' white-collar crime practice. "They bought it, forgot about it and moved on with their lives." As those people moved up in their careers, the sham sometimes surfaced. Some got jobs in the government, which requires a background check. Several officials were recently fired after they were found to have used fake diplomas, including the head of the education department in Lviv, Ukraine, the regional prosecutor for the southern Russian republic of Karachayevo-Cherkesia and the deputy mayor of Berdsk, a town in the Novosibirsk region. A Profitable Business
Fake college diplomas cost an average of 30,000 rubles ($1,000) but can sell for up to four times that amount. One criminal group was busted two years ago for selling fake Harvard diplomas for $40,000 each. Before, those who needed a college or high school diploma, or just about any document, went down to the subway and approached people holding up cardboard signs that read "diploma." A few of these metro merchants are still around, but many fake diploma schemes have gone digital. Just type in "buy a diploma" in Russian. Dozens of web sites beckon with an array of marketing techniques. One Russian web site, diphelp.com, offers free delivery of the diploma to any part of the world. Another site, nextdiplom.ru, features a young woman in a strapless dress holding books in one hand and making the "OK" sign with her fingers. Yet another site features a stack of books on a black background and useful advice, in Russian and English. "There are two ways of getting diplomas. There is the legal way, the site tells you. But then it goes on to point out that getting an actual diploma will take up to six years. Next is a link to an application to buy a diploma. But it says "bye" a diploma instead of "buy." These web sites are open for business because of hazy Internet regulation, Burkovskaya said. It is not clear who should be prosecuted and what the punishment should be for these web sites. Checking Bona Fides An easy way is to discover the validity of a diploma is to call up either the Education Ministry or the university from where the person claims to have received the degree. This process, however, is usually expensive and time-consuming — not viable for most small companies. Usually only large companies, banks and government institutions do background checks, experts said. Those candidates with access to the company's finances or commercial secrets are especially scrutinized, Virovets said. For most small businesses background checks are only done if the applicant's behavior, age or other characteristics seem to be at odds with the diploma, human resource experts said. Getting a job with a fake diploma is not easy these days. The interview process is often grueling. To get a good position, several interviews with different managers are required. "While [Unilever] does not do background checks on applicants, it would be very difficult for someone to fake the education and experience required for the job because of the rigorous interview process," said Alexei Bakanov, personnel manager at the consumer products giant. Demand Declining, Alternatives Expensive Improved education opportunities, such as study abroad programs, have made the domestic work force more professional. As the country's economy grows and becomes more sophisticated, the demand for fake diplomas declines. Only 8 percent of working Russians have bought fake diplomas, according to a June survey by recruiting agency JobList.ru. About five years ago the market for fakes began getting squeezed from all sides by the police and employers themselves, who are now pickier over whom they hire, said Georgi Dobromelov, deputy director of the Institute for Political Research. Bribing university officials to enter someone's name into the school's database happens but could get to be very expensive, Burkovskaya said. A false entry showing that a person completed a course could cost $500. A cheaper, legal way to obtain a dubious diploma is by attending a third-rate college, usually unlicensed, that gives out diplomas to anyone who pays. These places of higher learning usually consist of no more than a couple of rented offices and do not have rigorous education standards. There are no official numbers, but experts say such institutions have mushroomed in the last decade. "You can get a diploma at a bad university legally, without committing any crimes," Burkovskaya said. Getting a job with diplomas from unlicensed universities is also not easy, Dobromelov said. Today's employers look for people with a reputable education and real skills. "The country is becoming more civilized," Dobromelov said. "There is less demand for fake diplomas. It's the market mechanism." Filipp figured this out and eventually completed high school. Now he is enrolled in a college, where he hopes to earn a diploma.

LegalZoom's Lawsuit Settled?

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500

A possible agreement has been reached to settle a $5 million lawsuit against a vendor for online legal documentsbefore the start of a trial scheduled to begin in federal court in Missouri. The class-action lawsuit claims California-based LegalZoom.com Inc. is not licensed to provide legal services in Missouri and is seeking reimbursement of three times what customers paid for the documents. It was filed by a Missouri resident who used LegalZoom to prepare a will, two others who used the service to organize a remodeling business and the business C&J Remodeling LLC. LegalZoom was created about a decade ago and provides legal documents such as wills, trademarks and incorporation paperwork that are designed for the laws in each state. Customers answer questions online and the documents are created with computer software. LegalZoom released a statement Monday saying a proposed settlement contains no admission of wrongdoing and would allow it to continue offering services in Missouri with certain changes to its business practices. The company said the terms were being negotiated and would be released after they've been approved by everyone involved in the case. The company said the plaintiffs never asserted that the documents they purchased were defective. The firm said it continues to dispute the basis for the lawsuit, but the pending agreement would avoid a costly trial. An attorney for the plaintiffs declined to discuss details of the proposed settlement with The Associated Press on Monday, but said the agreement involved compensation for Missouri consumers who have used LegalZoom and would include changes to the company's business practices. Online federal court records show that the parties involved in the lawsuit indicated during a teleconference on Aug. 12 that a possible agreement had been reached. The plaintiffs are to file a motion for preliminary approval of the settlement by Sept. 23, but those court records do not offer additional details about the terms of the possible agreement. LegalZoom has said it offers people who want to represent themselves in legal issues an important tool by providing legal documents over the Internet. Attorneys for the plaintiffs have said those legal documents do not address every aspect of state law and customers do not have any recourse if the documents are faulty. LegalZoom is among the best known of an increasing number of companies that offer similar assistance. The business practices of LegalZoom have been challenged elsewhere, including in Alabama and North Carolina.

Dennis Brownstein's Exteme Court News (Updated Sept. 28, 2011)

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500

White Powder Found In Alaskan Court Tests Negative For Snow
An envelope containing white powder prompted the evacuation of the federal building in Anchorage, Alaska, September 23. An FBI spokesman said the evidence has been delivered to the state lab in Anchorage for analysis, but initial field testing turned up negative for toxins. Further results might be released as early as September 24. The envelope was opened in the U.S. district court clerk's office. Besides the powder, there was a note inside. However, authorities didn't release the note's contents or any additional details. Source: http://www.lakewyliepilot.com/2011/09/24/1270140/white-powder-prompts-evacuation.html

No Surprise Here - Tweeting Can Get You Fired

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Rhodri Marsden The internet has brought about a head-on collision between our personal and professional lives. A neatly presented online CV outlining a calm approach to high-pressure situations might stand in stark contrast to a Flickr album featuring pictures of that person screaming at a police cordon. A reputation for high standards of written communication might be compromised by misspelled, expletive-filled rants on Facebook. Wary of being brought into disrepute by the online misdemeanours of employees, many companies implement social media policies that punish transgressors. It has reported that 8 percent of companies have dismissed people for inappropriate online behaviour. But far less is heard about are those whose applications for new jobs fail because of things they’ve left visibly strewn around the net. An American firm, Social Intelligence, is gaining a high profile following the launch of its web-based pre-employment screening service. But the evidence suggests that the practice of digging up dirt online has quietly become endemic among employers; you might think that you’re being judged on the information you send them, but it might be the things you choose not to reveal that end up denying you the post. And you may never find out the real reason. Social Intelligence has stated that its activities have very precise boundaries. A “deep trawl” is done through the last seven years of blog comments, forum contributions and even classified ads that might have been posted, along with any visible social media content. From that data, a dossier is compiled of specific material that could be seen as dishonourable – eg racist language, mentions of drug-taking, photos of a sexually explicit nature, or references to weapon usage or other violence. Those who’ve failed the Social Intelligence test include a person who made an online enquiry about a possible source of the pain reliever Oxycontin; past dossiers also included membership of borderline-racist Facebook groups such as “This is America – I shouldn’t have to press 1 for English”. We can’t pretend that background checks are a startling innovation. Recruitment services base their decisions on more than just the positive information they’re handed; referees might be asked for personal opinions and professional insights to build up a better picture of a candidate. But employers are increasingly aware of and keen to use the huge informational resource that social media serves up on a plate; all kind of information is in the public domain, and incredibly easy to find – particularly if the applicant has an unusual name. As the chief executive of Social Intelligence has said, with something of a corporate shrug, “All we assemble is what’s publicly available on the internet today”. Nothing underhand going on here. Of course, most people haven’t uploaded pictures and text to establish a body of data that could be used to microscopically analyse their attitudes towards everything from immigration to giving money to charity; most people have done it because they’ve been encouraged to do so by online companies dangling the carrot of friendship. Finding people who share your interests, rather than putting off prospective employers. But both are happening. “This probably started around four years ago,” says Chris Purdy, director of Greenfield, a specialist recruitment business based in Luxembourg. “The appearance of LinkedIn and Xing changed the methodology of how we headhunt; if we wanted a quick reference, that became the first place to go. But HR departments don’t stop at LinkedIn.” One might wonder what level of unacceptable behaviour would cause those departments to rule someone out of the running, but it’s clear that the more senior the role, the more scrutiny of the applicants. “Your online reputation is part of your professional reputation,” says Purdy. “If, say, a man is going for a private banking post that puts him in charge of E200m portfolios, pictures of him wearing a thong at a stag do won’t go down well.” Few users of social media would emerge from close analysis without some kind of stain on their character. Swearing, sarcasm and stupidity are rampant; we’re fallible human beings, after all. With Social Intelligence trawling back over seven years of material, growing older and wiser doesn’t count, past indiscretions will come back to haunt us. Mat Honan, an employee of the gadget-guide website Gizmodo, subjected himself to a Social Intelligence check which he failed, thanks to passing references to cocaine and ketamine on his blog. But was he being judged unfairly? After all, someone following a spoof BNP Twitter account that satirises racist attitudes could mistakenly be labelled a racist, and a debauched post-party photo might have someone mistakenly tagged as being in it when they aren’t. This isn’t an exact science; your online bill of health is down to the skill and judgment of whoever performs the diagnosis. According to Angie Youels, who performs HR-related services for small start-up companies, the interest in digging for a bit of colour on a candidate is down to the increasingly unhelpful information from traditional sources. “Candidates know that they can find out what’s been said about them, so rather than give a reference, they tend to just give dates of employment. In the past they’d have given fuller details.” Bearing this in mind, the airbrushed, one-dimensional and characterless profiles presented on sites like LinkedIn almost feel like an invitation for more invasive, exploratory digging. But there’s a danger in digging too far. Companies will become aware of facts they’re legally not allowed to ask. Details of age, ethnicity or political views will inevitably surface – as might, say, a female candidate’s pregnancy. Once this information is known, it can’t be somehow forgotten. Social Intelligence is keen to highlight the fact that its service keeps such information at arm’s length from the companies themselves; Mat Honan’s dossier, for example, had his face blacked out throughout so as not to reveal his race, while still detailing his past encounters with drugs. “I think it would be wrong for someone to be influenced by the fact that a candidate held, say, different political views to theirs,” says Youels, “but that’s the danger – that people will be rejected for their stance on this or that.” The answer, according to Alexandra Arnott, a director at Octopus, an IT recruitment specialist, is honesty and diligence. “We may become aware of private information or opinions of candidates that are not relevant to process. So we must adhere to a strict ethical code and use our judgment and experience to ensure no discrimination.” The process of choosing someone to work for you has always and will always be based upon judgments. If you have two CVs for a post, one listing “eating granola and doing yoga” as an interest, and the other mentioning membership of the Campaign for Real Ale, that information will register. A job that involves lots of post-work socialising might suit the beer-drinker better – but the granola fan might be angry that they lost out on that basis. Yet that’s life; workplaces are full of people who don’t fit in perfectly with their colleagues, and it’s not unreasonable to suggest that social media searches could give employers a better idea of how that person might slot in. As Chris Purdy says, it’s human nature to be drawn to people with similar views as your own. “Someone with liberal views isn’t going to want to take on someone with strong right-wing views – or vice versa,” he says. “Most of us don’t put objectionable stuff out there. I don’t think it’s as big an issue as it’s made out to be.” So are the gasps of horror in the US merely paranoia? It’s possible that, in time, companies will find that the hours spent scouring the internet for personal information isn’t that productive, and that filters that gauge personal inclinations might work better. “If you’ve got nothing to hide,” say those who are unconcerned about privacy issues, “you’ve got nothing to fear.” This clearly isn’t true; the prospect of our online presences being misjudged means that we might have nothing to hide, but something to fear. One solution: monitor your social media profile actively, suppressing anything that might compromise you. Don’t indulge in cross-dressing – even for fun – or be photographed next to a load of marijuana plants. This, of course, may showcase you as being incredibly dull, but perhaps it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Advance Screening For Visitors To Malaysia

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Malaysia wants to introduce the Advance Passenger Screening System (APSS) to combat transnational crimes like human trafficking and drug smuggling. The system, used by countries like the United States and Australia, will enable the authorities to screen visitors, particularly the “unfavourable ones”, even before they enter the country. If the system is implemented, the authorities can check the background of each visitor and cross check the information with foreign counterparts to determine if the person has any criminal record or been blacklisted or is on a “watch list”. Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein said the system should be implemented because Malaysia was considered a transit point for several transnational crimes. He said the Government was serious in tackling the issue as it did not want the country to be used for such crimes, adding that the business of security had become complex and challenging due to globalisation. “We already have the biometric system implemented which is working well. Once everything has been settled, we shall look into the APSS. “I want the public to know that the Government and the Home Ministry are committed to protecting the safety and security of the country and its people. We are doing all we can to ensure that Malaysians can sleep well at night,” he told The Star in an interview. Hishammuddin had earlier attributed the success of re-arresting Jemaah Islamiah sleeper agent Agus Salim to the biometric system, under which the authorities were able to detect Agus, who was using an Indonesian passport with a false name to enter the country. The system has several modules, such as Advance Passenger Processing, which allows information, including flight details and the passport number of a passenger, to be sent in advance before he even lands in Malaysia. The Passenger Name Record module will have extensive information on the passenger to be sent to the authorities of the country he wishes to visit, including the person he is seated next to during travel and other countries he has visited. The Risk Assessment and Profiling module is able to analyse APP and PNR data to look for possible suspects while the facial recognition module will help prevent identity fraud or identify travellers using multiple passports.

Fraudsters Mostly Males

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500

KUALA LUMPUR: A large number of those who commit fraud are males, married and have good communication skills, according to an expert. They are also intelligent individuals who are not only egoistic, but have inquisitive personality, are willing to break rules and take risks. Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (Malaysian Chapter) president Datuk Akhbar Ali said according to statistics, 87% of those who commit fraud were males, aged between 31 and 45 with most of them “married and have pretty wives”. “Those who commit fraud do so as they are under stress due to personal crisis such as financial problems. “They are also individuals who are greedy and big spenders, living beyond their means,” he said at a symposium against corruption and fraud here yesterday. Akhbar said fraudsters usually would go home late from work to enable them to steal company information and sell it to interested parties. He said they would also refuse promotions and transfers as the position they were presently in would facilitate committing the crime. “These people will also not take vacations fearing their activities would be exposed when they are not around at their desks. “Those who lived beyond their means and have a very close relationship with their clients should also be checked for fraud,” he said. Akhbar said it was important for organisations to fight fraud and corruption to ensure and maintain the success of their establishment apart from preventing revenue losses. He added that in an organisation where fraud had been committed, there would be at least 6% loss in revenue. “More importantly, such activities can destroy a nation and it is also important to remind the public on the severity of punishment should one get caught for committing the offences,” he added. He stressed that the menace would only grow and “not stop on its own”. “If left unchecked, the losses would be greater. “It is extremely important for companies to do a background check on their potential staff before hiring them,” he added. "

Background Check Filipino Health Care Workers

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500

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Universal Background Screening Announces Taleo Enterprise Passport Certification

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Integrated Solution with Universal Background Screening Provides On-Demand Background Checks for both Taleo Enterprise and Business Edition Customers Phoenix, AZ (PRWEB) September 29, 2011 Universal Background Screening, an award-winning national provider of background screening services, is now certified by Taleo to provide integrated background checks through the Taleo Enterprise platform. Universal’s pre-integrated capabilities enable Taleo customers to seamlessly submit background check requests, obtain paperless candidate authorization and disclosure forms, and view completed background check results. The Enterprise Edition integration builds upon Universal’s integration with Taleo Business Edition and membership in the Taleo Solution Exchange, while utilizing Universal’s HR-XML Consortium-certified integration platform. Nearly half of Fortune 100 companies and over 5,000 organizations from all industries use Taleo's on-demand talent management platform. "We are pleased to expand our relationship with Taleo and to have the opportunity to service a larger audience through our certified, pre-integrated solution with Taleo Enterprise Edition," said Ryan Krostue, CEO of Universal Background Screening. "Larger employers with complex requirements, especially those in healthcare and other regulated industries, will benefit from Universal’s screening expertise coupled with Taleo’s recruitment technology platform." Universal Background Screening joins Taleo’s elite network of Passport certified partners. The relationship between Taleo and Universal helps customers extend their electronic talent management process to include background checks, and eliminate manual steps such as data re-entry and faxing of forms. As a Taleo Passport certified, pre-integrated solution, Universal Background Screening’s comprehensive suite of criminal background checks, verifications, drug tests, physicals and related services are available to Taleo Enterprise customers immediately. For more information about activating the integration, please contact Universal Background Screening at http://www.universalbackground.com/taleo/ or your Taleo Account Manager. About Taleo Taleo helps organizations improve the performance of their business by unlocking the power of their people. Through its cloud-based platform, Taleo optimizes recruiting, performance management, learning and compensation -- and integrates them all so managers have the insights they need to achieve Talent Intelligence. From small and medium sized businesses to large enterprises, more than 5,000 organizations rely on Taleo every day to pursue growth, innovation and customer success. More information about Taleo is available online at http://www.taleo.com. About Universal Background Screening Universal Background Screening is a leading national provider of employment background screening solutions, recognized by both HRO Today and Workforce Management as one of the top screening providers with customer service excellence. The company’s services include comprehensive criminal background checks, verifications, drug tests, physicals, and compliance management services. Universal Background Screening consults with its clients to create customized screening programs that enhance security, reduce liability, and improve productivity and cost savings in the candidate selection and hiring process. To learn more, call 877-263-8033 or visit http://www.universalbackground.com.

National Violence Against Women Survey

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Every year, 1,510,455 women and 834,732 men are victims of physical violence by an intimate. This is according to a Department of Justice report on the National Violence Against Women Survey. What does that mean? Every 37.8 seconds, somewhere in America a man is battered. Every 20.9 seconds, somewhere in America a woman is battered. Every 20.6 minutes another man in Washington is battered. In Washington, that's 42,824 women and 25,473 men. That includes 2,754 men on whom a knife was used, 5,508 men threatened with a knife and 11,016 men hit with an object. There may be a trend toward less violence against women, more violence against men, or both. While 76.5% of the people reporting physical violence by an intimate in their lifetime were women, only 62.5% of the people reporting physical violence by an intimate in the last year were women, and 37.5% were men. The data show that men are more likely to have a knife used on them or to be threatened with a knife, hit with an object, kicked, bitten or have something thrown at them. Women are more likely to beaten up, threatened with a gun, choked, victims of drowning attempts, have their hair pulled or be pushed, grabbed or shoved.

Why Men Don't Do Anything About Being Abused

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Philip Cook
Taking on a macho "I can handle it" attitude. Even if you have been hurt much worse on an athletic playing field, that is not the same thing as being physically attacked by your intimate partner, which hurts emotionally as well as physically. Allowing this pattern to continue can result in depression, substance abuse, loss of confidence, even suicide. (At its worst, It has resulted in death at the hands or a partner or someone induced to kill you by the partner.) Men Don't Tell. This is the actual title of a fact-based CBS TV movie about male victims of domestic abuse. Keeping silent, (not confiding to a friend, relative or professional) is a common reaction of both male and female victims of domestic abuse; it's embarrassing. Men typically face a greater degree of disbelief and ridicule than do most women in this situation, which helps enforce the silence. Domestic violence victims make excuses for injuries that show (It was an accident or it happened while playing sports) when friends or medical personnel ask about them. Hiding From it. Men often escape a bad home life that they are afraid of by spending extra time at work, staying in their space (garage, den) at home, or even sleeping in the car or at a friends place. As my wife and I discussed abuse case histories we're familiar with, we came up with five major, interrelated categories why a man--or a woman--might stay in an abusive relationship: Shame
*What will my friends, family, colleagues and neighbors think?
*What will people think if they knew I let a woman beat up on me?
*It's a private matter--belongs in the family
*If I say anything, she'll tell everyone I'm the abusive one, and shame me in public
*I'm ashamed I'm not strong enough to defend myself.
*Everyone knows it's men that are the violent ones (shame of male for being male) Self-Worth
*I probably deserved it.
*This is the best I deserve.
*With my looks, or age, or personality, or income, this is as good a relationship as I'll ever be able to get. Denial
*It's not that bad.
*All I have to do is leave the house until she cools down. (That's what TV star Phil Hartman said , before his wife murdered him and killed herself.)
*I can weather this one, just like I did the others.

Reluctance to Give Up the Good
*If people got to know her, they'd see what a creative, or loving, or wonderful person she is.
*She's like this only some of the time.
*The sex is great, and I can put up with being batted around a little.
*I'd be lost without a relationship with her.
*I'd be lost without a relationship. Inertia
*It's too hard to do anything.
*I'm not ready for that much change in my life.
*I'll do it tomorrow, or later, when I'm not so busy.
*Sounds like a lot of work--more to take care of than I can handle right now.
Force of habit. I'm used to life the way it is now. Another reason for staying is to protect the kids. The research shows that people--women as well as men--who assault their partners are likely to assault their children, too. If he leaves, chances are he'll never be able to come back. In today's climate, there's a good chance she'll be able to allege that he has assaulted her or assaulted or even sexually abused the kids, and get a protection order on her say-so, barring him from seeing the kids. This was a common theme in many of the battered men's personal stories here on MenWeb. Sorry, guys, but if you need to come up with a safety plan and plan out a way for you and the kids to leave the abusive relationship, you also need a "dose of reality" about what some of the risks and problems are. They aren't insurmountable problems, and many guys have overcome them, but they are difficult ones. But there's another factor, too. If a man is being battered and trying to protect the kids, and he calls 911, too-frequently he is the one who ends up being arrested. This was another common theme in many of the battered men's personal stories here on MenWeb. At a minimum, he may experience problems getting the police to believe that he's been assaulted or that he needs police help. Family violence researcher Murray A. Straus observes: Men are also less likely to call the police, even when there is injury, because, like women, they feel shame about disclosing family violence. But for many men, the shame is compounded by the shame of not being able to keep their wives under control. Among this group, a "real man" would be able to keep her under control. Moreover, the police tend to share these same traditional gender role expectations. This adds to the legal and regulatory presumption that the offender is a man. As a result, the police are reluctant to arrest women for domestic assault. Women know this. That is, they know they are likely to be able to get away with it. As in the case of other crimes, the probability of a woman assaulting her partner is strongly influenced by what she thinks she can get away with.

Website Claims Background Checks Don't Work

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Most employers claim to conduct comprehensive background checks on their potential employees. This may serve to put some new hires on alert, but in many cases such in-depth checks are overlooked or limited in scope. In other circumstances the wrong sources are evaluated altogether. In an effort to educate and provide tools to employers, the Federal Trade Commission has published information designed specifically to offer guidance for verifying education degrees. The publication, Avoid Fake Degree Burns by Researching Academic Credentials, lays out a common sense and comprehensive approach that gives businesses a basic jump off point.

The FTC advises employers to consider the following factors when interviewing and considering job applicants: Contact listed schools and colleges. Consider logical sense of place and time. Did the candidate work in one state but earn a degree during the same period of time? Do the listed colleges sound very similar to prestigious institutions? Many unaccredited colleges try and net students by closely copying the name of an accredited college. For example, Radford University is a well-known accredited college in Virginia. Randford University is an unaccredited diploma mill also located in Virginia. Is the length of degree term logical? Associate's degrees equal typically one to two years of study; Bachelor's, four years; Master's, one to two; and a Ph.D., at least two. Background checks fail due to a systemic lack of information on a couple of levels. First, the array of information required to assemble a personal profile on a job applicant is overwhelming for many employers, especially small business owners with little time on their hands. What kinds of personal information may employers access, and what oversteps privacy boundaries? Questions like these pose real information obstacles.1 Secondly, the general lack of widespread information on diploma mills and accreditation mills has led to a serious level of ignorance among employers. Until recently the term "accredited" had value when attached to a college or university. But accreditation mills have changed all that; problem is many people, including employers, don't know. In our article on "Accreditation", we examine the devaluation of the term "accreditation" and the proliferation of false information. The FTC's checklist makes a serious attempt to provide the right information on how fake degree suppliers and job recruits may mislead employers. Employers go wrong when they verify college degrees with the obligatory phone call to the college. Not enough. Degree verification services an added feature of diploma mills provide bogus verification. Extensive online research is the only current way to ferret out an unaccredited degree supplier. In order for an employer to exhaust the background check on listed educational institutions, he or she must cross-reference the following: College website. Department of Education list of national and regional accreditors. These are the only recognized agencies in the U.S. Foreign accreditors are not authorized to accredit U.S. colleges. Oregon Office of Degree Authorization (ODA) list of un-accredited colleges and list of non-recognized accreditation entities. Until such a time that the essential information on diploma mills like that above is simplified, packaged and marketed to a wider audience, chances are good that bogus degrees will continue to slip through on background checks. Already enough evidence exists to suggest that even the simplest criminal background checks are erroneous, ineffective, and often just overlooked. If criminal databases are this flimsy, how can one expect educational data be legitimate and trustworthy? Website; www.counterfeitdegrees.com/diploma-mills/background.htm

Criminal Records Bureau Successor Sought

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The Home Office has begun to look for a replacement for the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) and Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA), with a tender for a company to run outsourced disclosure and barring services. The new service will bring the CRB and ISA together, and is aimed at supporting the implementation of the Protection of Freedoms bill. It will involve: the receipt and processing of referrals for a barring decision; applications for disclosure; workflow management; customer and registration services; the issuing of certificates; payment services; and running a call centre. All of the services will have to be accessible through the Home Office's desktops and infrastructure platform. The tender notice in the Official Journal of the European Union says the contract will last for eight years and is valued at between 250m and 350m. As yet there is no firm date for the new service to come into effect. A Home Office briefing on the Protection of Freedoms bill says that timescales will be finalised when the bill receives royal assent, which is expected to be in mid-2012

Will County, IL Now Online

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Will County Circuit Clerk Pam McGuire has announced that her office is now providing access to basic court case information through its website, www.willcountycircuitcourt.com. The new link will connect users to court information. "Now an individual will be able to access their court information from the Internet," Will County Chief Information Office Bob Enright said. "This is a project we have been working on for several months." The information provided on the website includes the names of the parties involved, charges, financial and court date event information. Cases can be looked up by first and last name, case number or traffic ticket number. "We don't want people to have to drive to the courthouse or make a phone call to get basic information," Enright said. "Our hope is individuals will utilize this site for their general information which in turn will reduce the large number of phone calls our office receives on a daily basis. This in turn will allow staff to focus on entering information into the court record much quicker." For more in-depth information, public access terminals are available throughout the main courthouse, 14 W. Jefferson St., Court Annex, 57 N. Ottawa St., and at the River Valley Justice Center, 3208 W. McDonough St. in Joliet. "There you will find a complete docket sheet and access to scanned documents, which are not available from our website," McGuire said. "At a future date, when the Supreme Court allows, we plan on providing access to those documents from our website as well. To obtain regular or certified copies of a court document, requests can be made from our website by selecting the "E-Document" tab. Upon payment verification your document will be sent to the email address provided." As far as court dates and court orders, Enright offered a word of caution. "Pay attention to what the judge, law enforcement officer or your attorney tells you," she said. "We are providing a minimal amount of information at this time. For more detailed information you may want to review your order received in court or view the actual court file at our public access terminals located at the court locations."

New Jersey Crime Stats

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Hunterdon County had fewer criminal cases at the municipal court level than any other New Jersey county for the past two years, according to data released this week by the state judiciary. From July 2009 until June 2011, Hunterdon municipal courts reported 12,422 criminal cases, with 6,249 of those filed between July 2010 and June 2011. Sussex, with 8,340 criminal cases in the past year, was the county with the second-fewest criminal cases. Essex, with 139,728, reported more criminal cases than any other county. According to Judiciary spokesman Mike Mathis, minor crimes such as disorderly conduct, petty theft and ordinance violations and fish and game violations are included in the municipal statistics, while serious crimes such as sexual assault, homicides or robbery are excluded because these are dealt with in superior court. To download the complete chart of New Jersey municipalities, visit judiciary.state.nj.us/quant/munm1106.pdf

Lessor Crimes Cost You More In New Jersey

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Steal something worth more than $200 in New Jersey, and under certain circumstances, you are eligible for the pre-trial intervention program, which results in the crime being removed from your record. Steal something worth less than $200, and no such program is available to you in New Jersey. If convicted, the crime goes on your criminal record. People charged with crimes get little sympathy - and indeed often deserve little sympathy. But justice must be tempered with mercy - and common sense. That's why New Jersey has a pre-trial intervention program, known as PTI, for certain first-time offenders who are charged with indictable offenses. Admission to the PTI program is far from automatic. It depends on the nature of the crime, the situation that prompted the crime and various other factors. The decision is made by a judge, based on a recommendation from the county prosecutor and the program director. The goal is not to clog the court system or the prisons due to offenses that can be adequately handled through community service, counseling or restitution. But, ironically, PTI is not available to defendants charged with lesser, nonindictable offenses that are handled in municipal court.

No Need To Go To Court In New Jersey

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500

One part of a newspaper series, headlined, "Violent Criminals Flout Broken Bail System," reported that Philadelphia faced a fugitive crisis. The article reported that a staggering 47,000 defendants were loose on Philadelphia warrants for skipping hearings and trials, and that Philadelphia was tied with New Jersey's Essex County, home of Newark, for the nation's worst fugitive rate. Drawing upon its own analysis of court statistics, the newspaper reported that a third of all defendants in Philadelphia skipped one or more court hearings.

Naked Wrestlers Arrested on RSA Motorway Case Goes To Magistrate Court

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Two wrestlers who were arrested when they were found naked next to the N1 in Gauteng on Saturday, have done administrative work in the Vanderbijlpark Magistrate's Court in connection with the public indecency charges that were brought against them. Vikus (Vic Scar) Enslin, 29, and Dani'l (K.O.) Koen, 21, members of the African Punishment Wrestling Association (Apwa) had to run 100m while naked next to the highway while pictures were taken of them, as part of an initiation ritual. About 16 semi-professional wrestlers, including Enslin and Koen, were heading to a show in Welkom when they stopped near the Kroonvaal toll gate on the N1 at about 10:00 on Saturaday. "I had been waiting for some time for my initiation," said Enslin. "There were three of us who had to be initiated but one of the guys got cold feet and hid in the minibus." "I kept my clothes with me because I was convinced they would drive off." Koen said just as they began running to a minibus, an unmarked traffic police car stopped next to them. "There were two guys and a woman in the car. The men laughed their asses off, but the woman didn't think we were very funny." Many motorists apparently hooted and laughed while driving past. The two male officials even took videos and photographs. "The woman wanted us to get into the car with her naked, but I refused and tried to pull on my jeans. She fought with me about this and literally pulled my pants off from around my knees. She then handcuffed us to one another and took us like that to the police station," said Enslin. The two men, wearing only their underpants, were taken to the Barrage police station. They waited for more than an hour before being released. "Our friends got a huge fright. We will now definitely have to find another way of initiating our guys," said Enslin. A prosecutor said the two initially wanted to pay a fine but then decided against it when they heard it was linked to a criminal record. "I then offered that they rather hold a naked wrestling match for the prisoners at the Leeukop prison (that night), but they didn't think that was very funny." The two then had to do administrative work at the court as part of their community service. They described their working day there as "mind numbing" but realised their punishment could've been much worse. Enslin is a car mechanic and Koen is a group manager of a video chain.

Iran Says UK Is More 'Criminal ' Tha USA

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500

A senior Iranian military official says the UK is more violent than the US, stressing that the British monarchy is one of the oldest imperialist countries in the world. "The criminal record of the UK is even longer than [that of] the US whose crimes are difficult to enumerate," Mehr news agency quoted Deputy Head of Iran's Armed Forces Joint Chiefs of Staff Brigadier General Massoud Jazayeri as saying. "The monarchy in Britain is considered one of the oldest imperialist countries in history," the senior commander added. Jazayeri illustrated his point by using the great number of people stripped of their livelihood, the vast territories occupied and the resources plundered by British imperialists as examples. He also said popular demands and the manner of protests in the UK are similar to the Middle Eastern and North African countries. He added that the British public and the people of Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and other countries which witnessed the wave of Islamic Awakening, seek to assert their rights and want justice. Jazayeri concluded that European nations are drawing on the blueprint of the Middle East uprisings.

Texas Students Sent From Classroom To Courtroom

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500

By Donna St. George
In a small courtroom north of Houston, a fourth-grader walked up to the bench with his mother. Too short to see the judge, he stood on a stool. He was dressed in a polo shirt and dark slacks on a sweltering summer morning.

"Guilty" the boy's mother heard him say.

He had been part of a scuffle on a school bus.

In another generation, he might have received only a scolding from the principal or a period of detention. But an array of get-tough policies in U.S. schools in the past two decades has brought many students into contact with police and courts - part of a trend some experts call the criminalization of student discipline. Now, such practices are under scrutiny nationally. Federal officials want to limit punishments that push students from the classroom to courtroom, and a growing number of state and local leaders are raising similar concerns. In Texas, the specter of harsh discipline has been especially clear. Here, police issue tickets: Class C misdemeanor citations for offensive language, class disruption, schoolyard fights. Thousands of students land in court, with fines of up to $500. Students with outstanding tickets may be arrested after age 17. Texas also stands out for opening up millions of student records to a landmark study of discipline, released in July . The study shows that 6 in 10 students were suspended or expelled at least once from seventh grade on. After their first suspension, they were nearly three times more likely to be involved in the juvenile justice system the next year, compared with students with no such disciplinary referrals. Citing the Texas research, federal officials announced last month an initiative to break what many call the "school-to-prison pipeline." Suspensions, expulsions and arrests are used too often to enforce school order, officials said. "That is something that clearly has to stop," U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in Washington alongside Education Secretary Arne Duncan . Duncan recounted that in his old job as Chicago schools chief, he was stunned to learn that so many arrests occurred in schools. The first response to student misbehavior, he said, "can't be to pick up the phone and call 911." The federal focus comes amid other change. In Colorado, a legislative task force is examining discipline practices including law enforcement referrals and school ticketing. Los Angeles police recently agreed to cut back on ticketing tardy students en route to school. Connecticut officials have begun screening cases after students wound up in court on violations such as for having soda , running in the hall and dressing improperly. "It's not that we don't think these things should be handled," said William Carbone, the state's executive director of court support services. "We just think they should be handled in the school rather than the court." Research shows that students who have been arrested or appeared in court are more likely to drop out of high school, said Gary Sweeten, an Arizona State University criminologist. Dropouts, in turn, are more likely than graduates to be incarcerated or unemployed.

Hot Dog! An Eatery Hires Ex-Offenders

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Esther Cepeda
You can't keep a good wiener down. Last month, Felony Franks, which unabashedly hires ex-cons, proved that by getting its sign put up after having to go so far as to file a federal lawsuit to be allowed to properly mark the hot-dog stand's location. At issue, according to Chicago 2nd Ward Ald. Bob Fioretti, who opposed the permit application process for the hot-dog shop at 229 S. Western, is the message that such a cheeky, out-in-the-open-about-being-related-to-ex-convicts business sends to his community. "We want positive images for our kids," he told the Chicago Sun-Times last June. "We shouldn't be glorifying criminal conduct. It sends the wrong message to a community we're trying to uplift." That viewpoint assumes that a person, even a young one, who sees the black-and-white striped hot dog with the ball-and-chain who boasts "Food so good, it's criminal," is: a) completely devoid of a sense of humor, or b) actually could be enticed into behaving in ways that will lead to a prison sentence by a gastronomic adventure called the "misdemeanor wiener." Don't get me wrong, I'm 100 percent in agreement with Fioretti that communities shouldn't be glorifying criminal conduct , especially not in a city with fewer resources and jobs than ever before and a healthy population of ex-offenders who are disproportionately black and Hispanic.

But why not look at it from the other perspective: Felony Franks is not glorifying the glamorous thug culture that the media seems more than happy to feed us. They are honoring the basic premise that if you did something wrong and served your punishment, you get the opportunity to do better next time. That's not exactly easy to do. Almost 10 years ago, Diane Williams, president and CEO of Chicago's Safer Foundation, a community organization providing resources to people with criminal records, told a conference convened to tackle the issue of ex-offenders boomeranging back to prison: "Access to livable-wage employment with career advancement potential is, arguably, one of the single most important factors in reducing recidivism rates, which now are approaching 45 percent in Illinois to more than 60 percent across the nation." That factor is seriously suffering. Today the Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that nearly 70 percent of all released prisoners, nationally, are rearrested within three years, and those numbers don't reflect the pounding effects of the Great Recession. This year, the unemployment rate is expected to hit a 25-year high of 17 percent for African Americans and 14 percent for Hispanics, not exactly positive news for ex-offenders struggling to reintegrate productively into their community. Felony Franks' owner, Jim Andrews, should be getting every little bit of help from the city as he actually does something about the profound lack of steady employment opportunities for those who have criminal records while slinging a few cheap and tasty eats and doing all he can to get the word out, which is, itself, special. A survey of employer concerns about hiring an ex-offender found that one of the biggest fears is customers' discomfort if customers knew an ex-convict worked for them. Obviously, ex-convicts carry negative stereotypes about their past behavior. Brilliant marketer that he is, Andrews knows that if you can't fix it, you feature it. But catchy gimmick aside, the community only benefits by having role models of ex-cons who are holding down steady jobs and not hiding from their past. Who knows if Andrews will get the $293,000 he wants from the city in damages for the business he has lost by not having proper signage for the last 2 1/2 years. But if he does emerge the, ahem, wiener, he has vowed to open more hot dog joints and employ more ex-cons. That, in addition to the delicious dogs with the punny names, would be even more cause for celebration.
Hot Dog! An Eatery Hires Ex-Offenders
by Esther Cepeda You can't keep a good wiener down. Last month, Felony Franks, which unabashedly hires ex-cons, proved that by getting its sign put up after having to go so far as to file a federal lawsuit to be allowed to properly mark the hot-dog stand's location. At issue, according to Chicago 2nd Ward Ald. Bob Fioretti, who opposed the permit application process for the hot-dog shop at 229 S. Western, is the message that such a cheeky, out-in-the-open-about-being-related-to-ex-convicts business sends to his community. "We want positive images for our kids," he told the Chicago Sun-Times last June. "We shouldn't be glorifying criminal conduct. It sends the wrong message to a community we're trying to uplift." That viewpoint assumes that a person, even a young one, who sees the black-and-white striped hot dog with the ball-and-chain who boasts "Food so good, it's criminal," is: a) completely devoid of a sense of humor, or b) actually could be enticed into behaving in ways that will lead to a prison sentence by a gastronomic adventure called the "misdemeanor wiener." Don't get me wrong, I'm 100 percent in agreement with Fioretti that communities shouldn't be glorifying criminal conduct , especially not in a city with fewer resources and jobs than ever before and a healthy population of ex-offenders who are disproportionately black and Hispanic. But why not look at it from the other perspective: Felony Franks is not glorifying the glamorous thug culture that the media seems more than happy to feed us. They are honoring the basic premise that if you did something wrong and served your punishment, you get the opportunity to do better next time. That's not exactly easy to do. Almost 10 years ago, Diane Williams, president and CEO of Chicago's Safer Foundation, a community organization providing resources to people with criminal records, told a conference convened to tackle the issue of ex-offenders boomeranging back to prison: "Access to livable-wage employment with career advancement potential is, arguably, one of the single most important factors in reducing recidivism rates, which now are approaching 45 percent in Illinois to more than 60 percent across the nation." That factor is seriously suffering. Today the Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that nearly 70 percent of all released prisoners, nationally, are rearrested within three years, and those numbers don't reflect the pounding effects of the Great Recession. This year, the unemployment rate is expected to hit a 25-year high of 17 percent for African Americans and 14 percent for Hispanics, not exactly positive news for ex-offenders struggling to reintegrate productively into their community. Felony Franks' owner, Jim Andrews, should be getting every little bit of help from the city as he actually does something about the profound lack of steady employment opportunities for those who have criminal records while slinging a few cheap and tasty eats and doing all he can to get the word out, which is, itself, special. A survey of employer concerns about hiring an ex-offender found that one of the biggest fears is customers' discomfort if customers knew an ex-convict worked for them. Obviously, ex-convicts carry negative stereotypes about their past behavior. Brilliant marketer that he is, Andrews knows that if you can't fix it, you feature it. But catchy gimmick aside, the community only benefits by having role models of ex-cons who are holding down steady jobs and not hiding from their past. Who knows if Andrews will get the $293,000 he wants from the city in damages for the business he has lost by not having proper signage for the last 2 1/2 years. But if he does emerge the, ahem, wiener, he has vowed to open more hot dog joints and employ more ex-cons. That, in addition to the delicious dogs with the punny names, would be even more cause for celebration.

A Novel Way To Beat A case

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Recently on one of these 'Ask A Question' Website:' Accused's Question: Is there a statute of limitations for DWI in the state of New York for foreigners? Twenty two years ago I traveled from Toronto, Canada to Niagara Falls, New York and was charged for DWI.I posted bail and never returned to the USA. Is this charge still active and if so how can it be dealt with? Attorney answer: The statute of limitations is tolled because you jumped bail and left the country. You should hire an attorney in the Niagra Falls area to arrange a voluntary surrender on the DWI warrant and you may also face a bail jumping prosecution. It will probably be impossible for the prosecution to prove the DWI against you 22 years later as the witness(es) are most likely not available any longer. An attorney should be able to work out a non-criminal disposition for you given the prosecution's expected proof problems and (hopefully) your clean record since.

Example Of Australian Law On posting Bail

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Another weekend behind bars loomed for bikie boss Felix Lyle as he struggled to find someone without a criminal record to put up the $20,000 in cash he needed to bail him out. Initially police set bail of $100,000 but magistrate Lee Gilmour slashed the amount. The Hells Angel head honcho has been cooling his heels in Long Bay jail, having failed to find an "acceptable person", that is someone without a criminal record, who was willing to put up $100,000 in cash.

Maryland's Online Court Records: Now You See Them, Now You Don't

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500

By Edward Ericson Jr.
Users of the state's online court records database (courts.state.md.us/courtrecords.html) saw a new message beginning on March 14: "No Electronic Record Exist [sic] or Case Not Subject to Electronic Inspection." Searching for some names brings dozens of copies of this message. For other names there are none. Most people with criminal court records seem to have at least a few that are "not subject to electronic inspection." The message appears at the top of many searches ordered by date, though there is no date, or any other information, on the line. The message telling you there is no information is actually new information, according to a state judiciary spokeswoman. "It's a global message to account for a variety of scenarios," says Terri Bolling, a spokeswoman for the State of Maryland Judiciary. "It means that either no record exists to be reported by the court system or that a court record exists, but the information is not publicly available." In the past, she says, the online court records user would have no inkling that there were any hidden cases. If a case has been sealed, the person seeking to look at it will have to petition the court to open the case. The case number will not be available to aid in this quest. If a case is expunged, there will be no record, Bolling says, though that process can take up to 90 days, during which time only the name and case number will appear. Bolling cautions users that the "Case Search" feature of the online Judicial Information System "is not the official court record and is only a summary of information in the court record. For the official case record, people should visit the courthouse where their case was filed."

Youngstown, OH Municipal Court Now Online

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Steven Brownstein Youngstown Municipal Court case records are now available online at www.youngstownmunicipalcourt.org. A recent sampling of their case access shows a very clean structure of case information and defendant identifiers. These are cases that do not appear before the Mahoning County Common Pleas court. The Site can also be accessed through http://courts.mahoningcountyoh.gov/ where you can find Common Plea cases, too. This is a gem for researchers as it is one more link to making sure the best criminal record search possible is done.

Some Courts Are Using Facebook

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Two years after an Australian lawyer caused a stir by sending a foreclosure notice via Facebook, the practice of online legal service is spreading as a means for courts to keep their dockets moving. Courts in New Zealand, Canada and the U.K. have adopted the Australian example to avoid having cases stall when people can't be located and served in person. Lawyers said the U.S. may not be far behind in using the world's most popular social- networking service.

CPIC Searches Create Havoc for This Vet

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Respected veteran Robert Dale has just one thing in common with a convicted sex predator: both were born June 23, 1951. Now that seemingly innocuous similarity is turning into a nightmare for Dale, who said Tuesday he won't beable to get a decent job for months because of it. The holdup is all thanks to changes recently made to the RCMP's screening process, which requires those seeking criminal record checks to submit their fingerprints if their gender and date of birth matches that of a pardoned sex offender. Unfortunately for Dale, his does. The name check result does not specify anymore than there is a record present. Not where nor when. Waiting for fingerprints can take forever. Some companies are starting to rely on court record searches similar to what is used in the USA. Only time will tell if that is faster, And waiting for fingerprint checks, well, we have a lot of time.

CRB Mistakes Add Up To Hundreds Of Errors

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The number of errors by the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) has more than doubled in the past 12 months, despite intense pressure for it to improve its performance. Many of the victims of mistakes would have been intending to take up jobs as teachers, nurses and childminders, or become youth volunteers. Hundreds of innocent people have been accused of wrongdoing by the CRB. They are likely to have faced career problems or stigma from their communities as a result. They will also have had to go through an appeals process to clear their names. The disclosure is likely to deter innocent people from applying for positions that require scrutiny, for fear of being labelled a criminal. The worsening figures are an embarrassment for the Home Office, which faced criticism after the number of errors by the bureau was first highlighted last year. The latest figures show that 1,570 people being checked by the CRB were wrongly given criminal records, mistakenly given a clean record or accused of more serious offences than they had actually committed in the year to March 31. This compares with 680 people in the previous 12 months. The Home Office also pointed out that 90 per cent of disputes were resolved within 21 days.

Les Rosens' Corner

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Class Action Case Shows Importance of Background Screening Firms Following Fair Credit Reporting Act when Reporting Sexual Offender Data A new class action lawsuit filed in federal court on August 23, 2011 underscores once again the importance of background screening firms following the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). According to the civil complaint for damages, a background screening firm allegedly reported sexual offender data on applicants based solely upon a name match only, without making any effort whatsoever to confirm if the data belonged to the applicant. The suit alleges that such a practice violated the rule contained in FCRA section 607(b) that a screening firm must take reasonable procedure to assure maximum possible accuracy. In addition, the class action suit contends the screening firm "also reported public record information to employers without informing consumers that such information was being reported and without maintaining strict procedures to assure that the public information that it reported was complete and up to date" as required by FCRA section 613. In this case, the lead plaintiff had a common name, and the screening firm reported seven possible sexual offender matches relating to three individuals with the same name. The first possible match was convicted when the plaintiff was four years old, had a different date of birth, and was of a different race. The second possible match belonged to a 66 year old person of a different race sentenced to life in prison also with a different date of birth. The third individual was also another race and had a different date of birth. The plaintiff contended he never lived in any of the states where the matches were reported and was not a sexual offender. Based upon his allegations, it appears that matching the records to the plaintiff would have demonstrated the sexual offender record did not belong to the plaintiff. According to the case filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, when contacted by the plaintiff, the background screening firm advised him that the screening firm had a practice of routinely reporting all sexual offender matches based upon first and last name while making no effort to determine if the matter was applicable to a candidate. The suit contends that the background screening firm told the lead plaintiff that it often leads to problems. The suit alleged that a background screening firm can use other information to insure accuracy, such a date of birth. As a result, the suit alleged that the background screening firm "creates and distributes grossly and obviously inaccurate consumer reports to employers by including sex offender information in its consumer reports without making sure that some aspect of the consumer's unique personal identifying information " such as a date of birth, middle initial, social security number, or even race information " matches its reported sex offender information." The lawsuit alleges that the background screening firm acted in reckless disregard of its duties, and is seeking punitive on behalf of the class of individuals who have been wrongly identified as sex offenders by the screening firm as well as attorney's fees. Class action cases can create substantial exposure for defendants. At this point, only a complaint has been filed, which is merely an allegation, and no response has been filed and there have been no judicial determination made as to the accuracy of the allegations. However, the seriousness of the allegations, if true, underscores the differences between professional background screening firms and mere data vendors. A professional background screening firm that provides real background checks would never report that a person was possibly a sexual offender without taking appropriate steps under the FCRA to evaluate the accuracy of the data. In addition, as a firm that is accredited by the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS), ESR has an obligation to take steps to ensure accuracy and comply with the FCRA. This type of case also underscores why employers should consider only dealing with accredited background screening firms that have policies and procedures in place to ensure the maximum possible accuracy. In addition, providing information to employer as alleged was one of the issues brought up before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on their meeting of July 26, 2011, where some speakers complained about inaccurate data. Since, at the time of my writing this article, the matter is only in the allegation stage, and there has been no judicial determination as of the truthfulness of the charge, my policy is to not identity any of the parties. However, if additional information is needed by an attorney or researcher with a need to have a link to an online copy of the complaint that was filed, please email ESR News Editor Tom Ahearn at tahearn@esrcheck.com.

Background Check Filipino Health Care Workers

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The Philippines is one of the world's largest exporters of health workers, making this one of the country's most important exports. Know who you are hiring before they start the job. Straightline Internationa's local staff provides complete background searches and all public records in the Philippines. Call us at 1-866-909-6678 or E-Mail us at info@straightlineinternational.com and ask about our Philippine service.

Boeing Arrest Points To U.S. Workplace Drug Problems

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Federal agents have charged 37 people with illegally buying and/or selling prescription drugs at a Boeing military aircraft plant outside of Philadelphia. All but one of the individuals charged are current or former Boeing employees. Experts say this incident highlights the difficulties of detecting employee use of illicit prescription medications. Four types of prescription drugs were found at the Boeing factory, including the painkiller Oxycontin. According to the drug-testing company Quest Diagnostics, only 12 percent of the 4.5 million drug tests conducted in 2010 tested for Oxycontin. Quest also said that about three-quarters of drug tests are conducted before an employee is hired, making it difficult to determine if workers are using drugs once they are on the job. More companies may begin testing for opiates like Oxycontin as the number of people treated for painkiller abuse in the United States rose 400 percent over the past 10 years. These medications have also been associated with a higher instance of workplace accidents. Already, Quest says that 40 percent more America workers tested positive for prescription opiates in 2009 than in 2005. No study has yet investigated which industries have the highest rate of usage problems, but Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman Rusty Payne says that the results of such a study would likely be surprising. "These are people who don't fit the profile of a typical drug user," Payne explained.

10 Realms Of Cloud Security Services

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Security poses a major challenge to the widespread adoption of cloud computing, yet an association of cloud users and vendors sees the cloud as a provider of information security services. The Security-as-a-Service Working Group of the Cloud Security Alliance, a not-for-profit association formed by cloud-computing stakeholders, issued a report Monday that defines 10 categories of security services that can be offered over the cloud. The alliance said its report is aimed at providing cloud users and providers greater clarity on security as a service in order to ease its adoption while limiting the financial burden security presents to organizations. The 10 security-as-a-service categories are: 1.Identity and Access Management should provide controls for assured identities and access management. Identity and access management includes people, processes and systems that are used to manage access to enterprise resources by assuring the identity of an entity is verified and is granted the correct level of access based on this assured identity. Audit logs of activity such as successful and failed authentication and access attempts should be kept by the application/solution. 2.Data Loss Prevention is the monitoring, protecting and verifying the security of data at rest, in motion and in use in the cloud and on-premises. Data loss prevention services offer protection of data usually by running as some sort of client on desktops/servers and running rules around what can be done. Within the cloud, data loss prevention services could be offered as something that is provided as part of the build, such that all servers built for that client get the data loss prevention software installed with an agreed set of rules deployed. 3.Web Security is real-time protection offered either on-premise through software/appliance installation or via the cloud by proxying or redirecting web traffic to the cloud provider. This provides an added layer of protection on top of things like AV to prevent malware from entering the enterprise via activities such as web browsing. Policy rules around the types of web access and the times this is acceptable also can be enforced via these web security technologies. 4.E-mail Security should provide control over inbound and outbound e-mail, thereby protecting the organization from phishing and malicious attachments, enforcing corporate policies such as acceptable use and spam and providing business continuity options. The solution should allow for policy-based encryption of e-mails as well as integrating with various e-mail server offerings. Digital signatures enabling identification and non-repudiation are features of many cloud e-mail security solutions. 5.Security Assessments are third-party audits of cloud services or assessments of on-premises systems based on industry standards. Traditional security assessments for infrastructure and applications and compliance audits are well defined and supported by multiple standards such as NIST, ISO and CIS. A relatively mature toolset exists, and a number of tools have been implemented using the SaaS delivery model. In the SaaS delivery model, subscribers get the typical benefits of this cloud computing variant elasticity, negligible setup time, low administration overhead and pay-per-use with low initial investments. 6.Intrusion Management is the process of using pattern recognition to detect and react to statistically unusual events. This may include reconfiguring system components in real time to stop/prevent an intrusion. The methods of intrusion detection, prevention and response in physical environments are mature; however, the growth of virtualization and massive multi-tenancy is creating new targets for intrusion and raises many questions about the implementation of the same protection in cloud environments. 7.Security Information and Event Management systems accept log and event information. This information is then correlated and analyzed to provide real-time reporting and alerting on incidents/events that may require intervention. The logs are likely to be kept in a manner that prevents tampering to enable their use as evidence in any investigations. 8.Encryption systems typically consist of algorithms that are computationally difficult or infeasible to break, along with the processes and procedures to manage encryption and decryption, hashing, digital signatures, certificate generation and renewal and key exchange. 9.Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery are the measures designed and implemented to ensure operational resiliency in the event of any service interruptions. Business continuity and disaster recovery provides flexible and reliable failover for required services in the event of any service interruptions, including those caused by natural or man-made disasters or disruptions. Cloud-centric business continuity and disaster recovery makes use of the cloud's flexibility to minimize cost and maximize benefits. 10.Network Security consists of security services that allocate access, distribute, monitor and protect the underlying resource services. Architecturally, network security provides services that address security controls at the network in aggregate or specifically addressed at the individual network of each underlying resource. In a cloud/virtual environment, network security is likely to be provided by virtual devices alongside traditional physical devices.

In China, Business Travelers Take Extreme Precautions To Avoid Cyber-Espionage

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Security experts are warning that travelers should avoid bringing electronic devices carrying important company contacts and confidential information with them to China if at all possible. This warning stems from the pervasive electronic surveillance and cyber-espionage undertaken by the Chinese government and other regional sources. Although experts have posted similar warnings about other countries, China stands out because much of its focus is on using cyber-espionage that is aimed at improving the country's economy by stealing information from travelers, among other sources. “I’ve been told that if you use an iPhone or BlackBerry, everything on it — contacts, calendar, e-mails — can be downloaded in a second. All it takes is someone sitting near you on a subway waiting for you to turn it on, and they’ve got it,” said Kenneth Lieberthal, a former senior White House official for Asia who is at the Brookings Institution. In order to prevent such attacks, some corporate travelers bring disposable cell phones or temporary laptops that have been stripped of all classified data. Others do not take any electronic devices at all, or hide files on a thumb drive that they only use on off-line computers. A few will even take detours to Australia instead of risk talking in a bugged Chinese hotel room or purchase iPads or other devices for one-time use on a trip.

Even Those Cleared of Crimes Can Stay on F.B.I.'s Watch List

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Newly-released documents are shedding light on the terrorist watch list that is kept by the federal government. The documents, which were released by the FBI in response to a Freedom of Information Act request that was made by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, show that people can remain on the terrorist watch list even after they have been found not guilty of terrorism-related crimes, or if terrorism-related charges against them have been dropped. One of the documents that was released, a guidance memorandum that was sent to FBI field offices last December, shows that someone can remain on the terrorist watch list after being acquitted of terrorism charges if FBI agents still have a "reasonable suspicion" that the individual still may have ties to terrorism. In addition, the names of people who are no longer the subject of an active terrorism investigation but are still thought to be a national security risk are kept in a special file maintained by the FBI. The practice of keeping former terrorism suspects on the nation's terrorist watch list has been criticized by Electronic Privacy Information Center counsel Ginger McCall, who said that it violates the principle of being innocent until proven guilty. However, the practice has been defended by former Homeland Security official Stewart Baker, who noted that it could still be appropriate to keep someone on a terrorist watch list even if information about the person's possible ties to terrorism did not meet the courtroom standard of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Gay Convictions To Be Wiped From The Records

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Those convicted of homosexual crimes could soon apply to have their convictions wiped from the records under a government measure to tackle discrimination. More than 16,000 convictions for crimes relating to consensual gay sex could be removed from police computers, following intense lobbying from gay rights group Stonewall. Men convicted of loitering with intent could also apply to have their criminal record erased under the plans, which emerged recently. Ben Summerskill, chief executive of Stonewall, told a newspaper his group had lobbied hard for the historic convictions to be removed from the records. 'Not only were these convictions unfair but their presence on people's records has dissuaded many of those men from applying for jobs or volunteering their time to good causes,' he said. Until now, men with historic convictions for buggery and gross indecency have been forced to disclose them when applying for jobs of volunteer roles in hospitals and with children. Consensual gay sex for the over-21s was decriminalised in England and Wales in 1967. It was not until 1994 that the age limit was reduced to 18, with a further reduction to 16 in 2000. But the changes were not made retrospectively, leaving thousands of men with convictions for crimes that no longer exist. Under the proposals, men convicted for consensual gay sex with over-16s will be able to apply to their local chief constable to remove the conviction from the records. Mr Summerskill added: 'Many police forces across Britain were until the recent past often highly creative in the way they unfairly prosecuted gay men. 'Consequently, we strongly welcome these provisions being extended to men prosecuted for what was often a trumped-up charge.' The moves come just days after it was announced that same-sex couples applying for passports for their children can describe themselves as 'parent 1' and 'parent 2', instead of 'mother' and 'father'.

Canadian Bill Introduces Mandatory Data Breach Notification

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Canada’s Parliament is currently discussing a Bill that would require organisations to notify the Privacy Commissioner of data breaches that involve “material breach of security safeguards involving personal information under its control”. A material breach is defined to be one where sensitive data has been disclosed, the breach affects a number of people and an assessment by the organisation indicates that the breach indicates a systemic problem. Individuals need to be notified if there is a real risk of significant harm to them. In addition, the Bill seeks to specify the elements of valid consent for the collection, use or disclosure of personal information, and exclude, in certain circumstances, business contact information from the requirement of informed consent. This is the case when an organisation collects, uses or discloses personal data solely for the purpose of communicating or facilitating communication with the individual in relation to their employment, business or profession. Bill C-12 was introduced by the federal government on 29 September, after Bill C-29 failed due to Parliament being dissolved in March. If adopted, the Bill will amend the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). The Bill, which had its first reading on 29 September, is at:

http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Docid=5144601&file=4

9% Of All Background Searches In Saipan Turn Up As A Criminal Record

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500

In a recent nationwide survey by PRRN (The Public Record Retriever Network) taken nationwide, Steven Brownstein, the only background investigator west of Hawaii, found that 9% of all criminal background searches resulted in a record in Saipan. Probably, you have seen Steven Brownstein's name pop up on the internet; his criminal record retrieval ads appearing on such Sites as the Saipan Tribune and the Marianas Variety. "It's not rocket science or anything like that," admits Brownstein "But I have been at this more than 20 years." "It (background checks) comes second nature to me." Most of his previous experience has been in two of the largest metropolitan areas in the USA - Chicago and New York City. But coming to work in Saipan is no let down, either. Brownstein continues, "Convincingly enough, Saipan presents as much a challenge as the rest of the USA when it comes to getting the facts." "A careful inspection of all criminal records and second guessing local Police Clearances takes a certain amount of skill." An understanding of the CNMI (Saipan) judicial processs helps, too. "There is never an area where I go to work," admits Brownstein, "that I don't begin by learning the Judiciary and their system." Brownstein has been a member of NACM (National Association of Court Managers) for most of a decade and a half, and has served on the Membership Committee with past Alanta (Fulton County) Clerk of Court, Juanita Hicks. "My experience with the Clerks of Courts has been tremendous in my continuing education and has provided a number of sources for quick record retrieval and turnaround." "I can't say that I haven't used that to my advantage." Many a television network and large metropolitan newspaper have used Brownstein on numerous occasions for information on a fast breaking story. Coincidentally, Brownstein publishes a newspaper specifically for the background screening industry, http://www.thebackgroundinvestigator.com [The Background Investigator __title__ The Background Investigator Newspaper]. The Background Investigator has a circulation in the thousands and is used as a tool of reference by hundredes of pre-employment screening companies. Brownstein is also an investigative reporter and a member of IRE (Investigative Reporters and Editors). "It pays to get the facts." Concluding, Brownstein had this to say, "It doesn't surprise me that there is a 9% hit ratio (the percentage of criminal records found) in Saipan." "But. what does surprise me is the number of young adults that move off island, not paying a traffic citation, and then having a warrant issued for their arrest." "That does not look good on a resume."

9% Of All Background Searches In Saipan Turn Up As A Criminal Record

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Could You Survive a Social Media Background Check?

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Vivian Luckiewicz As of September 2011, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 14 million people are unemployed. At this rate, an employer can easily receive hundreds of responses to a single job posting. While a large applicant pool certainly gives the employer a wide variety of choices, it also makes background checks an important tool to be able to choose the most qualified candidate. Most job applicants are familiar with being asked to sign a waiver so that the prospective employer can run a credit report, which includes information about an employee's credit-payment history and other credit habits from which the employer might draw conclusions about the applicant. A criminal background check, particularly for jobs where an employee will work with children, the elderly or people with disabilities, is also routine. While the latest background screening tool "the social media background check" is considered new, it has actually been in use for quite some time. Almost all employers have been doing some sort of informal background checking on their own and they rely on this information for recruitment purposes. This means that prior to an applicant being called for an interview, chances are that someone has performed a "Google" search on the applicant on behalf of the employer, looking for Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn pages, as well as blogs and other accounts. No law officially prohibits employers from searching social networking sites while conducting their own background checks of job applicants. Some legal experts warn employers that if they turn to these sites to find out more about potential employees, they need to be aware of potential federal and state discrimination claims and invasion of privacy claims. Hiring managers are not supposed to use social media searches to make hires based on age, religion, disability, race and gender. If employers search the Internet for general information about a potential hire, it could lead to inadvertent discrimination based on characteristics that, by law, should not be considered as part of the hiring process. As of May 9, 2011, employers have the option to utilize the services of a background check company that has the approval of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The FTC-approved Social Intelligence Corporation, a California based company, is a consumer reporting agency in compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). As a consumer reporting agency, Social Intelligence Corporation can issue legal background checks "because it assembles or evaluates consumer report information that is furnished to third parties that use such information as a factor in establishing a consumer's eligibility for employment." Social Intelligence scours the Internet for everything prospective employees may have said or done online in the past seven years. The company then assembles a dossier with examples of professional honors and charitable work, along with negative information that meets employer predefined criteria: online evidence of racist remarks; references to drugs; sexually explicit photos, text messages or videos; flagrant displays of weapons or bombs; and clearly identifiable violent activity. Although Social Intelligence maintains a consumer report for seven years, the company states that data will not be reused and that information in an applicant's file will be updated when pictures are removed from social media sites. The company further provides that future employers who run searches through Social Intelligence will not have access to the removed materials. As with an employer's request to run a credit check or criminal background check, Social Intelligence also requires applicants to sign a waiver that gives permission to perform a social media background check in accordance with FTC regulations. It is important to note that employers who turn to third-party screening companies such as Social Intelligence to monitor and report on a potential employee's social networking activity protects the employee's rights under the FCRA. If employers themselves monitor an individual's Internet activity, the individual has no rights under the FCRA. Does this make you wonder if you would pass a social media background check? To improve your chance of passing, it is important to research your own background before going through the job-seeking process. Run a Google search on your own name. You may be shocked to see what comes up. Make a list of questionable photos, comments, e-mails and personal information that comes up, along with where you found it for future reference. After you have surveyed it all, take action on each one. Change your privacy settings on sites such as Facebook or MySpace so that only close friends and family can view your personal information. Then create a "limited access" list for people you may not know very well (or at all), and for coworkers or potential employers who have sent you a friend request and put you in that awkward position of having to either decline (and offend them) or accept (and have your whole private life on display). Go through your list of friends and see who should not be there at all and who needs to be moved to your "limited access" list. A good rule of thumb is if you do not know the person in real life, you do not need to friend them on Facebook. Next, go through your photos, not just on Facebook, but even online photo sharing albums such as Shutterfly or Snapfish that you do not think anyone else can see. Remove anything that is questionable. Questionable material can include any photos where you are dressed just a little too skimpily, as well as anything that makes reference to drugs, firearms (even if you own them legally), underage drinking and even smoking. Any photos that portray you as immature, such as photos of you giving the middle finger or wearing t-shirts with inappropriate language, should also be removed. Self-censor your posts from now on. Do not write any comments or status updates that use inappropriate language or language that can be construed as racist, sexist, offensive or even culturally insensitive. If you are looking for work, also steer clear of posts that are overly religious or political. Some potential employers will view status updates simply to see the types of things you talk about on your Facebook page, and even if they do not find anything inappropriate per se, they may be turned off if you seem immature. Re-evaluate your online "groups." Steer clear of any groups that could be construed as offensive. If you belong to a group like "This Is America. I Shouldn't Have to Press 1 for English," or "Dora the Explorer is sooo an Illegal Immigrant," it goes without saying that you should remove yourself immediately. If you blog, reread your entries from the perspective of a potential employer. Remove or edit postings that could harm your job-seeking efforts. Obviously, there is no need to remove Web content that shines a light on your positive achievements since a personal web site or blog that highlights your good deeds could benefit you. Social networking sites are here to stay, so employers and employees need to follow some basic guidelines. Negative credit reports, falsified employment history and an arrest record can be cause for concern for prospective employers.

However, using incorrect information or using correct information in an improper or illegal manner when making hiring decisions can violate the legal rights of applicants and result in costly litigation. Employers should ensure they have fully researched the most current laws regarding background checks prior to initiating such practices, and they should train recruiters and hiring managers to conduct interviews and background inquiries in compliance with the law.

FBI Background Checks ' New Program Would've Nailed Capone Sooner

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Do you recognize him? As part of a number of security measures never have FBI background checks been so important. We see the need for security everywhere , whether it is closed circuit cameras on the streets or guards in the front of big buildings, keeping an eye on those who are coming in and out. We simply cannot be sure any more about the new neighbour who has recently moved in next door or the character of the new employer we have just taken on. It has become important that ordinary people can carry out FBI background checks of those they come into contact with so that their minds can be put at ease. Using revolutionary database intelligence software two entrepreneurial guys have found the answer. Joe Socco and Frank Lidel have noticed that official government records are now in the public domain and are easily accessible to the general public. The problem is that most of these records are situated on a variety of different databases belonging to numerous law enforcement and other official agencies covering all the states in the US. "Finding someone with this method is really time- consuming and frustrating", explains Joe. "But now it is possible to access and search records for anyone, anywhere just with the click of a mouse". Joe elaborates further, "About a year ago I wanted to find about an uncle that my mother had lost touch with many years ago. She wanted to know ,"Was he still alive? If so, where is he and what is he doing?" I had to do some real detective work to find this guy. I eventually discovered his current whereabouts but it took a long time. That is why http://www.OfficialGovRecords.com has been developed. With just a few clicks you can find out about anybody in the US or Canada, whether it is for personal or business reasons. With http://www.OfficialGovRecords.com you get unlimited access to over 1 billion records which includes nationwide and state criminal records, over 300 million criminal files, address history and property records , marital status, deaths, phone numbers , neighbor and relative check , felonies, DUI and misdemeanors, convictions and arrests and much more". The list goes on. If you want to find a lost friend or relative or carry out FBI background checks go to http://www.OfficialGovRecords.com

Background Checks Costing Jobs (Video)

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

People are losing jobs over mistakes on their background checks, according to Amber Yoo with San Diego based Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. One of the main reasons it is happening is because of mixed files or criminal identity theft. If an employer has made an adverse decision based on that background check, they are supposed to send you a letter informing you of how to obtain a copy. But privacy experts say that is not happening enough. In California, people have to sign an authorization form allowing them to do a criminal background check, but they can also check a box asking to see that report. There are multiple websites and videos that offer help to those having issues with background checks. Check out this link to remind us to be diligent in our nackground check reporting: http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Background-Checks-Costing-People-Jobs-130235378.html

Checking In On Military Records

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Peg McNichol Raymond Schepansky's April 14 arrest made national news, which drew the attention of veterans from around the country who began looking into claims about his military record. Records from the National Archives and Records Administration obtained by veterans, as well as Plymouth-Canton Community Schools' records obtained by Canton Patch, show that Schepansky made false claims. His job application package included a phony military letter. Michael Pachuta, owner of the Troy-based Credential Check Corporation, said any employer would be wise to consider verifying any applicant's military claims. His 30-year-old firm has about 1,200 clients throughout North America, he said, "from small two-person trucking firms to larger Fortune 100 companies." Military records should be checked, he said for two reasons: an employer's responsibility to provide a safe workplace and because "it is a previous employer, you have to validate that information," Pachuta said, recalling a case his company investigated about a man who claimed to be a chef for the state of Michigan ,and in fact, he was, but left out one small detail: He was in prison at the time. The truth came out, Pachuta said, when his company contacted the reference listed and it became clear that the job applicant had used a friend's cell phone number. Pachuta said checking military records is easier than in years past because armed forces now provide former military personnel with a form, DD214. He said the employer should ask for the long form, and because that document can also be falsified, it is important to verify that it is authentic.

Canadian Police Checks Still Taking Forever

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The head of a Winnipeg non-profit agency says Canadians are being put at risk because a new system has resulted in long delays getting background checks for new workers. Karen Fonseth, chief executive officer of Direct Action in Support of Community Homes (DASCH) says it can take more than a year for some checks to be completed due to the poor implementation of a system for doing the checks. "It's ridiculous," said Fonseth. "People can't wait five to six weeks to get a job, let alone five to six months." In June, she had over 50 applications awaiting a criminal check. Last month, she could only watch in frustration as three more potential hires found work elsewhere. The new system, implemented over a year ago, now requires fingerprints to be submitted for anyone whose gender and date of birth match someone who has an offence on record. It means far more people now need to go to their local police station to submit fingerprints and the delays for processing those prints can extend for several months. Even the initial check before fingerprints takes four to six weeks, said Fonseth. She said about one-third of the people she submits for a background check run into the new problem.

Go To Church Or Go To Jail

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

A civil liberties group said that an Alabama town should not start an alternative sentencing program that would give non-violent offenders a new choice: Go to jail, or go to church. Soon to begin, the program will allow a city judge to sentence misdemeanor offenders to work off their sentences in jail and pay a fine, or go to church every Sunday for a year. Offenders who select church can pick the place of worship but must check in weekly with the pastor and the police department. If the one-year church attendance program is completed successfully, the offender's case will be dismissed. The Alabama branch of the American Civil Liberties Union plans to send Bay Minette officials a letter demanding that they suspend the program. While the group says it supports alternative sentencing programs that save money, it believes the plan in Bay Minette violates the Constitution, state ACLU Executive Director Olivia Turner said in a statement.

Email May Be Main Source of Data Leaks in Organizations

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Email may be integral to an organization's day-to-day operations, but it is also becoming one of the primary sources of data leakage, according to a recent Ponemon Institute report. In a survey of 830 information technology, security, and compliance experts, more than 50 percent said improper email use among employees is the main source of data leaks within the organization. Roughly seven in 10 respondents said employees have breached security policies and frequently send sensitive data through insecure email channels, and 60 percent use personal email accounts to send organizational data, the survey found. About 63 percent believe workers mistakenly send confidential information to recipients outside the office. Additionally, 70 percent of the compliance and security experts surveyed are worried about data lost via email on mobile devices. Email is "such a significant tool that employees are inclined to circumvent policy and email sensitive information, so they can effectively perform their responsibilities in a timely manner," says Ponemon Institute chairman Larry Ponemon. Considering the volume of data stored on mail servers, a data breach could result in the theft of highly sensitive information. Worry also surrounds mobile devices, as employees are increasingly checking email while outside of the office.

Collateral Damage: False Arrest Record Haunts Man

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Michael DeHerrera is dealing with more than disappointment over the reinstatement of two cops fired for beating Michael in 2009. His dad says he can't get a job because that two-year-old arrest remains on his record -- a chronic problem in cases like these, according to the ACLU. "He's applied for these jobs, and everything's looking good, it gets down to the final process, and then once [the prospective employer] does the criminal history, his arrest from Denver P.D. comes up, and he's disqualified," Anthony DeHerrera said. "I ran my own CBI (Colorado Bureau of Investigation) check on him, and sure enough, the resisting arrest is still on there, the interference with an officer is on there. So who's going to hire him when they see that?"

New Online Service Makes Everyone A County Clerk

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Just as automated checkout machines in grocery stores have made the customer both the checker and the bagger, now self-service portals are allowing citizens to become, in effect, their own county clerk. That's the case in Ottawa County, Mich., where a new service will allow citizens to order and instantly print out certified copies of vital records from the county clerk's office through a Web interface. Few counties across the nation offer this capability, but it might become a common practice as more government services are pushed online. Users won't need to visit the clerk's office or receive paperwork through postal mail. Birth certificates, marriage licenses, property deeds and other records will be available through the online service.

Should Faking a Name on Facebook Be a Felony?

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Orin S. Kerr
Imagine that President Obama could order the arrest of anyone who broke a promise on the Internet. So you could be jailed for lying about your age or weight. on an Internet dating site. Or you could be sent to federal prison if your boss told you to work but you used the company's computer to check sports scores online. Imagine that Eric Holder's Justice Department urged Congress to raise penalties for violations, making them felonies allowing three years in jail for each broken promise. Fanciful, right? Think again. Congress is now poised to grant the Obama administration's wishes in the name of "cybersecurity." The little-known law at issue is called the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. It was enacted in 1986 to punish computer hacking. But Congress has broadened the law every few years, and today it extends far beyond hacking. The law now criminalizes computer use that "exceeds authorized access" to any computer. Today that violation is a misdemeanor, but the Senate Judiciary Committee is set to meet this morning to vote on making it a felony. The problem is that a lot of routine computer use can exceed "authorized access." Courts are still struggling to interpret this language. But the Justice Department believes that it applies incredibly broadly to include "terms of use" violations and breaches of workplace computer-use policies. Breaching an agreement or ignoring your boss might be bad. But should it be a federal crime just because it involves a computer? If interpreted this way, the law gives computer owners the power to criminalize any computer use they don't like. Imagine the Democratic Party setting up a public website and announcing that no Republicans can visit. Every Republican who checked out the site could be a criminal for exceeding authorized access. If that sounds far-fetched, consider a few recent cases. In 2009, the Justice Department prosecuted a woman for violating the "terms of service" of the social networking site MySpace.com. The woman had been part of a group that set up a MySpace profile using a fake picture. The feds charged her with conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Prosecutors say the woman exceeded authorized access because MySpace required all profile information to be truthful. But people routinely misstate the truth in online profiles, about everything from their age to their name. What happens when each instance is a felony? In 2010, the Justice Department charged a defendant with unauthorized access for using a computer to buy tickets from Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster's website lets anyone visit. But its "terms of use" only permitted non-automated purchases, and the defendant used a computer script to make the purchases. In another case, Justice has charged a defendant with violating workplace policies that limited use to legitimate company business. Prosecutors claimed that using the company's computers for other reasons exceeded authorized access. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently agreed. The law even goes beyond criminal law. It allows civil suits filed by private parties. As a result, federal courts have been flooded with silly disputes. In one recent case, an employer sued a former employee for excessive Internet usage from work. The alleged offense: visiting Facebook and sending personal emails. In another case, a company posted "terms of use" on its website declaring that no competitors could visit and then promptly sued a competitor that did. Remarkably, the law doesn't even require devices to be connected to the Internet. Since 2008, it applies to pretty much everything with a microchip. So if you're visiting a friend and you use his coffeemaker without permission, watch out: You may have committed a federal crime. Until now, the critical limit on the government's power has been that federal prosecutors rarely charge misdemeanors. They prefer to bring more serious felony charges. That's why the administration's proposal is so dangerous. If exceeding authorized access becomes a felony, prosecutors will become eager to charge it. Abuses are inevitable. Real threats to cybersecurity must be prosecuted. Penalties should be stiff. But Congress must narrow the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act before enhancing its penalties. There's no reason to make breaching a promise a federal case, and certainly not a felony crime.

SHRM Finds Employers Are Increasingly Conducting Background Checks To Ensure Workplace Safety

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) reports that more than half (57 percent) of HR professionals are somewhat or very concerned about workplace violence according to the SHRM Workplace Violence Survey, released today. HR professionals are taking the lead to address security concerns within their organizations and are responding with increased background checking for potential employees and greater security precautions. Compared to a similar survey done by SHRM in 1996, the number of respondents reporting they conduct criminal background checks has increased by 29 percent. Eighty percent of HR professionals now say they conduct such checks and 35 percent conduct credit checks to screen potential employees, an increase of 16 percent from 1996. Eighty-two percent of HR professionals report their organizations investigate the background of potential employees. This is up from 66 percent in 1996. As evidence that current events are causing increased security concerns, about one-third of HR professionals (35 percent) say they believe employees at their organizations have increased concerns about workplace violence post September 11, 2001. Another 11 percent report increased employee concerns due to the war in Iraq. "While employers can't protect employees from all of the world's ills, they certainly can take important steps to increase both the actual security of their workplaces and the sense of security for employees,"said Susan R. Meisinger, SPHR, president and CEO of SHRM. "HR professionals are often at the forefront in leading efforts to develop disaster response plans, and implement precautionary procedures such as background checking to ensure the protection of employees and business recovery following a catastrophe." The majority (60 percent) of organizations look to their HR department to develop workplace violence prevention programs to help create a safe work environment as part of the overall business strategy. Although the majority of HR professionals reported no change in the number of violent incidents in the workplace, 12 percent did report an increase in the number of such incidents. The majority of workplace violence involves incidents of vulgar language or verbal abuse. Of the HR professionals that reported violent acts in their own workplace, more than 70 percent had occurrences between employees, 34 percent had employee-to-supervisor incidents and 22 percent had conflicts between a supervisor and an employee. Domestic disputes continue to be a source of violence in the workplace with approximately 10 percent of respondents reporting girlfriend/boyfriend-to-employee incidents and an additional 10 percent reporting incidents between a spouse and an employee. To communicate the organization's position on workplace violence, more than 60 percent of HR professionals said their organizations have written policies regarding weapons in the workplace, reporting incidents or threats of workplace violence and addressing violent acts in the workplace when they occur.

War Takes Its Toll, Increased Mental Illness

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

"A growing body of literature has demonstrated the association of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan with post-deployment mental health problems, particularly posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression," the authors wrote. "However, studies have shown varying prevalence rates of these disorders based on different case definitions and have not assessed functional impairment, alcohol misuse or aggressive behavior as co-morbid factors occurring with PTSD and depression." Between 2004 and 2007, Jeffrey L. Thomas, Ph.D., of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, Md., and colleagues collected anonymous mental health surveys of 18,305 U.S. Army soldiers 3 and 12 months following deployment. The soldiers were members of four Active Component (non-reserve) and two National Guard (reserve) infantry brigade combat teams. They were screened for PTSD, depression, alcohol misuse and aggressive behaviors, and asked if these problems caused difficulties doing work, taking care of things at home or getting along with other people. "Using the least stringent definition, we observed PTSD rates across Active Component and National Guard study groups, study time points ranging from 20.7 percent to 30.5 percent, and depression rates ranging from 11.5 percent to 16 percent," the authors wrote. "Using the strictest definitions with high symptom rates and serious functional impairment, PTSD prevalence ranged from 5.6 percent to 11.3 percent and depression prevalence from 5 percent to 8.5 percent." Alcohol misuse or aggressive behavior , including slamming a door, punching a wall or threatening or perpetrating physical violence in anger , was present in about half of the cases of PTSD or depression. Between the 3- and 12-month time points, depression and/or PTSD rates remained the same among Active Component soldiers but increased among National Guard soldiers, despite similar rates of combat experiences and similar prevalence rates of mental health problems 3 months after deployment. "Therefore, the emergence of differences by 12 months likely does not have to do with differences in the health effects of combat but rather with other variables related to readjustment to civilian life or access to health care," the authors wrote. The results suggest consequences not only for the care of returning soldiers and their families, but also peers in their units, they concluded. "The findings of the study show that at 12 months following combat, the prevalence of mental health problems among veterans does not abate, and in many cases, increases. It is a virtual certainty that soldiers who remain in service will deploy again; this study shows that a sizable proportion (9 percent to 14 percent) have depression or PTSD symptoms with serious functional impairment," the authors wrote. "If soldiers who are struggling with serious functional impairment as the result of a previous deployment are deployed again, there is potential that this could impair their performance in combat. This has implications for the safety of unit members and mission success."

Extreme Case Of Background Check

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Would-be flight attendants in South Korea have accused Indonesia's national airline of making them strip nearly naked and have their breasts handled in medical check-ups, provoking a storm of criticism. Several dozen candidates for 18 highly-coveted female flight attendant positions with Garuda Indonesia were required to strip down to their panties to screen out those with tattoos or breast implants. She declined to be named, saying she was still waiting to hear whether she had got a job after the tests last month. "The hand examination on breast was held since those with implants can have health issues when air pressure falls during flights," Yonhap news agency quoted an airline official as saying. Cabin crew are banned from having tattoos and workers hired in other countries such as Japan and Australia were also subject to a similar process, the agency quoted the official as saying. Garuda Indonesia's Seoul office denied part of the accusation, saying job applicants did not have to remove their bras and its staff only "lightly tapped (the) upper side of their breasts." "Those who passed the medical checkup said they felt no shame in the process," the firm said in a statement, adding it was common for airlines to check if job seekers had tattoos or body implants. But the move baffled industry peers and angered women's rights groups, which called the process unnecessary and intrusive. Kim Da-Mi, a Seoul-based activist with the Sexual Violence Relief Centre, urged the state human rights agency to take action, telling AFP: "I wonder if such a practice is acceptable in Indonesia." Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim-majority population. "We've never heard of or done such checkup on flight attendants," said a spokesman for South Korea's flag carrier Korean Air, calling the Jakarta-based airline's tests "bizarre". "I wonder if that means passengers with breast implants should not fly also," he told AFP. Competition for flight attendant jobs is fierce in South Korea, where the role is seen as offering high pay and travel opportunities, and thousands of young women prepare for years before applying for vacancies.

Watch Your Social Network Cloud

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

As workers put more information about their lives online through status updates, location check-ins and resume changes, employers are more at risk of competitors watching their every move. Investigators at Kroll Inc. are known for scanning deleted computer files and monitoring surveillance cameras to help large companies uncover rivals' secrets. Now they're trawling the social Web. "Social media has become a much more efficient way of getting information that could only be gotten in the past by things like surveillance," said Kroll Senior Managing Director Rich Plansky. In a Forrester Research survey last year of more than 150 companies that monitor social media, more than 82 percent said they use this data for competitive intelligence -- the most cited reason for the monitoring. With good reason: A single insider's Twitter Inc. post can be more valuable than a stack of analysts' research. At Kroll social sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook Inc aid in investigations of employee misconduct, background checks and suspected cases of data breach. "Who a person's friends are, what bars they go to, which groups they are interested in, what they look like," Plansky said. "All of those information sources are a potential gold mine for us in developing intelligence for our clients." When one client asked Kroll to find out how a potential acquisition target got leaked to a competitor, investigators found a series of social media posts in which a member of the client's mergers-and-acquisitions team publicly discussed doing diligence on a company in a specific city.

Philippines NBI Police Clearances Drag On

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Wrangling for the juicy P76-million (US $1.75 million) earmarked for the National Bureau of Investigation's clearing services is done, and NBI clearance applicants may have been shoved on the wayside as the vendor were changed. It took 10 minutes or so to go through the NBI clearance process before. This has slowed down to almost 20 days for those securing an NBI clearance. Before, 22,000 to 30,000 NBI clearances were turned up daily.

E-Verify System Not Ready For Prime Time

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Rebecca Smith In May, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a controversial Arizona law that requires employers to check the immigration status of new hires on an Internet database and revokes their business licenses if they violate federal immigration law. Emboldened, supporters are trying to take the program national: A congressional committee approved a bill introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith that would mandate that all U.S. employers use an online database to confirm workers are authorized to work in the United States. It would be a terrible mistake to expose the nation to the hazards of this far-reaching and flawed database. It will create a nightmare for job applicants, new hires, current employees and law-abiding small businesses, and will fail to address illegal immigration and the needs of our struggling economy. Here's the problem: The database is riddled with inaccuracies and out-of-date information, flaws widely acknowledged even by the federal government. Its error rate is either 2 percent, 4 percent or 12 percent, depending on which study you read. Even a 2-percent inaccuracy rate nationally would mean that up to 1.3 million employees annually would be wrongfully told that they are ineligible to work. To correct the mistake and save their jobs, these workers would have only a few days to go stand in line at a government office and clarify things, or be terminated. Unfortunately, workers unfairly stuck in this limbo are at the mercy and whim of employers. According to the Government Accountability Office, many employers who receive preliminary notices questioning a new hire's work eligibility actually take steps to restrict work assignments, delay job training and reduce pay, in violation of the law, while the employee tries to correct the error. The GAO estimates almost 800,000 authorized workers wouldn't be able to correct database errors and would lose their jobs if the current system, called E-Verify, were national policy. These workers would be permanently unemployable, since all employers would find the same wrong data each time the worker applied for a job. To be clear, a national E-Verify mandate would not be restricted to immigrants, every new hire in America would have to go through a fraught background check and pray that some data-entry glitch in the Homeland Security and Social Security databases doesn't derail his or her new job. E-Verify would also subject America's workers to increased employment discrimination and other unlawful employment practices. Employees who are born in another country are up to 50 times more likely than native-born employees to be wrongly identified as unauthorized to work. Some employers will simply refuse to hire or even interview workers who look or sound foreign. The irony of E-Verify, after all this, is that the harsh sanctions do not even stop unauthorized work. In fact, bottom-feeder employers only become emboldened to hire workers off the books and abuse those workers and our payroll-tax and insurance systems. Under E-Verify, the only thing a business needs to do to avoid sanctions for hiring unauthorized workers is to hire workers off the books. As an added bonus, no taxes need to be paid for workers who don't officially exist. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that nationwide implementation of E-Verify would decrease federal tax revenues by $17.3 billion over 10 years, by shifting more workers off the books. E-Verify is clearly not ready for prime time, and it's doubtful it will ever be. It's no surprise that groups across the political spectrum , privacy, civil rights and civil-liberty groups, as well as business and labor , have lined up to oppose the program. E-Verify is a threat to both civil rights and jobs. The real solutions to our immigration crisis involve comprehensively reforming our immigration system and strengthening core labor standards to protect all of our nation's workers. Mandating immigration database checks does nothing to resolve the status of our undocumented workforce. We can pull the wool over our own eyes and pretend it's a solution, but we do so at our own peril.

Feds Set To Shred Court Records

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Wrestling with the challenges of documents in the digital age, U.S. officials are destroying millions of paper federal court records to save storage costs -- but the effort is raising the ire of some historians, private detectives and others who heavily rely on the files. The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration says at least 10 million bankruptcy case files and several million district court files from between 1970 and 1995 will be shredded, pounded to pulp and recycled. Only a small percentage of files designated as historically valuable will be kept in storage.

Government Risks Losing Cases Because Of Errors

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The government bears most of the risk of error in a criminal trial: factual error because of the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt and legal error because of the prohibition on government appeal of acquittals. An important consequence of the asymmetric risk of error in criminal cases is that there are more acquittals than there would be under symmetric risk of error, ceteris paribus. That is, assuming all other rules of criminal procedure and evidence remain the same, more defendants would be convicted (by guilty plea or after trial) under the civil standard of preponderance of the evidence than are convicted under the reasonable doubt standard. Similarly, if appeal by the government were allowed, some acquitted defendants would suffer reversal and be convicted at a retrial.

New Philadelphia Municipal Court, OH Records Go Online

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

General information regarding New Philadelphia Municipal Court has been available online for some time. Now, court records became available online. Visitors to the website, www.npmunicipalcourt.org, can search court dockets, current caseload and hearing information, as well as closed- case information. Misdemeanor records, baby!

Les Rosen's Corner

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Two US Senators Voice Privacy Concerns Over Background Check Firm Storing Web Footprints of Consumers for Employment Screening Concerned that social media background checks may invade the privacy of consumers and raise legal issues, Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) and Al Franken (D-Minnesota) have sent a letter requesting information to an employment screening firm, Social Intelligence Corp., that locates, reviews, and stores data from the "Web and social media footprints" of consumers for up to seven years to give employers information about job applicants, according to a press release 'Blumenthal, Franken Call on Social Intelligence Corp to Clarify Privacy Practices' on Senator Blumenthal's website. In their letter to Social Intelligence CEO Max Drucker (full text available here), Senators Blumenthal and Franken write: "According to sample background reports published in the media, information is collected from applicants' profiles on social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, personal websites, and other online information sources that Social Intelligence Corporation matches to applicants. We are concerned that there are numerous scenarios under which a job applicant could be unfairly harmed by the information your company provides to an employer. We are also concerned that your company's business practices may in some cases violate the law." Senators Blumenthal and Franken also request that the company answer several questions concerning the accuracy of information, the right of consumers to online privacy, and Terms of Service and intellectual property violations. These questions include: * How does the company determine the accuracy of the information it provides to employers? Does the company have procedures in place for applicants to dispute information contained in the reports? * Is the company able to differentiate among applicants with common names? * Is the company able to determine whether information it finds on a website is parody, defamatory, or otherwise false? * Does the company require the consent of a job applicant before conducting a background check on the applicant? * Has the company ever endeavored to access a user's restricted information by joining the user's network of "friends" on sites like Facebook? * If the company conducts multiple background checks on an applicant, to what extent does it reuse information it has collected in previous checks? * Does the company operate in compliance with the terms of service agreements that prohibit the collection, dissemination, or sale of users' content without the consent of the user and/or the website agreements found on sites whose content the company compiles and sells? * With regard to intellectual property rights of users, does the company obtain permission from the owners of the pictures included in its background reports that are often licensed by owners for a narrow set of uses to use, sell, or modify them? The full text of the letter from Senators Blumenthal and Franken is available at: http://blumenthal.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/blumenthal-franken-call-on-social-intelligence-corp-to-clarify-privacy-practice. A Social Intelligence spokesman quoted in the article 'Senators have privacy issues with background screening firm' from the Hillicon Valley Technology blog on TheHill.com said via email that: "We welcome the opportunity to clear-up any concerns Senators Blumenthal and Franken may have about our business." According to the company's website, Social Intelligence "lets employers and hiring professionals reap the benefits of using social media in making hiring decisions, without the legal risks," and is "a fully compliant consumer reporting agency (CRA) operated in adherence with federal, state, and local employment laws as well as the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)."

You Can Become A Licensed Private Investigator Associate

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Licensing associate private investigators around the world is available according to The Background Investigator The Background Investigator said this offer is available to anyone 18 yrs. or older. Some experience is required. Your current job may qualify you! Licensing and government filing fees are expected to be paid by the applicant. Contact The Background Investigator at info@thebackgroundinvestigator.com Mention "Private Investigator" to expedite application.

German Regulator Calls for Termination of U.S. Safe Harbor

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Ten years ago, the European Commission agreed to recognize the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) “safe harbor” principles, and that anniversary has prompted Schleswig-Holstein Data Protection and Privacy Commissioner Thilo Weichert to call for an end to the agreement. In a press release issued in the days leading up to the 10th anniversary, Germany’s Independent Centre for Privacy Protection (ULD) raised questions about safe harbor as cited in a study by Australian privacy researcher Chris Connolly due to be formally released in August. According to the information included in the release, Connolly found that “2,170 U.S. companies claim to be safe harbor privileged; whereof 388 were not even registered with the Department of Commerce (DOC). Among the registered companies, 181 certificates were found to be not current due to lapse of time. The check on the seventh principle concerning enforcement alone showed that 940 out of the 2,170 U.S. companies do not provide information on how to enforce individuals’ rights. 314 companies provide a dispute resolution scheme that costs between $2,000 and $4,000. Thus, it is hardly surprising that not a single complaint procedure has been carried out. Despite the more than 2,000 annual complaints about noncompliance with the safe harbor principles, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has prosecuted only seven organizations for falsely claiming safe harbor self-certification." The ULD contends that authorities in the U.S. have not done enough to stop the “misuse of safe harbor” by U.S. companies and organizations. “From a privacy perspective, there is only one conclusion to be drawn from the lessons learned-–to terminate safe harbor immediately,” Weichert said, continuing on to suggest, “The least that should be done is to demand from the U.S. short-term positive evidence concerning enforcement of the safe harbor principles.” Dan Caprio, managing director at McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP and former chief privacy officer for the DOC, offered a different perspective. “In spite of an inauspicious beginning, many on both sides of the Atlantic point to the safe harbor program as a success story,” Caprio said. ”There have been numerous instances over the years where disputes have been resolved obviating the need for formal enforcement actions.” As the European Commission’s adequacy decision related to safe harbor is legally binding for all 27 EU member states, Weichert is urging that body “to immediately reopen negotiation to revise the principles and to make them effective” suggesting that in their current form, they allow U.S. companies to “bustle about claiming safe harbor and thus declaring themselves empowered to process the data of millions of European citizens and earning a lot of money without anyone-–neither individuals nor data protection authorities--being able to check on them.”

A Canadian Discharge Does Not Absolutely Clear Your Record

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Setting The (Criminal) Record Straight In Canada A discharge by a court doesn’t do away with the documentation. Here’s why
by Mike Bryan It is now gospel in Canada that when offenders are granted an absolute or conditional discharge they don’t receive a criminal record. That belief surfaces in the media when prominent members of the community face criminal charges.

The cases of former MP Svend Robinson, who pleaded guilty last August to stealing a valuable ring, and NHL hockey star Todd Bertuzzi, who pleaded guilty in December to assaulting on-ice opponent Steven Moore, are good examples. After the courts granted them a conditional discharge, every print, radio and television outlet in the country announced that they wouldn’t have a criminal record.

The simple truth is that discharges don’t avoid a criminal record and never have. Every person who’s ever been granted a discharge has a criminal record and cannot honestly or legally deny it.

To understand how something so straightforward could be so misunderstood by so many we have to be clear from the start about the meaning of the term “criminal record” — what it is, who can store and disseminate it, and what the consequences of having one are. The term “criminal record” has no specific legal meaning in Canada — it isn’t defined in any statute or regulation. It is most commonly understood as documentation of a person’s criminal conviction that can have damaging consequences long after an offender serves his or her sentence.

That kind of documentation is widely disseminated and kept on file by governmental agencies (police, courts, prosecutors and correctional programs) and by private agencies (newspapers, credit firms, bonding companies and employment agencies, for example.) The chief source of information about criminal offenders in Canada today is the automated Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC) maintained by the RCMP. CPIC is a national repository of fingerprint and criminal record information that is disseminated to authorized law enforcement agencies throughout Canada, the U.S. and abroad, to government departments for security/reliability investigations, and to individuals requiring police certificates for employment, visas and travel documents. A criminal record can have farreaching consequences: It can prevent someone from studying or practising law, medicine, teaching and other professions; it can bar employment by government departments and agencies at all levels; it can preclude the operation of a taxi or employment that requires bonding or licensing; it can limit a person’s ability to rent property or purchase insurance; and it can prevent a person from traveling to the U.S. and other countries.

Absolute and conditional discharges were enacted by Parliament on July 15, 1972. They were explained by then health minister John Munro as “means whereby the courts could avoid imposing a criminal record on persons charged with cannabis possession.” (That was the government’s official response to a federal commission’s recommendation two months earlier that the offence of cannabis possession should be repealed altogether.) But if discharges don’t avoid a criminal record, how did Munro get away with saying they did? To answer that we have to look closely at the language of the discharge provisions in the Criminal Code and at the language of an amendment to the Criminal Records Act that was made when discharges were introduced. (The Criminal Records Act is an act “to provide for the relief of persons who have been convicted of offences and have subsequently rehabilitated themselves.” It does that by enabling offenders who have served their full sentence to apply to the National Parole Board for a pardon and by restricting the RCMP and other federal agencies in the handling and disclosure of records of pardoned offences.) The original discharge provisions in the Criminal Code stated: “Where a court directs ... that an accused be discharged, the accused shall be deemed not to have been convicted of the offence ... to which the discharge relates.” As a result, people who are found guilty of an offence in Canada receive either a conviction or a discharge. The Criminal Records Act amendment made at the same time said: “This Act applies to a person who has been granted an absolute or conditional discharge ... as if he had been convicted of the offence in respect of which the discharge was granted.” That surprising contradiction meant one thing: Discharged offenders, although legally deemed not to have been convicted of their offence, still had criminal records and, therefore, could still apply for a pardon. They could legally deny having been convicted of an offence, but they couldn’t deny having committed a criminal offence or having been charged, prosecuted, found guilty or sentenced for a criminal offence. Nor could they deny having a criminal record. Records of their crimes were still stored and widely disseminated by CPIC and other public and private agencies. As a result of further amendments to the Criminal Records Act in 1992, discharged offenders may no longer apply for a pardon. Instead, the Act now provides that all references to a discharge granted after July 24, 1992, must be removed from the active files of CPIC one year after the grant of an absolute discharge and three years after the grant of a conditional discharge. At the end of those periods the RCMP and other federal agencies are prohibited from disclosing “the existence of the record or the fact of the discharge.” Offenders who received discharges before July 24, 1992, can now write to the RCMP to request that records of their offence be treated likewise. Even though discharged offenders can no longer apply for a pardon, records of their offence are still recorded on an automated retrieval database in CPIC. Those records will be separated from active files after the periods specified in the Criminal Records Act, but until then they can be accessed by police forces in Canada, the United States and other allied countries. The RCMP points out on its website that foreign authorities may save records retrieved from CPIC onto their own files. Thus, records of discharged offences that are no longer accessible to law enforcement authorities in this country may remain available indefinitely to law enforcement authorities in the U.S. and other countries from their own databanks. If Svend Robinson and Todd Bertuzzi had fulfilled the terms of their conditional discharges before July 24, 1992, they could have applied for a pardon; since their sentences came after that date they can no longer do so. That restriction could prove costly to them — and to thousands of others in the same position — particularly in terms of travelling to the U.S. and abroad or finding future employment that requires a pardon as evidence of a criminal offender’s rehabilitation. The federal government’s explanation of the discharge provisions was dishonest from the start — a blatant deception to neutralize the controversy over cannabis possession. Unfortunately, the mistaken belief that a discharge avoids a criminal record is now firmly entrenched in our society (including the criminal justice system itself), and thousands of unwitting offenders are in a state of legal limbo because of it. The discharge provisions should be repealed. They weaken both the deterrent effect of criminal prohibitions and the remedial effect of acts of clemency. To restore lost credibility to the criminal justice system, the federal government must come to grips with what should and what should not be a criminal offence in the first place; and it should remind the public on a regular basis about the true meaning and consequences of a criminal record and the real nature and benefits of a pardon.

How To Use Ads In The Background Investigator To Make Your Business Grow

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Small ads are the perfect way to promote a small business. And small ads WORK if you know a few simple things about how to write and place them. Use these four easy steps to insure you get results: Use a headline. People scan through small ads quickly to see what interests them. A headline gets their attention and entices them to read your ad. Smaller ads generally CAPITALIZE the first two or three words to make a brief headline. "SUCCEED NOW with our new system..." Make sure you small ad is being seen by the kinds of people who have an interest in what you sell and are likely to buy it. Your ad should present a specific offer. " A specific offer pulls much better response than a more general "see our site for ways to profit." Contact Steven Brownstein at findcrime@aol.com for ad information

Straightline International Offers Ontario Canada Provincial Wide Criminal Search

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Every day, Straightline International's court runners visit the Ontario court house. Straightline International, is the only U.S. based comapny to have on the ground court and public record researchers in Ontario, Canada. Besides Ontario, Straightline International has daily in-person visits to Quebec courts. "This is really something big," admits the publisher of The Background Investigator, Steven Brownstein, "as there is no other service in Canada that provides this kind of access." Contact Straightline about Canada at info@straightlineinternational.com Besides Ontario, Straightline International has daily in-person visits to Quebec courts.

Most Retailers Rely on Background Checks

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Nearly all retailers use background checks to vet potential employees, according to the results of a National Retail Federation survey [1]. “As retailers across the country begin to hire hundreds of thousands of holiday employees, the National Retail Federation today released a survey that illustrates the importance of employee background screenings in keeping customers safe,” read an accompanying press release [2] published on Tuesday. Responses from the survey, which was conducted in July, came from 96 executives from various retailers and showed that 97 percent of respondents used background screening sometime during the application process. “Pre-employment screenings are one of the tools retailers use as a first line of defense, especially during the holiday season when companies may have hundreds--if not thousands--of applications to sift through,” NRF senior asset protection advisor Joe LaRocca said. Most of the background checks (60 percent) examine records available from the last five to seven years. These records often include credit history, criminal records, motor vehicle records, and education records. The survey was released in part to show the importance of background checks to employers and to raise awareness of new guidelines being considered by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that would prevent businesses from asking potential employees about their criminal history during the application process. Supporters of eliminating initial questions about criminal history, also called “banning the box,” because of the box on application forms that ask if a person has ever been convicted of a crime, say removing the question would allow a person a fair chance at proving that they are the best person for the job. LaRocca says the question is a necessary part of keeping customers safe. “A criminal history is not a scarlet letter for retail employment--in fact, retailers are able to overlook certain convictions based on position--but businesses need to understand who they are hiring right off the bat,” he said. “A convicted burglar shouldn’t be delivering pizzas to people’s homes and a person with multiple DUI convictions is not who you would want driving thousands of miles in a company vehicle. Understanding a potential employee’s prior work experience, education, customer service skills and criminal history helps retailers make intelligent hiring decisions for the ambassadors of their company brand and the safety of their customers.” The survey didn’t include data for how many of the companies had rejected potential employees because of information found during a background check. Cleveland on Monday became the most recent city on a growing list [3] of areas that have chosen to “ban the box.” “By removing this question, applicants can be sure they will not be automatically excluded from consideration for a job because of their past mistakes,” Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson said in a press release [4]. The EEOC could issue a decision as early as this month.

Should Companies Use Credit Checks To Screen Job Applicants?

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

by Adam Cohen, TIME It is a harsh catch-22, particularly in today's moribund economy: many companies routinely rule out job applicants who fail a credit check. That means that unemployed people who can't pay their bills may actually be too poor to get a job. Critics, from labor unions and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to advocates for the unemployed, say the use of credit checks makes it hard for people who are struggling to turn their lives around and that it should be treated as discrimination. They have been pushing for state laws and federal policies to bar pre-employment credit checks; this week they scored their biggest victory yet when California enacted a law restricting the use of credit reports in hiring. (See five ways to repair a trashed credit score.) Supporters, including business, industry trade groups and large credit bureaus, counter that employers should be able to weed out workers with a history of money troubles. They argue that credit histories are an important tool for employers to use, particularly for jobs that involve handling money, and that regulating their use could make employers less willing to hire. The reliance on credit reports in hiring is becoming widespread. A survey by the Society for Human Resource Management found that 60% of employers do credit checks for at least some positions. The use of credit checks is growing at a time when the economy is making it hard for people to keep their records clean. Delinquency rates on loans have been rising, according to a report issued last week by the American Bankers Association, driven by a weak job market and rising food and gasoline prices. (See the people who mattered in 2010.) The biggest flaw with the use of credit checks in employment screening is that it makes it difficult for many good people who need work to find it. Employers who do credit checks operate under the assumption that having had trouble paying bills is a character flaw, but there is scant hard evidence to back this up. Many credit problems are due to factors outside of a person's control. Sarah Crawford, an attorney with the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, told a House committee last year that credit reports fail to provide sufficient context. "A credit report would not explain that a factory worker lost his job when his employer went out of business," she said. Or that "a man's credit was destroyed because he was the victim of identity theft or a predatory lending scam." Or that "a woman lost her job and her health coverage before developing breast cancer and incurring astronomical medical bills." There is another problem: credit reports are often inaccurate. A study by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group concluded that 1 in 4 reports had serious errors. A 2009 Smart Money investigation headlined "Why Credit Bureaus Can't Get It Right" found that when consumers complain to credit bureaus about inaccuracies, they could often expect only 50 cents' worth of effort done by employees of offshore contractors to fix the problem. Combined with the fact that many people do not even know what is in their credit report, errors of this sort can mean that job applicants are being denied jobs for things they did not do — and they may never find out about it.(See TIME's special on people out of work in America.) Making matters worse, the use of credit checks falls disproportionately on black and Hispanic workers — the ethnic groups that happen to have among the highest unemployment rates. One study by Freddie Mac found that 48% of blacks and 34% of Hispanics have "bad" credit records, compared with just 27% of whites. Not surprisingly, people with low incomes have worse credit ratings than people with moderate or high incomes. The racial differential can mean that the use of credit histories in hiring violates federal civil rights law. The EEOC has taken the position that the use of credit histories in employment is illegal discrimination. Last December it sued Kaplan Higher Education Corporation, charging that its use of pre-employment credit checks discriminates against black job applicants. At the time, Kaplan denied any discrimination and said it conducted background checks on all prospective employees; "We are an equal-opportunity employer, and we are proud of the diversity of our workforce," it said in a statement. Even before California acted, momentum was growing at the state level to rein in the use of credit reports. In the past few years, Hawaii, Illinois, Washington and Oregon put limits on pre-employment credit checks; most recently, Maryland adopted a law in April, and Connecticut did in July. These state laws contain exceptions — they may not apply to certain kinds of companies, like banks, or when an employer can show that the credit check is legitimately job-related.(Read about how young veterans are dealing with unemployment.) More than a dozen additional states are considering limits on the use of pre-employment credit checks. And it is likely that even more will be adopted. One of the many ways the Great Recession is affecting the U.S. is that it is expanding the number of people with bad credit — and, in the process, actually taking away some of the stigma. In these hard times, an increasing number of voters are likely to identify more with the struggling job applicant than the credit-checking employer.

Civil Rights, Labor Advocates Demand End To Employment Credit Checks

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

A coalition of 25 civil rights and labor advocacy groups petitioned one of the nation's largest credit-monitoring firms in October to quit selling consumer credit info to employers. Using credit histories to screen job applicants, the groups said, can trap the jobless and disproportionately burden black and Latino candidates. They want TransUnion, one of the Big Three credit companies alongside Equifax and Experian, to stop making credit reports available. "As the only privately-held company of the big three, TransUnion has the ability to stop this practice overnight without worrying about stockholder reaction," said UniteHere spokeswoman Anne Marie Strassel. Roughly 60 percent of companies factor credit information into hiring decisions, according to a 2010 survey by the Society of Human Resource Management, which supports the practice. The rate of employment credit checks increased from 35 percent in 2003 and 19 percent in 1996. "Employers understand that individuals, who have been unemployed as a result of these difficult times, may have also had difficulty keeping up with their financial obligations," TransUnion spokeswoman Colleen Tunney-Ryan said in a statement. "What employers are interested in, is whether an individual acted prudently while he or she was employed. A pre-employment report is one tool to help them assess that." There is no data reflecting how frequently job applicants are passed over because of bad credit.

Sex-Crime Gap In Quebec School Safety Net

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

You're safer using Straightline International's Provincial Wide Quebec Court search. Although background checks on school employees have been mandatory since 2005, schools in Quebec - following the rules set out by the Education Department - still don't check whether their employees have been pardoned for sex-related offences. Daycares and hockey teams do. Why not schools? Parents and police say it's a hole in the protective net around children. "I don't want to stigmatize these people - they have the right to be rehabilitated in society," said Bernard Tremblay, director of labour relations for the Fédération des commissions scolaires du Québec. "But let's not rehabilitate them in our schools, especially knowing that (pedophilia) is a problem for which we have not yet found a cure. There is always the risk of a repeat offence." In Canada, convicted pedophiles are routinely pardoned for their crimes 10 years after their release from prison. The federal government's omnibus crime bill, if passed, will make it impossible for anyone convicted of a sex crime to be pardoned - ever. The controversial bill, called the Safe Streets and Communities Act, which also encompasses legislation on young offenders, drug offences, justice for victims of terrorism, and the Immigration and Refugee Act, would turn pardons into "record suspensions." Anyone convicted of three indictments, or a sex crime, will no longer be eligible. The bill, which has passed two readings in the House of Commons, is now with the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights and is expected to pass by the end of the year, or early in 2012. But what to do about those who have already received their pardons? In 2009-2010, 24,139 pardons were granted in Canada, with a grant rate of 98 per cent - 6,936 of them in Quebec. According to the Parole Board of Canada, 887 of the pardons across Canada were for indictable sexual offences. It's unknown how many of those were for residents of Quebec, but it's enough to worry police and parents across the province. Sylvie Bujold heads the section of Montreal police in charge of doing background checks on job applicants on behalf of schools, daycares and non-profit organizations in the city. For daycares and non-profit organizations - sports teams, for example - the police look at an applicant's criminal record, but will also submit that person's date of birth and gender into the RCMP's database of sexual offenders. (Until July 2010, they would also submit the name, but offenders who changed their name would not appear in the search results.) If there is a match, the applicant is asked to provide fingerprints to check against a database in Ottawa. But for the schools, applying the Loi sur l'instruction public (the law on public education) the police check only an applicant's criminal record, Bujold said. If they have received a pardon, their record is wiped clean. Bujold explained that the contract or protocol the Montreal police have with daycares for protecting a "vulnerable population" includes the consent to access the RCMP's database. Daycares fall under the jurisdiction of the family ministry. The contract with the schools and the Education Department doesn't. "I agree that a child in daycare or Grade 1 merits the same protection," Bujold said. "Unfortunately, it's not up to the police in Montreal or all the police forces across the province, that have to apply the criteria that is presented to us." Bujold and Tremblay say the problem with pedophiles being hired in schools is not widespread. The number of people convicted of sexual crimes is small, Bujold said, the number convicted and subsequently pardoned is even smaller. There are also other means to guard against predators in schools, Tremblay said. Colleagues, parents and children have been sensitized to the problem. Background checks, imposed six years ago, have also proven to be a useful tool. But both agree that one case of sexual abuse in a school by a convicted pedophile who slipped under the various radars would be one too many. "The situation was brought to our attention by police who were saying they couldn't talk to us about certain individuals because they had been pardoned," said Tremblay, adding that schools boards have no discretionary power to call for further background checks on their own. "Without knowing the names it's very worrisome." Tremblay said the school boards passed a resolution last year to have employees, pardoned or not, checked against the list of sexual offenders, and passed it on to the Education Department. They have received no response yet, he said. Esther Chouinard, a spokesperson for the department, confirmed that the Loi sur l'instruction public calls for all school employees in contact with minors to undergo background checks but does not ask that any crimes for which someone has been pardoned also be declared. Whether that law should be changed, Chouinard couldn't say. Dave Leclerc, a spokesperson for Education Minister Line Beauchamp, who was in the Saguenay region on Friday, said he could not comment on the issue Friday. He could not be reached Monday. Corinne Gayola, assistant director of a Montreal daycare, said the issue should be put at the top of the minister's agenda. "My son goes to school. If they can't even guarantee me that the employees - whether janitors, teachers or principals, have never had a conviction for a crime involving a child, it makes no sense. They should have the same (protocol) as for the daycares - the safety of children should come first."

N.D. High Court Considers Limiting Online Court Records

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

You'd be better off using Straightline International's North Dakota 'Troubleshooter's service. The North Dakota Supreme Court is considering a proposed amendment to its rules that would block public Internet access to certain criminal records, sparking concern over access to court records. The court held a public meeting about the proposed rule, which would remove cases from the Internet in which a defendant was acquitted, the case was dismissed, or its paper record is no longer required by law to be kept on file. The rule would only affect electronic files and not paper records. "The proposed changes dilute and essentially make useless what likely is the wave of the future," said media attorney Jack McDonald in a letter he wrote to the court in opposing the proposal on behalf of the North Dakota Newspaper Association and the North Dakota Broadcasters Association. "As the courts move forward with electronic filings and move steadily towards a paperless system, the electronic docket will soon become [the only] record," he wrote. According to the proposed amendment, persons who want to remove a case from the Internet record must file a motion with the court. McDonald said this places all power to remove records in the hands of the state's 42 district judges, who will arbitrarily decide how often they choose to keep the records available online. "By allowing these things to go on, what you have is an inaccurate docket," said McDonald, who is based in Bismarck. He said the amendment would "ensure that no one will ever be sure what really is the record." According to the minutes of a court committee meeting comprised of judges and attorneys, the rule change was proposed after Bismarck defense attorney Tom Dickson pointed out that records are already removed from the Internet docket when a defendant receives deferred imposition of sentence -- a procedure that allows minor crimes to be completely removed from a person's record if the offender does not violate probation during a certain period of time. Dickson asserts that the public nature of Internet dockets wrongly hinders some people in search of employment. North Dakota Supreme Court Justice Dale Sandstrom,who chairs the Court Technology Committee, disagreed. "The claims of a problem with public access to truthful information are anecdotal and unsupported by any study," he wrote in his own letter of opposition to the proposed amendment. "It is important to note that the information available on the judicial branch's public Internet site is not information found by a Google or similar search," Sandstrom wrote. "It is found by people who specifically come to our court website seeking accurate, public information about specific individuals." Sandstrom said the clerk of court workload would be "significantly increased" by such a practice, and the change would give an advantage to those who have the resources and knowledge needed to access the information in person at the clerks' offices. If the court decides to adopt the amendment, it would take effect March 1, 2012.

Online Illinois Doctor Database Launches

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Illinois patients can now research their doctors using an online database the state launched Wednesday. The idea is to take the guesswork out of choosing a doctor by allowing easier access to information about the state's 46,000 licensed physicians and surgeons. The database can be accessed through the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation's website at idfpr.com under the "physician profile" link on the left side. There, patients can learn about a doctor's educational background and training, determine what type of insurance they accept and find out what languages are spoken in the office.

Millions Of Lackawanna County Records Go Online

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Millions of county documents previously available only to people willing to spend long hours poring over files in the register of wills and clerk of judicial records offices went online in October, the culmination of a project eight years in the making. Clerk of Judicial Records Mary Rinaldi and Register of Wills Linda Munley unveiled a searchable online database where anyone with Internet access can view, print and email digital images of many of the records from their offices, all with a few clicks of a mouse and all for free. "We are finally at the point where we can hit a button and this is going to happen," Mrs. Rinaldi said during a news conference at the county Administration Building. Among the records now available are probate records from 1878 to the present, marriage applications from 1885 forward and orphan's court division records since 1938. They also include dockets from both the civil and family court divisions since 1995, and scanned images of documents filed in both divisions since 2003. Juvenile records are excluded. Ms. Munley, who called the database an "amazing accomplishment," said it represented a milestone in county history to which many elements of county government contributed, from the commissioners office to the Information Technology Department to the County Records Improvement Committee. "To me, that is good government - everybody working together to give the taxpayers what they need in today's world," Ms. Munley said. A link to the database is available by visiting either row office's page on the county website, www.lackawannacounty.org. Users must download a free program to access the system, which then creates a shortcut to the database on their computer desktop. The software is currently only compatible with Internet Explorer. Some of the imaged documents were scanned in-house by county employees, and others by outside companies. The bulk of the project was funded through a state-mandated automation fee. Infocon Corp., Ebensburg, was contracted to provide the online system at a monthly cost of $3,225, which also will be paid with the mandated fees. The database includes 7 million documents from the register of wills office alone. Ms. Munley said it will be a boon for people researching their family histories by making previously difficult to find documents easy to search for and access. "This gives the world access to who we are in Lackawanna County, and it gives the residents of Lackawanna County access to their roots," she said. During the news conference attended by all three county commissioners and several other department heads, Robert Dugan of Infocon offered a live demonstration of the system and its capabilities. At one point, Mr. Dugan retrieved the 1910 marriage application of Thomas O'Connor and Mary Wade, the great-grandparents of Commissioner Corey O'Brien. The application included the couple's personal information and signatures. "Oh, look at this," Mr. O'Brien said when the application and its handwritten entries popped onto a large screen. "He was 24. He was from Philadelphia. My grandmother was baptized in Jessup. Wow. Wow. That's remarkable. ... It's going to allow people to really get in touch with their relatives who left this Earth a long time ago." Commissioner Bruce Smallacombe had a similar reaction, saying genealogy research is often frustrating because of the difficulty of finding information. "Now anybody who has relatives in Lackawanna County - born, deceased, married - will be able to find that," he said. "I think it's a great tool."

Worker Fraud Costs Small Businesses Big Bucks

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

A report released by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) found that businesses around the world lose roughly $2.9 trillion as the result of employee fraud each year. In addition, the study found that 30 percent of the companies that had been victims of fraud at the hands of their own employees had less than 100 employees. The U.S. companies with 100 employees or fewer that were victims of employee fraud suffered a median loss of $150,000, ACFE found. The fact that the median losses for companies with 100 employees or less was almost the same as the median loss for companies of all sizes indicates that small organizations are particularly vulnerable to employee fraud, said ACFE spokesman Scott Patterson. But experts say that there are several things that small companies can do to protect themselves from dishonest employees, including looking at accounting and payments system to determine if someone like a bookkeeper, office manager, or salesman would have an opportunity to initiate and cover up a fraudulent transaction. Experts also say that companies may want to hire an audit firm every few years to examine their books.

Employee Theft: The Largest Source of Shrink in North America

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Shrinkage cost retailers around the world more than $119 billion over the past year, or 1.45 percent of their sales, according to the Centre for Retail Research's Global Retail Theft Barometer for 2011. The causes that are most commonly responsible for retail shrinkage are different in various regions of the world. Customer theft was the primary cause for shrinkage in most countries around the world, resulting in $51.5 billion in losses so far this year. However, dishonest employees were the biggest cause of retail shrinkage in North America. Employee theft resulted in $47 billion in losses for North American retailers so far this year, up from $37.8 billion last year. Shrinkage that resulted from employee theft represented 44 percent of all the retail shrink that has taken place so far in 2011. However, employee theft may seem to be higher in North America than in other parts of the world because retailers here are so focused on the problem that more workers are being caught, said professor Joshua Bamfield, the author of the report. Bamfield also said that employee theft could be the result of retailers using part-time or temporary workers, who may be less hesitant than their full-time, permanent counterparts to steal merchandise.

Steven Brownstein Announces Worldwide Social Networking Background Check Training

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Steven Brownstein has announced a menu of events to teach employers and investigators all about Social Networking beginning late in 2011 and throughout 2012. Social Networking, whether Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, RenRen, MySpace, as you well know there are hundreds. Let The Background Investigator and Steven Brownstein bring to your city this Social Networking Event of the Year. Contact Steven Brownstein at steveb@search4crime.com Coming soon to your city. Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Seoul, London, Paris, Vienna, Hamburg. Social Network Activity. Tracing the Applicant. preparing Yourself.

NAPBS Launches FCRA Certification Program

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The NAPBS Education committee is proud to announce the FCRA Certification Program, which has been developed to provide a basic knowledge of FCRA regulations. Upon completing 5 one hour webinars and passing the certification exam, a certificate acknowledging completion will be issued. Webinars Participants in the FCRA Certification Program will receive online access to the each Webinar. The webinars cover the following topics: Part I: This seminar covers (i) basic FCRA concepts and terminology, such as "consumer report," "consumer reporting agency," "investigative consumer report," "end user," "furnisher," etc. and (ii) some of the limitations on data that can be included in consumer reports. Part II: This seminar covers the five basic duties of consumer reporting agencies under the FCRA. Part III: This seminar covers the basic rights and duties of end users, furnishers, resellers and consumers under the FCRA. Part VI: This seminar covers consumer litigation and regulatory enforcement actions under FCRA. Part V: This seminar covers the principal state law variants of the FCRA and addresses the interplay between the FCRA and state variants. FCRA Certification Exam Upon completion of the Webinars, participants will be eligible to take an online certification exam, which will consist of 50 questions in a multiple choice and true/false format. Participants who pass the exam (85% or higher) will be entitled to represent that they have been certified by NAPBS as "knowledgeable of the requirements of the FCRA and state law variants applicable to the background screening industry." Certification is good for two years and can be renewed by taking the exam only. Each individual interested in taking the exam must have an individual log in for the NAPBS Website and must purchase the exam under their own log in. www.napbs.com NAPBS Member Price: $75 Non-Member Price: $100 Renewal Fee: $25

Merlin Information Services Celebrates 20 Year Anniversary

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

KALISPELL, MT – Merlin Information Services, a leading provider of datasolutions to the collection and investigative industries, announces its 20 year anniversary. Founded in 1991, Merlin will commemorate the milestone with an employee celebration at thecorporate headquarters in Kalispell, Montana. “It doesn’t seem that long ago that we sold our first CD-ROMs to California private investigatorsand collection agencies out of a four-room office in Ojai, CA.” commented Merlin President andfounder Mike Dores. “Thanks to a great team of dedicated employees and countless loyalcustomers, we continue our commitment to create innovative data solutions that provide significant value to our customers.” Merlin has recently earned industry recognition for its suite of collection solutions, most notably itsVerified Place of Employment (VPOE). VPOE includes consumer employment information thatenables debt collectors to realize an ROI on non-performing judgments. About Merlin Merlin Information Services offers data solutions to collection and investigate professionals wholocate people, identify assets, perform background checks, or complete other investigative work. A long-standing industry icon, Merlin has a reputation for superior customer service, high ethicalstandards, comprehensive data and flexible search and retrieval software. Contact: Todd Twete Phone: (800) 367-6646 ext. 1568 Email: ttwete@merlindata.com

New Law Adds Criminal Record To Driver's License

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0600

South Carolina's new "scarlet letter" law may not be quite the boon to nosy customer service employees as some had feared. At least while the code remains intact. That means the curious " and potentially discriminatory " checkout clerk, bouncer, waiter, or anyone else who checks customers' driver's license won't be able to tell if the man who is purchasing a six-pack of beer has been convicted of rape or other violent crime. In July a state law went into effect requiring people with a violent record to bear a special mark on their driver's license or ID card so that police officers know if they're apprehending someone with a history of violence. When asked for a sample copy of the new specially coded cards, a spokesperson for the S.C. Department of Motor Vehicles pointed to a section of the new law that prohibits the special markings, described in law as a "symbol, number, or letter of the alphabet" from being specified. "We've told law enforcement what it looks like. They know what to look for," said DMV spokesperson Beth Parks, adding that disseminating copies of the coded symbol could complicate the targeted population's everyday interactions, such as shopping in a grocery store. "You don't want people staring at them," she added. "You have to show your license for a lot of different reasons." Since 2009, supporters of S. 288 had heralded the effort as one that would make South Carolina the first state in the nation to effectively brand people who have pleaded guilty or no contest or been convicted of a violent crime. A flip of a motorist's driver's license would reveal the violent-record mark, alerting police officers to watch their step.

As for whether the new law is already protecting law enforcement officers or harming ex-offenders' civil liberties, four months appears to be too short a period to judge. Since July, the DMV has issued 53 of the marked cards. The courts have sent the agency the names of another 1,099 people, who will be required to purchase a coded card for $50. Both former S.C. State Law Enforcement Division head Robert Stewart, who had championed the bill, and Victoria Middleton, director of the American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina, which had opposed it, said Thursday that they had so far not been informed of any immediate effects. Democrats and then Republican Gov. Mark Sanford had opposed the effort, warning that it would stigmatize ex-offenders who were trying to start over. They also argued that since police officers approach all stopped motorists with great caution, the coded driver's license weren't likely to make police even more wary. The Republican-led Legislature overrode Sanford's veto in June of last year. The new law applies to convictions or pleas that occurred on or after July 1 of this year. It also lets individuals apply to have the mark removed under certain conditions.

Doctors With A Dark Side

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0600

One in 15 medical practitioners registered to work in NSW has a criminal past, new figures reveal. The first look into the criminal histories of 13,000 doctors, dentists, psychologists, nurses and pharmacists - many of whom were graduates and foreign medical professionals registering for the first time - has led to calls for further background checks. There are 156,000 people working in NSW who have not been checked by police under the new system, which does not take into account driving infringements. The Minister for Health, Jillian Skinner, and the Australian Medical Association insist the industry is ''weeding out'' unsuitable people. But eyebrows have been raised by the findings of the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, the national body established last year to replace a patchwork of more than 80 medical boards around Australia. Of the 13,421 medicos checked by NSW police at the request of the agency, 936 - or 7 per cent - were found to have ''disclosable court outcomes'' such as convictions for theft, fraud and sexual offences. The figure was slightly higher than the national average of 6 per cent. Three per cent of medical professionals in Victoria were found to have a criminal record but the agency said police there had a ''comparatively narrow definition of criminal history''. Nationwide, 2992 of the 52,445 medicos checked in the 12 months to July 2011 had a criminal history. The number is expected to have been inflated by medical administrators using the establishment of the regulation agency to request police checks on suspect workers already registered. The figures are contained in the agency's first annual report and will be covered in detail by industry journal Medical Observer, to be released on Tuesday. A spokeswoman for the regulation agency, Nicole Newton, said the introduction of mandatory checks had reduced the risk to public safety. Of the 2992 people with criminal histories, 449 were assessed as having records with the potential to affect the person's registration. After consideration by a national board, 40 of those were issued with restrictions including: - 31 had conditions or undertakings imposed on their registration; - two existing practitioners having conditions imposed; and - one application by a psychologist refused outright. Six people withdrew their application for registration after their record came to light. Medical professionals in NSW are required to declare any relevant criminal convictions or charges when they renew their registration each year. An audit process is supposed to guard against false declarations but the opposition's health spokesman, Andrew McDonald, said the findings were a reason to increase checks on a wide scale. ''This sort of scrutiny is a good thing,'' he said. ''Healthcare workers should be scrutinised carefully. I would expect that the NSW Health Minister would consider these numbers and act appropriately where necessary,'' he said. Ms Skinner said the system was safe. ''I've always been supportive of police checks on health system applicants because it can significantly reduce risk to the public - many of whom are very ill and vulnerable. I'm pleased to see today that in NSW that process has weeded out about 7 per cent of applicants - making our health system safer for all,'' she said in a statement. The Australian Medical Association said there was ''little or no risk to the community'' because the mandatory reporting and checking of medical workers was so rigorous. The Medical Board of Australia has a checklist of 10 factors that determine whether a practitioner's criminal history is relevant. These include the gravity of the offence and its relevance to the medical profession, the age of the person when the offence was committed and how long ago it was committed.

Child Porn Downloaded From Web? Life In Prison!

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0600

by Douglas Berman A circuit court judge in Florida clearly thinks so: On Thursday, he sentenced Daniel Enrique Guevara Vilca, 26, a stockroom worker whose home computer was found to contain hundreds of pornographic images of children, to life in prison without the possibility of parole. But the severity of the justice meted out to Vilca, who had no previous criminal record, has led some criminal justice experts to question whether increasingly harsh penalties delivered in cases involving the viewing of pornography really fit the crime. Had Vilca actually molested a child, they note, he might well have received a lighter sentence. "To me, a failure to distinguish between people who look at these dirty pictures and people who commit contact offenses lacks the nuance and proportionality I think our law demands," said Douglas Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University, who highlighted Vilca's case on his blog, Sentencing and Law Policy. Sexual offenses involving children enrage most Americans, and lawmakers have not hesitated to impose lengthy prison terms for offenders. In Florida, possession of child pornography is a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison. Vilca was charged with 454 counts of possession, each count representing one image found on the computer. Steve Maresca, the assistant state attorney in the case, said that in his view, Vilca "received a sentence pursuant to the sentencing guidelines." "Too many people just look at this as a victimless crime, and that's not true," he said. "These children are victimized, and when the images are shown over and over again, they're victimized over and over again." But Lee Hollander, Vilca's lawyer, called the sentence ridiculous. "Daniel had nothing to do with the original victimization of these people; there is no evidence that he's ever touched anybody improperly, adult or minor; and life in prison for looking at images, even child images, is beyond comprehension," he said. Hollander said Vilca had consistently said he did not know the images were on his computer. He refused a plea bargain of 20 years in prison, after which the state attorney increased the charges. The sentence will be appealed, Hollander said. Troy Stabenow, an assistant federal public defender in Missouri's Western District, noted that most people assume that someone who looks at child pornography is also a child molester or will become a child molester, a view often mirrored by judges. But a growing body of scientific research shows that this is not the case, he said. Many passive viewers of child pornography never molest children, and not all child molesters have a penchant for pornography. "I'm not suggesting that someone who looks at child pornography should just walk," he said. "But we ought to punish people for what they do, not for our fear." State and federal laws, which generally increase penalties based on the number of pornographic images, reflect the idea that acquiring child pornography requires extensive time and effort and thus is a measure of a defendant's involvement and interest. But with the rise of the Internet, it is possible to download hundreds of images in a matter of minutes, making the size of a stash a less than reliable indicator, Stabenow and other criminal justice experts said. It is now a rare case that does not involve the possession of hundreds, or even thousands, of images. As a result, many federal judges have issued sentences lower than those called for by federal guidelines, which add months for multiple images and other aggravating factors. And even when such sentencing enhancements are enforced, the sentences "which can sometimes be 18 or 20 years" are often well below what Vilca received. The federal guidelines, for example, recommend a minimum of 57 to 71 months in prison for possession of 600 or more images of very young children. Paul Cassell, a former federal judge who is now a law professor at the University of Utah, said there was no question that "consumers of child pornography drive the market for the production of child pornography, and without people to consume this stuff there wouldn't be nearly as many children being sexually abused." Cassell is involved in efforts to get restitution for victims of child pornography and has filed a petition in one case with the Supreme Court. But he said that while he was not familiar with Vilca's case and did not know what other facts might be involved, "in the abstract, a life sentence for the crime of solely possessing child pornography would seem to be excessive." "A life sentence is what we give first-degree murderers," he said, "and possession of child pornography is not the equivalent of first-degree murder." "To me, a failure to distinguish between people who look at these dirty pictures and people who commit contact offenses lacks the nuance and proportionality I think our law demands."

Safer Places Appoints Donna Pelland As Director Of Operations

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Safer Places Inc. announces Donna Pelland of Marshfield, MA as Director of Operations. In this role, Pelland manages the day-to-day activities at Safer Places Inc., with a focus on the systems and procedures required to achieve the firm's mission and goals. Pelland's extensive career in the security industry includes 24 years in retail security, starting as a store detective for the Zayre Corp. and later with TJX Corp. During her lengthy tenure at TJX Corp. she held a variety of titles, including Loss Prevention Supervisor and Trainer. She was the sole female member and Coordinator of a five-person Regional Task Force that targeted groups responsible for bottom line losses to the company. The team worked with local and state police, postal inspectors and other authorities, gathering information to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law and to ensure recovery of losses. Most recently, Pelland was employed as an investigator with Longwood Security in Brookline, MA. Originally from Rockland, MA, Pelland presently resides in Marshfield with her husband; the couple has one grown daughter. In her spare time, Pelland enjoys decorating, visiting yard sales and flea markets, and raising a rescue puppy, recently adopted from PAWS New England. "We're proud to have Donna on our executive team," said David Sawyer, President of Safer Places, Inc. "Her remarkable skill set and commitment to excellence make her a highly valued member of our fine professional family."

Smoking Disqualifies Applicants From Job

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0600

According to the Anchorage Daily News, Providence Alaska Medical Center, the state's largest private employer, has announced that it and its affiliates will no longer consider hiring job seekers who test positive for a certain chemical remnant of nicotine. Current employees are exempt from the new policy, but starting Nov. 17, a test for evidence of nicotine use will be added to the standard, pre-employment drug screening protocol. Tammy Green, director of health management services for Providence Health and Services Alaska, told the Daily News, "We believe that by doing this move, to where we are no longer going to hire tobacco users, that we are sending a very clear message into the community that we are not only the leaders in health care, but we're really the leaders in health." Providence isn't the first company to say it won't hire nicotine users in Alaska, but it is the largest so far.

New Test To Weed Out The Dumb Ones

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0600

DMI tests, now introduced in Dubai, is a scientific way to understand your child's potential and personality If you are facing the problem in identifying your child's areas of interest and strengths, then Biometrika Thumbrule has introduced the concept of child development through dermatoglyphics multiple intelligence test (DMIT) in the UAE. The test enables identification of the potential of a child through an analysis of fingerprints. Biometrika Thumbrule, the pioneer that successfully introduced DMIT in UAE, has opened its centre in Al Qusais. Explaining the concept, Laila Sadat Abedi, the managing director says, "The DMIT reveals an individual's innate decision-making skills, inborn intelligence potential, preferred learning styles, multiple intelligence distribution, communication and work management styles. By knowing these potential abilities and preferences, we can tailor, guide and provide the best learning environment, suggestions and tools to nurture and develop one's strengths and potential to the fullest." She adds, "Earlier, only IQ tests were used to find out the intelligence levels of an individual. They focused on mathematics, science and language and ignored any talents in the fields of art, sports, environment etc. But now, with the help of DMIT, we can also know the intelligences of an individual in these fields as well." For instance, anyone who is weak in logical mathematical intelligence will find difficulties in logic, abstract, inductive and deductive reasoning, and numbers. Being lousy in it doesn't mean you can't excel in it anymore or that you were born stupid. The DMIT is used to determine and confirm your capability in your area of intelligences instantly. According to Laila, such tests enable a parent to understand a child's psyche and thus work accordingly in guiding the youngster's future. "How best a person learns is influenced not only by social, psychological, emotional, environmental and physical factors but also by the individual's preferred learning style. One of the key elements in getting children involved in learning, lies in understanding learning style preferences which can have an impact on the individual's performance and academic achievement," she says. These tests will not only benefit children but also corporate companies, says Laila. "HR can benefit by doing a pre-employment screening. You can find the right person for the right job. Entrust your employee who has potential in the right department and you would save time on teaching him those skills," she adds. Measuring human intelligence through fingerprint data is more accurate than any other method, Laila feels, because fingerprints are unique to every individual and therefore, not affected by mood and environment. "Fingerprint patterns are not random. They are arranged according to an individual's genetic make-up. DMIT is scientifically proven. Besides, the data acquisition process is computerised," she reveals. These tests are open to anyone above the age of three years. Also, the person undertaking this test will get a 3o-minute free counselling session after the report is out which takes around four days to analyse. Conducting a DMIT would cost Dh700 (Dh495 for the first 100 in a month), including the cost of the test, analysis, printing and counselling. Laila is also going to approach schools and offices to create awareness about the concept. So can geniuses be developed? "Geniuses cannot be developed, they are to be discovered as every individual is unique. With a global shift in emphasis from teaching to learning at every level of education, a variety of active learning strategies have been advocated to optimise learning. Understanding the way children learn is crucial to delivering the right educational method and its improvement," says Laila, concluding, "In the DMIT, there is no child who is not great. There is only the child who does not know how to use his talent to the maximum benefit. With the help of these tests, the hidden talents and abilities of an individual can be discovered and they can be nurtured to help them succeed."

Irish Jobseekers To Airbrush Criminal Records

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Convicts, including those found guilty of assault and drink-driving offences, will soon be able to airbrush their criminal record when applying for jobs under new Government plans. Justice Minister Alan Shatter plans to publish a bill shortly to allow former offenders to legally withhold details of their criminal past to prospective employers. Mr Shatter has denied the bill allows convicts to wipe their record clean. The Spent Convictions Bill is at an advanced stage of drafting, with only finer details left to be finalised. The bill is included in the Government's legislative programme and is due to be published before the end of this Dail term or early 2012. At present, criminals under the age of 18 who are brought before courts other than the Central Criminal Court are under law treated as if they have a clean record, provided they have not been charged within three years. There is no similar provision for those over 18 and Mr Shatter wants to amend this position. Ireland is one of only two countries in the European Union that does not have such a law allowing convicts not to disclose their criminal past. The bill will allow certain qualifying convictions to be withheld once certain conditions have been met. "The bill will not entail a deletion of the record, but rather a non-disclosure of the offence in certain circumstances," Mr Shatter said. These conditions will relate mainly to the nature of the offence, the length of time since conviction and the type of employment the person is seeking. However, certain convictions, including convictions for sexual offences and offences reserved for trial by the Central Criminal Court will be excluded from the new law. Similarly, anyone wishing to work with children or vulnerable adults will have to disclose their past convictions. According to a study by employers group IBEC, criminal records are seen as a major barrier to offering work. The report showed only 52 per cent of employers would consider employing an individual with a criminal record. While many would argue that committing a crime means doing the time and suffering the consequences, others believe that the public's right to know about a record impinges on an individual's right to privacy. The Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) has welcomed the bill. "Such legislation is a necessary element in ensuring that the commission of a criminal offence does not lead to permanent barriers to reintegration into society," the IPRT said. The Law Reform Commission, the Irish Human Rights Commission and the Law Society of Ireland have long advocated that such 'second-chance' legislation should be available in Ireland.

Juvenile Records No Longer Sacred

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0600

The Douglas County Separate Juvenile Court will soon be accessible online. It is set to join the rest of Nebraska on JUSTICE, the state's court management system, starting Monday, Nov. 14. "This is the same system used by the rest of the courts in Douglas County and the state," said John Friend, Clerk of the District Court for Douglas County. "The move to JUSTICE will make doing business with the Separate Juvenile Court much easier for everyone." JUSTICE (Judicial Users System To Improve Court Efficiency) will provide on-line access by means of case review screens at www.nebraska.gov with images of all Douglas County Separate Juvenile Court documents from April 17, 2008, to the present. Access was made available during the summer to court cases from all 93 of the state's counties. As with District Court, this will be a complete conversion. That means all of the cases from the court will be converted to the new system. E-filing and e-service for the Separate Juvenile Court is expected to be available early next year. Those services already are available for District Court. Users will be able to search by a person's name, the type of case, the judge, attorney or year. A new case-numbering system is part of this update, and some time will be required for employees to become familiar with the new system.

Public Record Update - A BRB Publications Service

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Alabama Vehicle Record Information Now Online The Alabama Department of Revenue recently added several online searches for permissible users of vehicle information. Both a Registration Record search and a Title Record search are offered at www.revenue.alabama.gov/motorvehicle/mvinfo.html. Occasional requesters may use a credit card for the $2.00 fee per search. Ongoing users may access as approved, subscribers of Alabama Interactive - the NIC affiliate for the state. Subscribers also may be eligible to use other premium services such as obtaining a driving record, a vehicle VIN check, and a criminal record check, and for filing UCCs. More CA Regulations on Consumer Reporting Agencies

With California Governor Schwarzenegger's recent signature of SB 909, more regulations will be placed on consumer reporting agencies (CRAs). Although the provisions of the bill do not take affect until January 1, 2012, CRAs may need to take time to prepare. A CRA will be required to must post its privacy practice policies on its Internet site or be prepared to mail a written copy of the policy statement to consumers upon request. Also, the consumer must be provided a separate section in the privacy statement that includes the name, mailing address, email address, and telephone number of the CRA's representatives who can assist a consumer with additional information regarding the CRA's privacy practices or policies in the event of a compromise of his or her information. Perhaps more importantly is a new requirement that demands a CRA to inform a consumer if the consumer's personal information is transferred to third parties outside the United States. This "third party" is defined but, not be limited to, a contractor, foreign affiliate, wholly owned entity, or an employee of the CRA. A CRA will be liable for any security breaches that occur overseas with their third-party to the extent of the actual damages caused by the breach of security plus attorney fees. If you read the bill - or the law - you will note the use of the term Investigative Consumer Reporting Agency throughout. California does not use the definitions established by the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). What California defines as an Investigative Consumer Reporting Agency is actually what the FCRA defines as a Consumer Reporting Agency. And the FCRA has a different definition for what constitiutes an entity as an Investigative Consumer Reporting Agency. The legislation amends California Civil Code 1786.16 and 1786.20. View the legislation at www.leginfo.ca.gov (click on Bill Information and then enter SB909). Fee Increasing for Obtaining CA Birth Certificates Per California Assembly Bill AB 52, effective November 1, 2010, the current fee for certified copies of birth certificates will increase by $2.00 at both the county and state level. The law does not set the fee level, but merely passed along a $2.00 increase to exisiting fees. For example, Monterey County increases from $14.00 to $16.00, Solano County fee from $19.00 to $21.00, and Sacramento County from $17.00 to $19.00. The fee at the State Department of Health Services increases from $14.00 to $16.00. Henry County GA Places Superior Court Dockets Online The Superior court in Henry County Georgia docket index is now searchable online at https://hcwebb.boca.co.henry.ga.us/SuperiorCMWebSearch/.
Search by name, associated party, or by case number. The DOB is rarely shown, thus it is hard to identify subjects with common names.

Duct Cleaner Has History Of Violating Women 7 Action News - Detroit

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Two women share some frightening stories about the same man they say terrorized them. He came to their homes when they responded to ads from a major department store to have their air ducts cleaned. What is disturbing is that this serviceman is a career criminal with a history of harassing women. Detroit 7 Action News Investigator Scott Lewis discovered this is not uncommon. Criminals are slipping through the cracks and into peoples' homes. Do you know who you're letting into your home? You can't always be sure, even when a company says it does background checks. "How has this affected your life?" Lewis asked Carrie Smith, who called for a serviceman to clean her air ducts. "He's violated it. He's ruined my life," she said. For nearly a year, Smith has been looking over her shoulder, living in fear of Jason Meinke, a habitual criminal. It happened when Smith moved from Las Vegas to Detroit. She and her son settled into this rented home in Keego Harbor. "My son and I have allergies," says Smith. "And I was wanting to get air duct cleaning." Smith had three flyers but decided to call Sears, a name she thought she could trust. Two men showed up in a Sears' truck, one of them was Meinke. Smith went into the basement with Meinke's partner to check out the air ducts. When she came upstairs, she saw Meinke coming out of her bedroom, and it gave her the creeps. The next day Smith says, "I started receiving vulgar sexual text messages." Several vulgar texts including one that talked about having someone urinate in their mouth. Smith called police, and they traced the messages to Meinke's cell phone. He told the cops his phone had been stolen and he later got it back. Police didn't buy it and they discovered something else disturbing when they went to Carrie Smith's house. Someone had unlocked a window behind the bushes and left it cracked open. "It petrified me," said Smith. "I thought he was going to come into my home and do something." What Smith didn't know at the time is that Meinke has a long criminal record and a history of stalking and harassing women. The 7 Action News Investigators found seven personal protection orders against Meinke taken out by seven different women over 11 years. He has six criminal convictions, misdemeanors and felonies going back to 1999, according to court records. Meinke's latest conviction in 2011 is for aggravated stalking. "He's like a bad penny. He doesn't go away," said Beth Morgan, another Meinke victim, according to courts records of his felony stalking case. Morgan met Meinke when she called Sears years ago to get her air ducts cleaned. She says he came off as a charming guy and asked for her screen name on instant messenger. "And honestly, because he worked for Sears. I thought it was safe to get to know him," said Morgan. Chatting turned into dating and then a relationship. When Morgan discovered Meinke's dark side and criminal history she tried to shake him but she couldn't. She said he started stalking her. "He would let my phone ring off the hook to the point where I wouldn't answer the phone anymore and he would call 30, 40, 50, 60 times in a row," said Morgan. Morgan says Meinke threatened to kill her and her family. She kept going to police, but it took years to get him charged with stalking. "I wasn't taken seriously," she said. "I was just basically told to make the report and that if he should come around again that I was to call them immediately and they would come." Morgan said she was with Meinke when he was arrested one time, and he told her to go to his house and get something out of his bedroom. She found something very disturbing. Morgan said the walls were lined with backpacks stuffed with used women's underwear and plastic bags full of used feminine products. "My first reaction was to want to vomit, honestly," said Morgan. "I just, I couldn't believe what I was seeing." That makes Smith's run-in with Meinke even more frightening. This police report says police believe Meinke sent the vulgar texts - but a year later, no charges have been filed. Frustrated and fearful, Smith turned to attorney Jim Hubbbert for help. He said he can't get a straight answer on who is responsible for hiring Meinke and sending him into Smith's home. "Are they giving you the runaround?" Lewis asked Hubbert. "They are," he said. "At this point my client's only recourse is a civil suit." So who is responsible for hiring this career criminal? The investigators found out Sears doesn't actually do the duct cleaning. It is done by a Sears franchise operation called Creative Carpet Care in Wixom. When Lewis went there to confront the manager Dave Valzayek, he said he did a background check on Meinke. In fact, Valzayek provided a copy of a background check that was done in December 2010 saying Meinke passed. How is that possible? Meinke had just been released from prison a few months earlier. That's information anyone can get for free on the Michigan Department of Correction's web site. And Meinke's entire criminal history is available to anyone on a state police web site called ICHAT for $10. "You cannot be hired if you are convicted of a felony, a misdemeanor or a bad driver's license or a DUI," said Valzayek. "And he had all of that, except the DUI and they passed him," Lewis pointed out. "The proof is right here sir," said Valzayek, showing a document that says Meinke passed the background check. That raises some troubling questions. How many other Meinkes are out there? And, could you be unknowingly inviting criminals into your home? To find out, Detroit 7 Action News Investigators traveled to Orlando, Florida for a meeting of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners. They talked to Mike Coffey. He said what we uncovered with Meinke is not uncommon because background checks often miss things. "A lot of your really large employers, especially those who hire lower wage employees don't do their due diligence," said Coffey. "They just rely on the data base or some instant quick inexpensive background check." Sears Holding, the parent company in Chicago told me the local Independent franchise is responsible for hiring employees and doing background checks, using nationally recognized providers. They say Meinke passed two checks done by a company called HRPLUS in Chicago. HRPLUS wouldn't comment about how Meinke passed their background check citing privacy laws.

Les Rosen's Corner

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0600

California Passes AB 22 Placing Restrictions on Use of Credit Checks by Employers Effective January 1, 2012, employers or prospective employers in California - with the exception of certain financial institutions - will be prohibited from obtaining consumer credit reports to use in the hiring and promotion process after Governor Jerry Brown recently signed into law Assembly Bill 22 (AB 22) that restricts usage of consumer credit reports for employment purposes. California now joins Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Oregon, and Washington as U.S. states that currently limit the use of credit checks by employers. To read AB 22, visit: http://leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/asm/ab_0001-0050/ab_22_bill_20110920_enrolled.pdf. Introduced by Assemblymember Tony Mendoza (D-56th District), AB22 will amend Section 1785.20.5 of the Civil Code and add Chapter 3.6 (commencing with Section 1024.5) to Part 2 of Division 2 of the Labor Code, relating to employment. This is Mendoza's third attempt at similar legislation, after AB 482 (2010) and AB 943 (2009) were both vetoed by former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in the past. "This bill has the ability to put countless unemployed Californians back to work and will end the needless catch-22 that occurs when those seeking work to pay their bills cannot find it due to poor credit," Assemblymember Mendoza stated in a press release on his website. AB 22 bans the use of pre-employment credit checks for many employers. The bill prohibits employers or prospective employers from obtaining a consumer credit reports for employment purposes unless the position of the person for whom the report is sought is one of the following: A managerial position;
A position in the state Department of Justice;
A sworn peace officer or other law enforcement position;
A position for which the information contained in the report is required by law to be disclosed or obtained;
A position that involves regular access to specified personal information for any purpose other than the routine solicitation and processing of credit card applications in a retail establishment;
A position in which the person is or would be a named signatory on the employer's bank or credit card account, or authorized to transfer money or enter into financial contracts on the employer's behalf;
A position that involves access to confidential or proprietary information; or
A position that involves regular access to $10,000 or more of cash.
In addition, AB 22 also requires the written notice informing the person for whom a consumer credit report is sought for employment purposes to also inform that person of the specific reason for obtaining the report. The passage of AB 22 comes at a time when credit checks of job applicants have become more common. A 2010 survey from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) revealed that 60 percent of employers polled conducted credit checks on some job applicants: 13 percent of employers surveyed conducted credit checks on all job candidates.
40 percent of employers surveyed did not conduct any credit checks on job candidates.
47 percent of employers surveyed considered credit history for candidates of selected jobs.
"Generally speaking, employers should not use credit checks unless there is a clear business justification related to the job in question since some credit reports contain errors," says Attorney Les Rosen, Founder and CEO of Employment Screening Resources (ESR), a San Francisco area background check company accredited by the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS). "Employers should use extreme caution with credit reports and be aware of both federal and states laws such as AB 22." To help job applicants better understand credit checks, ESR offers a complimentary white paper, 'The Use of Credit Reports in Employment Background Screening: An Overview for Job Applicants,' available for download at http://www.esrcheck.com/Download/ White Paper Helps Employers and Recruiters Manage Risks of Using Internet for Employment Screening Background Checks Employment Screening Resources (ESR), a nationwide background check provider accredited by the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS), has released a new white paper titled 'Managing the Risks of Using the Internet for Employment Screening Background Checks' to provide an informative introduction to the risks and roadblocks employers and recruiters face using Internet search engines like Google and social network sites such as Facebook for recruitment and employment screening, as well as potential solutions to avoid legal issues. The complimentary white paper from ESR is available for download at: http://www.esrcheck.com/Download/.

Employment Acceleration Act of 2011 Prohibits Cities, Counties, and Special Districts in California

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0600

by Les Rosen While several U.S. states have passed laws requiring use of the electronic employment eligibility verification system known as E-Verify, California Governor Jerry Brown recently signed the Employment Acceleration Act of 2011 (A.B. 1236) that opposes E-Verify mandates and prohibits - except as required by federal law or as a condition of receiving federal funds - cities, counties, and special districts in California from requiring employers to use an electronic employment eligibility verification system such as E-Verify. To read the Employment Acceleration Act of 2011, visit: http://leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/asm/ab_1201-1250/ab_1236_bill_20110909_enrolled.pdf. Introduced by Assembly Member Paul Fong (D-Mountain View), AB 1236 prohibits "the state, or a city, county, city and county, or special district, from requiring an employer other than one of those government entities to use an electronic employment verification system except when required by federal law or as a condition of receiving federal funds." Congress established E-Verify - a free and voluntary web-based system that allows U.S. employers to verify the work authorization of newly hired employees by checking information on the Employment Eligibility Verification Form I-9 with Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Social Security Administration (SSA) databases - in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA) of 1996. AB 1236, the Employment Acceleration Act of 2011, adds Article 2.5 (commencing with Section 2811) to Chapter 2 of Division 3 of the Labor Code, relating to employment: Article 2.5. Electronic Employment Verification Systems 2811. This article shall be known and may be cited as the Employment Acceleration Act of 2011.
2812. Except as required by federal law, or as a condition of receiving federal funds, neither the state nor a city, county, city and county, or special district shall require an employer to use an electronic employment verification system, including under the following circumstances:
   (a) As a condition of receiving a government contract.
   (b) As a condition of applying for or maintaining a business license.
   (c) As a penalty for violating licensing or other similar laws.
2813. For purposes of this article, the following terms have the following meanings: (a) "Electronic employment verification system" means an employment verification system that allows employers to electronically verify workers' employment authorization with the federal government. This includes the Basic Pilot Program, enacted by Section 404 of Public Law 104-208 and renamed in 2007 as the E-Verify Program, and other pilot programs for electronic employment eligibility confirmation. The term "electronic employment verification system" does not include the I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification form or any other employment eligibility systems that are required by federal law. (b) "Employer" means an employer other than the state, or a city, county, city and county, or special district. To read the Employment Acceleration Act of 2011 (AB 1236), visit: http://leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/asm/ab_1201-1250/ab_1236_bill_20110909_enrolled.pdf.

Woman Wrongly Branded A Criminal In Australia

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0600

A Canberra woman was plunged into a ''Kafka-esque'' nightmare of unemployment, anxiety and paranoia after ACT Policing wrongly branded her a criminal, according to her lawyers. In a case that earned the police force a sharp rebuke from the Privacy Commissioner, Leah Jane Houstein spent months trying to clear her name after her identity was used as an alias by a criminal offender. She is now suing the police for hundreds of thousands of dollars after being denied work in the Commonwealth Public Service when a security check showed convictions for another woman's crimes. Neither ACT Policing or the Commonwealth has admitted liability in the case. According to her lawyers, Ms Houstein was left in bureaucratic limbo and her life went into a downward spiral while trying to prove her innocence, with police, the courts and prosecutors all saying they were powerless to help. According to papers lodged with the ACT Supreme Court, Ms Houstein's nightmare began in 2005 when a distant acquaintance, Charmaine Leah Dugan, was convicted in the ACT Magistrates Court of drink driving, unlicensed driving and giving a false name - that of Ms Houstein - to police. But police records recorded Ms Houstein as the criminal and she only became aware of the blunder more than two years later when a job offer from the Department of Defence was withdrawn because she had ''not satisfied the conditions'' of a security check. After police told the 26-year-old that her record - which was otherwise unblemished - contained Dugan's crimes, it took six months for the force to correct the mistake and issue a clean criminal record for Ms Houstein. After a complaint from Ms Houstein to the Federal Privacy Commissioner, Assistant Commissioner Mark Hummerston found that the police had breached the Privacy Act. He told ACT Policing to provide better protection to innocent victims whose names had been used as aliases by criminals. Ms Houstein, who endured unemployment and poverty and who developed a major depressive disorder, told The Canberra Times that she felt her life was being destroyed by the blunder. ''Nobody would help me, no-one knew how to deal with it,'' Ms Houstein said ''I was crying, I was defamed, I was treated like a criminal.'' Ms Houstein's lawyer, Mark Barrow, of Ken Cush and Associates, likened his client's experience to the writings of Franz Kafka and called on the police to admit liability. ''It has been a traumatic and Kafka-esque experience for my client,'' Mr Barrow said. The case is set to go to court for directions later this month.

Changing Your Name? Not So Fast

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Canadian Justice Minister Ross Landry has introduced legislation aiming to prevent criminals from hiding their records through a legal name change. The Identification of Criminals Act introduced last night requires anyone who wants to change their name to submit to a criminal-record check and provide fingerprints. Once the check is complete, the fingerprints will be destroyed, according to Landry. If a criminal record exists, it will be connected to the applicant's new name in the RCMP's nationwide registry.

Lindsay Lohan: Complete List of Lohan's Criminal And Rehab History

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0600

by Amy Kunkle Lindsay Lohan has served her most recent jail sentence of thirty day in approximately four and a half hours being released at 4am on Monday, November 7, 2011. Looking back, one has to really think hard as to where all of her legal battles began. Here is a complete list of Lindsay Lohan's legal and rehabilitation record stretching back to January 2007 until the present (November 2011). Late January 2007: Self check-in to Wonderland Center Rehabilitation facility for a 30 day treatment ending February 16, 2007. May 26, 2007: Arrested for first DUI. Reinters rehab at Promises Treatment Center facility for a 45 day program. Voluntarily fitted for SCRAM bracelet to monitor her sobriety. July 24, 2007: Arrested for second DUI. Charges include: Felony possession of cocaine, misdemeanor DUI and driving with a suspended license. August 2007: Pleads guilty to misdemeanor cocaine use anddriving under the influence and was sentenced to one day imprisonment and 10 days' community service. She was also ordered to pay fines and complete an alcohol education program, and was given three years probation. Enters third rehab stint at Cirque Lodge Treatment Center. Discharged on October 5, 2007. November 15, 2007: Served 84 minutes in jail. A sheriff spokesman cited overcrowding and the nonviolent nature of the crime as reasons for the reduced sentence. The probation was extended by an additional year in October 2009, following several instances in which Lohan failed to attend the court-ordered substance abuse treatment classes. May 2010: Lohan did not appear for a scheduled DUI progress report hearing. The judge issued a bench warrant for Lohan's arrest, but rescinded the warrant after Lohan's representatives posted bail. Lohan's lawyer said her passport was stolen while she attended the Cannes Film Festival in France. May 24, 2010: Rescheduled hearing date. Lohan was ordered to attend weekly alcohol education classes, wear an alcohol-monitoring bracelet, refrain from drinking alcohol, and undergo random weekly drug tests to remain free on bail. July 6, 2010: Probation revocation hearing. The judge determined that Lohan had violated the terms of her probation and sentenced her to 90 days in jail, starting July 20; in addition, the judge ordered Lohan to check into an inpatient rehab program for three months after her release from jail. July 20, 2010: Lohan appeared in court and was taken into custody to begin her jail term. August 2, 2010: Lohan released from jail after serving 14 days of the sentence. The short term served was due to a policy of early release of non-violent offenders to reduce jail overcrowding. She was immediately taken to an inpatient rehabilitation facility where she was expected to stay another 90 days. August 24, 2010: Lohan was released after only 23 days. Her lawyer stated that "the treating doctors at UCLA felt she had done everything required of her there." Lohan continued with mandatory outpatient therapy but was able to resume work.She was ordered to submit to random drug and alcohol screenings and attend psychotherapy and behavior therapy twice a week, as well as five 12-step sessions a week. The judge said that any failure to attend the sessions or to pass the drug tests could result in a 30-day jail sentence. A new hearing was scheduled for November 1, until which time Lohan was required to remain in Los Angeles. September 24, 2010: Lohan's probation was revoked following a failed drug test. She spent part of the day in jail before being released on bail. A few days later she entered the Betty Ford Center, a drug and alcohol treatment center, where she remained on court order for three months until early January 2011. February 9, 2011: Lohan was charged with the theft of a necklace reported stolen from a jewelry store in January. She was sentenced to 120 days in jail, 360 hours of community service at the Downtown Women's Center, and 120 hours at the L.A. County morgue for misdemeanor theft and probation violation, to which she pled no contest.Due to jail overcrowding, Lohan served the sentence under house arrest, wearing a tracking ankle monitor, for 35 days between May 26 and June 29. While under house arrest, Lohan failed a random alcohol test. A judge decided it did not constitute a probation violation and Lohan would receive no additional punishment. October 19, 2011: Judge Stephanie Sautner revoked Lohan's probation, sent her to jail, and set bail at $100,000. Sautner told Lohan that if she wanted to avoid any further punishment, she must complete 16 hours of community service at the morgue before her next hearing. Lohan posted bail a short time later and was released. November 2, 2011: During probation hearing, Lohan was sentenced to 30 days in the county jail, of which she is expected to serve two days or less due to jail overcrowding, and 400 hours of community service. If she fails to complete the community service she will receive another 270 days in the county jail. November 6, 2011: Lohan reports to jail. She is released within hours on Monday morning, November 7, 2011. Will this be the final chapter in Lindsay Lohan's legal woes? As much as we would love to see her just go away, she appears to be trying this time with her gig in the city morgue.

Pot Arrests Soon To Be Non-Crimes

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0600

As the nation's biggest city deals with threats of terrorism and a variety of violent crimes, carrying a little bit of marijuana is still a big deal. There are more arrests for low-level pot possession in New York City -- about 50,000 a year -- than any other crime, accounting for about one of every seven cases that turn up in criminal courts. It's a phenomenon that has persisted despite more leniency toward marijuana use -- the state loosened its marijuana-possession laws more than 30 years ago. Critics say the deluge has been driven in part by the New York Police Department's strategy of stopping people and frisking those whom police say meet crime suspects' descriptions. More than a half a million people, mostly black and Hispanic men, were stopped last year -- unfair targets, critics say. About 10 percent of stops result in arrests. The department says that the strategy's main goal is to take guns off the street and prevent crime, and that the tactic is a life-saving tool. But critics say officers looking for guns in pockets more often find pot and -- though state law says the drug is supposed to be in open view to warrant an arrest -- lock up the possessor anyway. In response, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly recently reminded officers they can't make arrests for small amounts of pot in people's pockets or bags -- and can't trigger an arrest by searching people or telling them to empty their pockets. "No one has showed me any evidence that this is how a large number of arrests are being made," he said. "But the allegation was made. So, in order to clear up any confusion that may exist, we put that order out to make certain that officers know that they cannot be the reason for someone displaying (marijuana) publicly." Kelly said the vast majority of pot arrests come from undercover officers who witness hand-to-hand drug transactions or people smoking pot in public. And, the department says, as low-level arrests have risen, violent crime has decreased dramatically. But many New Yorkers, mostly black and Hispanic men, say they're being targeted in the name of keeping the city safe. Bronx community organizer Alfredo Carrasquillo, 27, estimated he's been arrested on marijuana possession charges more than 20 times, starting when he was 14 and police ordered him to empty out his pockets outside his high school. He says he was arrested, but was never found smoking the drug or holding it out in the open -- though a 1977 state law says those with 25 grams of the drug or less in their pockets or bags should only be ticketed. Legally, it's a violation that doesn't result in a criminal record. "We weren't stupid enough to smoke it in the middle of the day," he said. Gabriel Sayegh, the New York director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a group critical of the national war on drugs, said the department benefits from the arrests. "Every year, they're bringing 50,000 people into their system," he said. "A significant portion of whom have not been arrested before. Even if the cases ultimately get dismissed, as most first-time marijuana-possession arrests do, police net names, fingerprints and other information for law-enforcement databases, he noted. New York's lowest-level marijuana-possession charge -- criminal possession of marijuana in the 5th degree, a misdemeanor -- has been the most common arrest charge in the city for much of the past decade, and the numbers have been steadily rising. So far this year there have been 38,359 reported arrests. Last year, there were 50,377 arrests citywide, up from 46,492 in 2009, according to statistics from the state Division of Criminal Justice Services. That represents about 616 arrests per 100,000 city residents. Police officials say the studies done by the New York-based Drug Policy Alliance and others are flawed, and also ignore the context of what has been happening in the city as these arrests continue to rise. Overall, they cite significant decreases in murder and major crimes -- the last decade has seen the four lowest annual murder totals since at least 1962. "Drug use advocates ignored both the very high incidents of violent crime when low-level offenses were enforced far less vigorously than today, and the steep decrease in violence crime that occurred when less serious offenses, like marijuana, were consistently addressed," said Paul Browne, the department's chief spokesman. Comparing different cities' arrest data is difficult because drug laws and data-keeping differ. In Chicago, possessing even 2.5 grams of marijuana is a crime that warrants arrest, and possessing up to an ounce is considered a misdemeanor. Chicago logged 22,291 arrests on that and other misdemeanor marijuana possession charges in 2009 and 22,764 last year, or about 826 arrests per 100,000 people, according to data from the Chicago Police Department provided to The Associated Press. Earlier this week, a Chicago politician proposed to make possession of up to 10 grams of marijuana a summary offense, like a parking ticket, with a potential $200 fine, rather than a misdemeanor that carries possible jail time. Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy didn't endorse the ordinance but has signaled he's open to it. "With minor possession, it would be in everybody's interests to free up officers," said department spokeswoman Sarah Hamilton. In California, possession of up to an ounce of marijuana was a misdemeanor until last Jan. 1; now it's a non-criminal infraction. The City of Los Angeles had 3,465 such arrests in 2010 and 4,714 in 2009 -- about 90 arrests per 100,000 residents, according to data from its police department. In New York, two state lawmakers have proposed a similar measure: to make possession of less than 25 grams -- 7/8 of an ounce -- a violation, whether it's in the open or not. It's difficult to put a price tag on the city's arrests. They add to already-busy arraignment court dockets; many cases are put on track to be dismissed quickly. Others take longer to resolve, sometimes because defendants have prior criminal records. A report done earlier this year for the Drug Policy Alliance concluded it cost an estimated $75 million in 2010 to process, jail and prosecute the low-level arrests in New York. That figure was a compilation of estimated court costs, police manpower and jail time, averaging about $1,500 per arrest -- a cost shared by the state and city. The city budget alone is $65 billion. The arrests can carry a heavy personal cost. An arrest alone can prompt a child-welfare inquiry, jeopardize job licenses and turn up in a background check. Chino Hardin, 31, has been busted on marijuana charges more times than she can remember, most recently in 2003. For each arrest, she pleaded guilty to misdemeanor possession and was released, sometimes with a community-service sentence, Hardin said. "At the time, I didn't really have a good grasp of the laws around possession of marijuana," she said, and after hours in custody, "all I wanted to do was just get out and go home." She now has a job at a juvenile-justice group that entails telling teens about their rights in a police stop.

Madison County, IL Court Records Go Online

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Court cases in Madison County are now searchable online by name or case number. The court cases, which are public information, are updated daily. Only personal information, such as home addresses and date of birth, are unavailable to protect against identity theft. Website: http://www.co.madison.il.us/

Man Or A Woman? Backgrounding A Writer's Gender

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0600

A cool Site that analyzes text from an E-Mail, or darn near anything, tells you whether the author was a female or male. Just copy and paste the text. Try it out at The Gender Genie Website: http://bookblog.net/gender/genie.php

CA Background Screener Named Woman Entrepreneur Of Year

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Sandra James, CEO of Private Eyes Inc., has been named a Woman Entrepreneur of the Year in Contra Costa County. This award adds to her 2011 Accolades for 2011 Inc 500/5000 Honoree and 2011 Tech 200 Winner. The award is given by Bay Area nonprofit Women's Initiative for Self-Employment and recognizes women business owners in the Bay Area who: -- Have been successful despite the barriers that exist for women business owners
-- Exemplify how business ownership and leadership is beneficial for women
-- Have a positive impact on the local community or the community at large
-- Advance their business through innovation. In recognizing these businesses, Women's Initiative celebrates the power of small businesses in transforming communities through job creation and economic revitalization. In fact, recent research from Women's Initiative shows that their graduates created or retained more than 4,300 jobs in 2010 alone. The Woman Entrepreneur of the Year Award recognizes these women entrepreneurs and their businesses for their leadership and positive contributions to their communities. Sandra will be recognized at the Woman Entrepreneur of the Year Awards Ceremony on Monday, November 14th at the Round Hill Country Club in Alamo. Approximately 600 businesses were nominated for the award throughout the Bay Area and more than 42 women will be honored with the Woman Entrepreneur of the Year in regions throughout the Bay Area.

Breaking The Law One Atom At A Time

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Sellers of so-called "legal highs" can create and market new drugs so quickly that it will become difficult for authorities to keep on top of the problem, a drug conference has heard. Just changing one carbon of a chemical compound can mean a new drug is developed, and using the internet backyard-developers can find these drug structures through old academic research papers and patent applications, according to Peter Vallely, a special investigator from the Australian Crime Commission. Mr Vallely said there was broad confusion in the community about whether these new drugs were actually legal and people could order them online not realising they were breaking the law. "There are a number of people who have found themselves in circumstances where they have actually purchased a controlled substance and they are absolutely mortified," he said. Many new specific drug compounds were banned and there was also a clause in federal law outlawing drugs that were "substantially similar" to existing compounds. Mr Vallely believed only "the very tip" of an explosion in new drugs had been seen. In the case of "synthetic marijuana" the basic chemicals needed to create the drug, which was then dissolved and sprayed onto herbs, could cost $10,000 for one kilogram. The drugs could then be sold for $2.4 million. "That sort of money is not going to remain unnoticed by serious criminal organisations," he told the University of NSW 2011 National Drug Trends Conference. Simply testing all the new compounds would significantly stretch the capabilities of forensic labs, he said. He argued in the future the onus might have to be reversed so makers and suppliers would be forced to prove the substance was safe rather than authorities proving it was unsafe. Adam Winstock, a consultant addiction specialist at the South London and Maudsley National Health Service Trust in London, told the conference that the European Union had gone from releasing about two notifications each year about new drugs, to about 80 in the past two years. He said new drugs such as mephedrone, or "meow meow", became successful far more quickly than authorities could ban them. He believed governments should look at regulating rather than banning the drugs. In the UK, new drugs seemed to get a quicker uptake than in countries like Australia, although it was not clear why, he said. A senior researcher at the Queensland Alcohol & Drug Research and Education Centre, Fairlie Mcllwraith, said her research into the internet habits of ecstasy users indicated that about 10 per cent had used the internet to buy drugs and 2 per cent to buy the ingredients for drugs. About 5 per cent had sold drugs online. But about 60 per cent of users employed the internet to research information about different drugs, she said. The most common website used was a ''pill reports'' website in which users and drug sellers posted reviews of ecstasy tablets.

Trick-or-Treating Was Safer This Year

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0600

Because there are more than 600 registered sex offenders in Potter and Randall counties in the Amarillo, Texas, area, on Halloween parents turned to a smart phone app called "Offender Search." The app links the Texas Department of Public Safety Sex Offender registry and GPS satellites and lets parents know about any registrants living in a particular neighborhood. A spokesman with the local police department says that individuals who are no longer on probation or parole are permitted to hand out Halloween candy. Other free and inexpensive smart phone applications to locate sex offenders are also available.

Straightline Offers New International ID Verification Service

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0600

We all remember those words which was one of the greatest marketing efforts of all time.: "Is it real or is it Memorex?" In background screening we hope it's real. Straightline International offers its new service, ID Verify. ID Verify, through a complicated series of algorithms or mathematical equations can enhance your product line by verification of many foreign nation's ID cards, similar to a Social Security number check in the USA. Rounding out the top three, you can now check Canada, China, and Mexico. Many other countries are also available. For more information call Straightline International at 1-866-909-6678 or e-mail to info@straightlineinternational..com

Police Records, Court Records, Jail Records, Conviction Records, National Databases

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0600

by Steven Brownstein Just a week ago I was sitting in a large court's administration office. The Administrator was scratching his head. Dumb me, I asked why. The Administrator was reviewing a resume for a court clerk's position and the applicant had attached a criminal record check result from a 'national database' provider. Rule # 1. The power of advertising is much greater than the truth. Not one jurisdiction this national database provided results from (can we call them results?) contained an ounce of information from where the applicant had been, ever was, never will be; like give me a break. Rule #2. Be prepared to hear so much 'bull' that an open door to slip out of never looked so good. Another thing you do want to do is debate a police officer, detective, cop, whatever on criminal records. But here I am, the pot calling the kettle black. The other day I found (rather, put) myself in the position of listening to a long winded argument that this cop knew how to check police databases here and there; that the state system was great, that they check everything, get everything. OMG! I must have been doing background checks too long. Never mind all the studies showing lack of records, arrestees slipping through , etc. But just when I think I've heard everything here comes the U.S Government. Recently, I'm working on an immigration case. No matter, that's not impotant. What's important is that we think a little knowledge makes us experts. Talk about arrogance! (Maybe mine?) This government official (actually a nice person) really did believe that she could check online to get the records they need to do a background check. And that's what they do! Sorry to inform you that this government official is the head of a District's immigration policy. Worse, they might use this information against you or a friend someday. Really, though, I have been proved wrong many times. But, I listen and (hopefully) learn. That is Rule #3. Keep an open mind. (probably Keep Your Mouth Shut should follow!) The hardest thing I find to do is change. After many years of repetitive work, it all becomes so routine. But, someone someday will spring something new on me. Always happens. Can't wait. Call me an eternal optimist. Happy Holidays.

CBS Posts AP Report That Gets It Wrong About Background Checks

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0600

CBS got it wrong. That's after AP got it wrong. Maybe There Ought To Be A Correction. Regarding an artcle entitled, "AP IMPACT: When your criminal past isn't yours"
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501366_162-57344346/ap-impact-when-your-criminal-past-isnt-yours/ I'm not sure who the source was, but the comment, "It hasn't helped that dozens of databases are now run by mom-and-pop businesses with limited resources to monitor the accuracy of the records," misses the point as well as BAD MOUTH hard working Americans in the background screening industry. Show me the proof LET"S LOOK AT THE ISSUE: ALL records are kept in databases. The courts have one. The police have one. What background checking company monitors the records of the original sources of records they acquire? Why should they? Can't trust the government to keep the record straight? Fact is, when it came to criminal records from the courts, everyone, BIG GUYS, and SMALL FRIES bought from the same sources more times than you imagined. They had a runner (researcher) that searched the databases at a particular court and sent back a report to the company with a clear or found criminal (case) record. Most counties only had a few (if any) runner/researchers. They were all well known. They were used by almost everyone. The background check companies regularly check (audit) the researchers. They audit their work by sending work to them (knowing what the criminal case record should be - unless it has been expunged) and comparing it to their known results. And if a discrepancy is found in a subject's record, to this day, researcher's are asked to do further investigation and find perhaps gather additional identifying information. But background check companies sending researchers KNOWN CASES of IDENTITY THEFT cases or asking to IDENTIFY EXPUNGED CASES that aren't expunged from the records and asking researchers to sort that mess out? NEVER. Given there are improper USES of DATABASES, the Federal Government has made certain that we know that. It created the FCRA. About a decade ago, The National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS) was formed. http://www.napbs.com/ The NAPBS gives MOM and POP's the opportunity to share and get information from the same sources (including the FCRA) as the BIG GUYS. And there are plenty of MOM and POP enterprises that are PAID members of the NAPBS. As a sidebar, if it weren't for background checking companies, the issues of court clerical erors and identity theft might never have come up. Go back more to the late 90's and the identity theft issue started in Ohio with an identity theft, a background checking company, a Sheriff's Association, and a lawsuit. Meanwhile, the background checking industry always relied on the small MOM and POP to gather the criminal records they needed for their reports.
The internet changed a lot (but not all) of that with online access to court records. Many small businesses were left without business as the 'big guys' dropped them faster than a hot potato preferring to do their own online searches instead of paying the few dollars per search that was the going rate at the time. Then came scraping. This is not a new technology. Research would show that the U.S. Court records (PACER) have been scraped for more than a decade by many companies. The use of scraping as a competitive edge by the BIG COMPANIES anxious to please their customers with faster service has made this product what it is today. Smaller MOM and POP's buy their scraping from the BIG GUYS. Scraping actually utilizes the live data provided by the source ( in most cases, by a court). The databases themselves are the problem. There's errors in most all. But it's the correction of inaccurate records where the lawsuits lie. The story even mentions a BIG LAWSUIT: ... "(A) settlement, which received tentative approval from a federal judge in Virginia last month, requires HireRight to pay $28.4 million to settle allegations that it didn't properly notify people about background checks and didn't properly respond to complaints about inaccurate files. HIRERIGHT is by no means a SMALL MOM AND POP company. Except maybe by comparing them to Microsoft or Wal-Mart. I have to consider then as false the assessment that the problem discussed in the article is databases run by MOM and POPS. I take offense at knocking the MOM and POPS of this country. I read the article as a 'correction of error' problem and not a 'scraping or database' issue. Senastionalizing the story did not help protect the innocent person harmed by identity thieves or innacurate records kept at the originating source. Let's look out for the MOM and POP businesses. I know of one LARGE pre-employment screening company that grew out of their garage. Maybe a software company, coffee company, and a newspaper or two had humble beginnings, too.

Placer / Lake County Furlough Days Placer / Lake County Furlough Days

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Lake and Placer County courts will be imposing furlough days for the first half of 2012. This is due to recent budget cuts. During the following dates, the courts will be closed and the public indexes inaccessible. No files, case data or dockets will be available. Beginning in January, Lake courts will be closed the first Friday of every month until June 2012. The dates of those particular Fridays are 1/6, 2/3, 3/2, 4/6, 5/4 and 6/1. Placer courts will be closed the fourth Friday of every month until June 2012. The dates of those particular Fridays are Jan 27th, March 23rd, April 27, May 25th and and June15.

Chicago Suburbs Decriminalize Marijuana

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Even as Chicago ponders whether to decriminalize pot possession, one of its suburbs has gone ahead and done it. The city of Evanston passed its 2012 budget, complete with an ordinance that decriminalizes the possession of less than 10 grams of marijuana. People caught with fewer than 10 grams would be ticketed and fined, but would face no jail time and no criminal record. Up until now, they would have been charged with a misdemeanor and faced up to six months in jail. City council members and Evanston Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl said that decriminalization would prevent young people from being burdened with a criminal record and would free up police and prosecutorial resources in the revenue-strapped town. "There is a high amount of paperwork and time that is spent going to court," Alderwoman Melissa Wynne told the Daily Northwestern. "It's not just the arrest, but then the processing and follow-through that takes a lot of time." "A one-time violation by someone with that level of possession could be a teenager or someone in college," said Alderman Donald Wilson. "I wouldn't want to see people suffer the long-term consequences of something that might just be short-term misconduct." Alderman Peter Braithwaite cited a higher rate of marijuana arrests among black youths in the city in explaining his support for decriminalization. "I'm definitely very concerned about the number of black teens who end up in the criminal justice system and how that affects their futures and abilities to get jobs later in life," he said. Marijuana law reform is definitely in the air in the Chicago area. The Cook County Board of Commissioners okayed decriminalization in unincorporated areas of the county in 2009 and then expanded that remit to include all jurisdictions in the county that don't have their own police forces. The suburban city of Skokie recently decriminalized possession of less than 10 grams for teenagers, and the city of Chicago is currently considering a decriminalization move.

Maine's One Stop Background Check

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

The Center for Digital Government recently recognized the State of Maine with a Digital Government Achievement Award in the government-to-business category for the One Stop Online Background Check Service. The online service, sponsored by the Department of Public Safety and the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, was created to provide a convenient, up-to-date, and official source for Maine online background checks. The national award program highlights exceptional state government websites and online services and is highly competitive. Maine's One Stop Background Check ( http://www.maine.gov/online/dps/background_check ) provides a combined search of multiple official state databases including Maine crash reports, Maine public criminal history records, Maine driver history records, and the Maine sex offender registry. Instead of conducting individual checks through multiple services, businesses now can conduct a complete search in one simple transaction and obtain a consolidated report on an individual. "Consolidating the services into one search and report makes the background check process more convenient for businesses, especially employers," noted Matt Ruel, Director of the State Bureau of Identification. Background check results ordered through the online service are typically delivered to the customer via email in a consolidated electronic report. The service is useful to employers, investigators, day care providers and a variety of other businesses that routinely need to perform background checks. "Not only does this service provide convenience, but users can be confident in the accuracy and timeliness of the data they receive, as it comes straight from the official databases of the Department of Public Safety and the Bureau of Motor Vehicles," stated Clarissa Hurley, Online Services Branch Manager for the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. InforME developed this online service at the request of Maine businesses that were surveyed in an extensive user needs analysis conducted in 2009. The service was developed at no cost to Maine taxpayers, and enhances the popular suite of online business services available through Maine.gov ( http://www.maine.gov ).

Irish Doing Background Checks The Old Fashioned Way

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Irish companies are turning to pre-employment lie detector tests as corporate crime rates shoot up. Big security companies, pharmaceutical firms and multi-nationals are now asking potential employees to undergo a truth-telling test from a registered company. As there are more incidents of corporate theft, Tiger kidnappings and illegal drug production, new employers want to be sure that they have the right candidate. Sian Devine, CEO of Dublin-based Lie Detector Ltd, said that there is a growing demand for their services. "Companies want to know that their future employees have integrity and honesty," she said. "They want to see if they have historically done something wrong -- and whether they are honest about what they have done. Security companies want to know that people are applying for the jobs for the right reason -- in case of inside information in robberies. "Any business that has a US base would particularly be interested in these tests as it happens more often in the US. "Another area that is using the facility is pharmaceutical companies, where individuals would have access to make illegal drugs." Individuals who are applying for the positions that require the lie detector test are often reluctant to take a test, Ms Devine said. "The initial response is that they are wary of them and some would rather leave the position," she said. "But they are only used to gather the information that would identify that the person otherwise wouldn't be entitled to the position. "It's only relevant to that specific company. They'll ask the reasons for joining the company or if it was a childcare position perhaps if they had viewed pornography online." Lie Detector Ltd also provides tests for individuals who have been accused of something in their private life. "You might not feel any different when you tell a lie but there are involuntary responses that are part of the nervous system that reacts in such a way," Ms Devine said.

Canada: Suspect Your Employee Is Using Drugs Or Drinking? Our Opinion

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

by George wagott and lai Kin Hum Many Canadian employers are uncertain about the laws surrounding drug and alcohol tests for employees. Drug and alcohol testing is a challenging issue, and tests can only be used in limited circumstances. Applied improperly, the testing could easily lead to a contravention of applicable human rights laws. In this regard, it is important that all employers understand the laws surrounding drug and alcohol testing in Canada, and create policies and procedures that will withstand legal scrutiny. Requirements for drug and alcohol testing policy Employers can justify the discriminatory effect of testing if the drug and alcohol testing policy meets all three of the following requirements1: *The policy must be adopted for a purpose that is rationally connected to the performance of the job (e.g. employee and public safety);
*The policy must be adopted in good faith, in the belief that it is necessary for the fulfilment of that legitimate work-related purpose; and
*The policy must be reasonably necessary to the accomplishment of that legitimate work-related purpose.2 Because of these requirements, testing should generally be limited to determining actual impairment of an employee's ability to perform their essential duties. In other words, testing cannot be used solely to identify the presence of drugs or alcohol in the body. Unlike alcohol testing, drug testing does not actually measure impairment , it only determines if drugs are present in the body. As such, drug testing is more controversial. Testing that has no demonstrable relationship to impairment, job safety or performance will be found to be a violation of an employee's rights. Perhaps just as importantly, many drug tests will be of no use in support of related efforts by the employer to discipline employees who fail such tests. As this area of law is contentious and constantly evolving, the following principles will be applied differently depending upon the circumstances and, sometimes, the province. This bulletin focuses on applying these general principles to determine which employees can be tested and when employees can be tested. Which employees can be tested? Blanket drug and alcohol testing is regarded as discriminatory since addiction is considered to be a disability under human rights laws. More significantly, drug testing does not reflect actual or future job impairment. Therefore, to test an employee for drugs or alcohol, there needs to be: *a rational connection between testing and the employee's job performance; and *risk to the safety of co-workers or members of the public created by an employee's alcohol or drug abuse. As a result, typically only employees in "safety-sensitive" positions may be tested for alcohol or drugs. When can an employee be tested? There are two times when an employer may want to test an employee for drugs or alcohol: before hiring the employee and while the employee is working. Pre-employment testing Pre-employment drug and alcohol testing is generally considered to be discriminatory and an unjustifiable intrusion into the rights of employees, regardless of whether or not the employee will occupy a safety-sensitive position. This is because such tests essentially deny employment to people who are drug or alcohol dependent and because such testing does not reflect actual or future job impairment. Pre-employment drug and alcohol testing may, however, be justifiable in some circumstances. For example, pre-employment testing may be allowed where there is evidence not only showing the link between impairment, job performance and safety, but also showing unique safety-sensitive circumstances (e.g. an "ultra-dangerous" workplace) or a significant risk or history of employees being impaired while at work3. Pre-employment drug and alcohol testing may also be acceptable if the potential employee is not refused employment because of a positive test, but is instead accommodated4. On-the-job testing There are three types of on-the-job drug and alcohol testing to be considered: 1. random testing; 2. "for cause" testing; and 3. post-incident testing. Random testing Generally, random drug testing is considered to be an unjustifiable intrusion into the rights of employees, even if they occupy safety-sensitive positions. This is because drug testing does not reflect actual or future job impairment. As with pre-employment testing, however, random drug testing may be justifiable in extreme circumstances where there is evidence showing unique safety-sensitive circumstances or if there is a significant risk or history of employees being impaired while at work5. Random alcohol testing, on the other hand, is considered to be a minimally intrusive and effective method of measuring impairment6. However, random alcohol testing can still only be used for employees in safety-sensitive positions, where there is a clear connection between impairment and the employee's performance and safety. For cause and post-incident testing "For cause" drug and alcohol testing is potentially permissible when there is reasonable cause to suspect alcohol or drug abuse. Post-incident testing is when an accident has occurred at work and there is reasonable cause to suspect that alcohol or drug abuse may have contributed to the accident. In both of these cases, such testing may be allowed so long as it forms part of a larger assessment of drug and alcohol use and so long as the employer is able to show that there is an objective basis to believe all of the following: *That job performance would be impaired by drug or alcohol dependency. In other words, that there is a rational connection between testing and job performance;
*That the employee's behaviour or the incident is related to alcoholism or drug addiction or dependency; and
*That the degree, nature, scope and probability of risk caused by alcohol or drug abuse or dependency will adversely affect the safety of co-workers or members of the public. What if an employee tests positive? Automatically terminating the employment of an employee who has tested positive for drugs or alcohol is an invitation for a human rights complaint. If an employee tests positive for either drugs or alcohol, the sanction must be tailored to that employee's specific circumstances. Any proven employee dependency or addiction must be accommodated unless the employer can demonstrate that such accommodation will cause undue hardship. Therefore, an employer needs to consider both the applicable human rights legislation and the question of accommodation without undue hardship in order to help shield itself from a potential human rights claim. Given the close scrutiny of employer drug and alcohol policies, and their controversial nature, employers are well advised to seek legal guidance on their creation and implementation.

NJ Government Might Ease Expungment

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Offenders would have an easier time getting their records expunged under a bill discussed in the Nj Assembly Judiciary Committee. The committee mulled the bill, which was first introduced in 2005, but did not hold a vote on it in part because the state's outdated court computer system would make it virtually impossible to implement. The measure (A1060) would automatically expunge records for those convicted of disorderly persons offenses after three years. Currently, those convicted of disorderly conduct have to petition for expungement after five years. For more serious indictable offenses, ex-convicts would have their record expunged automatically after seven years. Right now, they can petition for expungement after 10 years. "Expungement processes are generally a way for many small offenders to get a fresh start," said Assemblyman Reed Gusciora (D-Mercer), the bill's sponsor. The bill would also eliminate a required $30 fee. Under current law, those convicted of minor offenses can get their records expunged if they do not committee any other crimes. If an expungement is granted, the crime is "considered not to have occurred," according to the New Jersey Judiciary's website. Some serous offenses -- including criminal homicide, kidnapping, luring, endangering the welfare of a child and sexual assault -- cannot be removed from a convict's record. Gusciora said petitioning to get one's record to be expunged is complicated and usually requires hiring a lawyer, which is expensive. Gusciora also noted that most petitions for expungement are granted. "I don't understand why there needs to be an expungement process and why, in this computer age, it can't be done automatically," he said. But Dan Phillips, legislative liaison for the Administrative Office of the Courts, said the court system's antiquated computer system could not handle the paperwork. "We are not in the computer age in the courts or criminal justice system," he said. "We are a paper-based system, and we're drowning in a paper-based system." Phillips said there is "value to this bill" in helping first-time offenders put their pasts behind them. But, he added, "for the courts to even attempt to implement this would be a nightmare."

Wrangling The Workplace Bully

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Experts say that workplace bullying is a widespread problem. According to a survey conducted last year by Zogby International, 35 percent of U.S. workers--or an estimated 54 million people--have been victims of workplace bullying at some point in their professional lives. Joel Neuman, a professor of management and organizational behavior at the State University of New York at New Paltz, noted that workplace bullying can take many forms, though it is generally defined as being a persistent form of aggression that aims to humiliate, undermine, or ostracize another employee. The targets of workplace bullying are often the most senior and competent person on the team, since they are viewed by the bully as being a threat, the Workplace Bullying Institute says. Although a dozen states have enacted legislation over the last several years to address the problem of workplace bullying, there are also steps that employers can take to deal with the issue before it arises. For instance, employers should have a code of professional conduct in place that lets employees know what kind of behavior is expected of them, as well the disciplinary measures that they could face for not complying with the code, Neuman said. Experts also say that managers should talk with the employees who they think are being bullied and investigate their claims. If an employee is found to have been bullying a colleague, the bully should be given a written warning or face suspension or termination.

Is Your Printer An Open Invitation To Steal?

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Columbia University researchers have found a new class of computer security flaws involving printers that could impact millions of businesses, consumers, and government agencies. The researchers say that certain Hewlett-Packard (HP) LaserJet printers can be remotely controlled over the Internet, enabling computer hackers to steal personal information, attack normally secure networks, and cause physical damage to hardware. HP's Keith Moore says the initial research suggests the likelihood that the vulnerability can be exploited in the real world is low. However, the Columbia researchers claim the security vulnerability is so fundamental that it could affect tens of millions of printers and other hardware that use flawed firmware. The firmware flaw runs embedded systems such as computer printers, which increasingly include functions that make them operate more like computers. "These devices are completely open and available to be exploited," says Columbia professor Salvatore Stolfo. For example, the researchers showed how a hijacked computer could be given a command to continuously heat up the printer's fuser, eventually causing the paper to turn brown and smoke. The researchers also found that printers automatically accept software updates from unknown sources, making them vulnerable to viruses that can be remotely installed.

Backgrounds Of Foreign Criminals Never Checked, In U.S., Either - Doesn't Surprise Straightline

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Tens of thousands of foreign criminals could be slipping through the net because police only check the backgrounds of one in seven, an official review revealed. Of the tens of thousands of EU suspects arrested in the UK, officers only ask their home nation for a criminal record check in 15 per cent of cases, it emerged in a Home Office report. In the courts last year alone, some 35,000 EU citizens were convicted but previous foreign offences were only sought from the Central Authority for the Exchange of Criminal Records (UKCA) in 5,500 cases. It means in the majority of cases judges do not know the full offending history of tens of thousands of criminals when passing sentence. Thousands more could have slipped under the radar if they were only arrested for a minor offence or not charged. The report, for the Home Office, raised the prospect that foreign criminals could be working in sensitive positions or with children without their employers knowing their true past. And Sunita Mason, who carried out the review of criminal record checks, warned that funding cuts to the UKCA could make the problem worse and pose a "potentially huge" risk to the public. Mrs Mason said checks on EU citizens were "patchy" at best while those on people from outside Europe were "much less positive". She said the problem of obtaining overseas convictions was "an ever-growing gulf of public protection". She added: "In a world with far more global travel, both for work and pleasure, and with the less scrupulous taking advantage of these new opportunities to continue their offending behaviour across borders, it is clearly important that an individual's criminal record should include court convictions from other jurisdictions were possible." Difficulty in obtaining such records means public protection agencies may not know the dangers posed by those they come in to contact with, she said. The report also revealed that hundreds of previously unknown serious violent and sex offences committed by Britons while abroad have been unearthed. The UK set up the UKCA in 2006 to improve the obtaining of criminal records from around the EU. Since then, the agency has received 20,000 notifications of which 450 involved serious sex or violent offences committed by Britons overseas. Only 37 of them were previously known while 276 involved offences against children. However, Mrs Mason said funding for the agency over the next three years was unclear. She warned: "Not to address this issue is a potentially huge public protection risk." The report also said more work should be done to increase the number of occasions when fingerprints are also sent along with previous convictions to stop offenders turning up in the UK and claiming to be someone else. It also recommended that potential employers should be allowed to request a foreign background check if the applicant agreed. In January it emerged that more than one million crimes, including murders and rapes, are not on the Police National Computer because forces are refusing to pay a fee to obtain the criminal history of offenders. A fifth of all crimes committed before 1995 are not on the national database because police must pay "100 to access each one from microfiche." A Home Office spokeswoman said: "It is an operational matter for police to decide when to request information on foreign nationals. "The UK worked hard to implement an EU-wide agreement to share this information - but we know all countries do not currently comply fully." "That is why it is important that the new European legislation implemented next Spring will require member-states to share this information."

More Than One Million Crimes Not On Police Database Surprises No One In Background Screening

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

A fifth of all crimes committed before 1995 are not on the national database because police must pay $100 to access each one from microfiche. It means suspects could have slipped through the net or offenders have been handed softer sentences because the police and courts were unaware of their full criminal past. The revelation has "profound implications" for public safety and puts police operations at risk, the HM Inspectorate of Constabulary warned. And yet employers may be handed the details because bodies doing criminal record checks for employees are not charged. A spokesman for the National Police Improvement Agency (NPIA), the body which runs the microfiche library, said there are now plans to reduce the fee by charging others. The Police National Computer (PNC) was introduced in 1995 and has electronically recorded all offences since then. The national database is used by all police officers to check a suspect or offender to see if they have any previous convictions. Police also use it to draw up an individual's criminal history to pass on to the Crown Prosecution Service to inform a sentencing court. Prior to 1995, offences were documented on microfiche and contained 5.2 million records at its height, many of which have since been transferred to the PNC. However, since April last year forces have been charged $100 for every request to access such a file and requests fell by half to around 40 requests a month. The HMIC report said police are no longer requesting details of early convictions because it costs too much money. Some 1.2 million records, including murders, rapes, arson and GBH, have still not been entered on to the PNC. It means police investigating an individual will not know their full past and courts may hand out a lesser sentence because they are unaware of a long previous history. One HMIC source warned police investigating a rape and searching for suspects may not be aware of a convicted rapist in the area because their crime was historic and not on the system. The report concluded: "Police forces believe this charge to be excessive and consequently are not requesting the details of pre-1995 convictions. "Since the charge was introduced in April 2010 the number of 'fiche requests from forces has decreased. The inescapable conclusion is that police forces are not updating records with 'fiche-based convictions because the charge is considered to be excessive." It added: "This can only impact adversely upon operational police efficiency and public safety." It said it was a "matter is of concern" and that the issue "should be addressed as a matter of course with a view to reducing the unrealistic financial burden upon forces by the NPIA". A joint statement from the NPIA and the Association of Chief Police Officers said: "Public safety is at the heart of the NPIA and the police service's work. "Police officers will make a professional judgement about when they need to seek further information concerning an individual. "This would routinely include incidents where an arrest or charge has been made. "Where the PNC does not hold a full record of a known individual, it will have a marker alerting police officers that information is held on microfiche." "We have no evidence that police forces are not performing their public duty by requesting the details held on microfiche. We would find it hard to believe that any force would put public safety at risk for an interim charge of $100."

Police Records, Court Records, Jail Records, Conviction Records, National Databases

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

by Steven Brownstein Just a week ago I was sitting in a large court's administration office. The Administrator was scratching his head. Dumb me, I asked why. The Administrator was reviewing a resume for a court clerk's position and the applicant had attached a criminal record check result from a 'national database' provider. Rule # 1. The power of advertising is much greater than the truth. Not one jurisdiction this national database provided results from (that's if we could call them results) contained an ounce of information from where the applicant had been, ever was, never will be; like give me a break. Rule #2. Be prepared to hear so much 'bull' that an open door to slip out of never looked so good. Another thing you do want to do is debate a police officer, detective, cop, whatever on criminal records. But here I am, the pot calling the kettle black. The other day I found (rather, put) myself in the position of listening to a long winded argument that this cop knew how to check police databases here and there; that the state system was great, that they check everything, get everything. OMG! I must have been doing background checks too long. Never mind all the studies showing lack of records, arrestees slipping through , etc. But just when I think I've heard everything here comes the U.S Government. Recently, I'm working on an immigration case. No matter, that's not impotant. What's important is that we think a little knowledge makes us experts. Talk about arrogance! This government official (actually a nice person) really did believe that she could check online to get the records they need to do a background check. And that's what they do! Sorry to inform you that this government official is the head of a District's immigration policy. Worse, they might use this information against you or a friend someday. Really, though, I have been proved wrong many times. But, I listen and (hopefully) learn. That is Rule #3. Keep an open mind. (probably Keep Your Mouth Shut should follow!) The hardest thing I find to do is change. After many years of repetitive work, it all becomes so routine. But, someone someday will spring something new on me. Always happens. Can't wait. Call me an eternal optimist. Happy New Year 2012.

Closing Sales On Civil Searches

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

by Steven Brownstein Civil Record Searching can bring in $$$ if you can obtain the results that your client requested. The most common type of information needed by Pre-Employment Screeners are civil lawsuits where the subject has appeared as a defendant. The idea would be to find out if the applicant defaults on his word ( contract ) or in the case of a driver ( motor vehicle personal injury )This is usually a test of an applicant's integrity. Other types of civil cases requested are usually for divorce, paternity or medical malpractice. The most common barrier to this type of search is the lack of identifiers found. Many suits are filed by name only and upon inspection of most files one usually finds just an address of the defendant. Other documents that might help identify the defendant would be copies of the installment agreement ( some require social security numbers ) and there usually is a signature of the defendant on that agreement. Another barrier is where the summons is served to their attorney of record. There would be no address. Pray for a signature. Be grateful if the jurisdiction you are researching requires a social security number for recordkeeping; they are far and few between. In 1992 the Nation's largest 75 counties disposed an estimated 378,000 tort cases ( complaints charging damages ) of which the majority were auto torts ( charging damage caused by a motor vehicle ). Most cases ( about 75% ) were disposed through an agreed settlement or voluntary dismissal. Only 3% were disposed by trial verdict.

What Is Illinois 1410/710 Probation?

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

The Illinois Cannabis Control Act and the Controlled Substances Act were enacted in 1971. They specify two special types of probation sentences for offenders convicted of possessing either marijuana or other controlled substances. For those convicted of Controlled Substances Act violations (e.g., possession of less than fifteen grams of cocaine, heroin or morphine), the sentencing option is known as "1410 probation" and for those convicted of marijuana possession or delivery, it is known as "710 probation." Only offenders with no prior felony convictions, probations or supervisions, including those resulting from previous violations of either Act (or of similar laws in other states or at the federal level), are eligible for 1410/710 sentences (for example, Chapter 570, Sec. 410a of the Illinois Revised Statutes). In addition to having no felony prior convictions, 1410/710-eligible defendants also must have plead or been found guilty. The principal incentive for defendants to accept sentences to 1410/710 probation is that at the end of five years following their sentencing date (a period that includes the successful completion of their probation term) they can petition the court for expungement of their conviction.

After Years Of Selling Wisconsin Searches? You're Finally There (almost)

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

For years, Portage County has been Wisconsin's black hole of online court records, the only of the state's 72 counties not to participate in the wildly popular CCAP system. But now, the state court system announced Portage had finally joined the clan, after the new Clerk of Circuit Court had her staff work "tirelessly" with state court system staff to convert 180,000 files dating back 25 years. "We will now be able to provide greater security in a variety of ways for court files, as well as allow greater access by the public to our court information," Patricia Cal Baker said. But don't rush online to look up your Stevens Point friends and relatives quite yet. The case information won't show up for a few months, according to the state courts system, "after court staff works to ensure the data converted from the local Portage county system is accurate and complete." As the court system likes to explain, CCAP actually is the Consolidated Court Automation Programs that offers lots more than case lookup to judges, clerks and lawyers within the system. The online public access component is properly known as WCCA -- Wisconsin Circuit Court Access. But it will always be CCAP to us.

Background Checks: How Much Digging Is Too Much?

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

by Eve Tahmincioglu Background checks for job applicants have increasingly been the subject of debate and discussion in Delaware and elsewhere. The use of such pre-employment screenings is far from clear-cut, and some argue the checks may even discriminate against certain applicants. The issue was raised recently in Delaware regarding a group of employees at the state's Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health who were not screened when hired. That caused a problem last month when the state was about to open a mobile crisis unit with Beebe Medical Center in Lewes because that hospital requires such screenings of its employees. In total there are about 100 employees at the division who have not gone through such employment checks but not all of them work directly with patients. "We are reviewing the hiring requirements for community-based state employees in the Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health," said Rita Landgraf, Secretary of the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services. "At my direction, the Division of Management Services is conducting a review of existing employees, their roles and involvement with clients, existing hiring requirements and governing policy and law." Indeed, there are a number of factors to consider when such employment screenings are conducted, say employment experts. Criminal, and other reviews including credit background checks, as a condition of employment have become increasingly popular in Delaware and across the nation. In some cases, employers are required to do such reviews, especially for those job seekers who work with children, patients, or directly with money, such as many banking jobs. But more and more, organizations are using such reviews even when a person's criminal or credit history has little or no bearing on the position sought. This year the number of criminal background checks by employers in Delaware is expected to rise by 12 percent, according to Sergeant Paul G. Shavack, a spokesman for the Delaware State Police. The DSP through its Bureau of Identification completes about 46,000 criminal background checks annually. Delaware employers of all types perform such reviews, not just government agencies. And many employers make it clear in job postings that they're going to dig into an applicant's background. For example, Southern States Cooperative in Seaford and 84 Lumber in Claymont both had job openings posted on Monster.com recently, and both included a requirement for background checks as a condition of employment. Dave Haley, manager of the 84 Lumber store, said the company as been doing such checks for five years and that all employees no matter what the job have to have it done. And Southern States, which employees about 100 people in Delaware, also performs criminal background reviews on all employees once an offer is made, said Turner Gravitt, a spokesman for the company. "It's our policy," he noted. Some blanket policies, however, have come under fire nationally, and some states have even passed legislation to limit or ban certain background checks in employment. "It can lead to discrimination," said Kathleen MacRae, executive director of ACLU Delaware, about indiscriminate background checks, which can adversely impact minority because of higher incarceration rates and higher rates of credit issues. "It creates a whole pool of people that become unemployable." Indeed, on a national level the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has made curbing such employment reviews a top priority. "As a general matter, the use of arrest and conviction records to deny employment can be illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion and sex) because it can have a disparate impact on certain racial and ethnic minorities whose arrest and conviction rates are greater than other groups," said Christine Nazer, a spokeswoman for the EEOC. "Having shown a disparate impact, an employer can justify its policy by showing that it was job-related and required by business necessity, and that no other less-discriminatory alternatives existed." She said there are three factors employers must consider: 1.the nature and gravity of the offense;
2.the time passed since the conviction or completion of the sentence;
3.the nature of the job in question. As for credit history reviews, she continued, "the EEOC is concerned that excluding people with poor credit may exclude qualified job seekers and some minority groups, and therefore may be discriminatory under civil rights law. Employers need to show that the use of credit records is job-related and consistent with business necessity." The ACLU's MacRae believes the use of such reviews is on the rise because technology has made it so easy and so cheap to dig up such information on applicants. And Margaret M. DiBianca, an attorney who represents employers for Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor in Wilmington, added that with so many job applicants today because of the tough job market, employers are using these background checks in order to easily weed out some candidates. However, she noted, that approach could backfire. Since there are so many people out of work and as a result many have less than perfect credit histories, potentially good candidates could be overlooked. "It's a double-edged sword," she added. MacRae and DiBianca said there were unaware of any movements in Delaware to pass legislation that would limit the use of such reviews. "Under current state laws it perfectly legal," said Robert Strong, Deputy Principal Assistant at the Delaware Department of Labor, about credit and criminal background checks. But for last four or five years, there's been significant push back in other states and municipalities, including neighboring ones. Earlier this year, Philadelphia passed an ordinance precluding city agencies and private employers with more than 10 employees from conducting criminal background checks before an initial interview. That law also prohibits employers from requiring applicants to disclose or reveal criminal convictions until after the application process and initial interview are completed. Employers required by law to conduct background checks are exempt. Many cities and towns, and several states have enacted similar laws limiting background checks for government employees, but only Massachusetts and Hawaii have passed laws like the one in Philadelphia extending those limitations to private employers, according to the Society for Human Resource Management. As for credit background checks, under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, employers have to ask permission of job seekers before they can run such reports; and some states have actually moved to ban these reviews. To date, four states, Hawaii, Illinois, Oregon and Washington, have passed laws restricting such reviews and 18 others, including the District of Columbia, have introduced legislation to do so, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. "It's a byproduct of the digital age," said the ACLU's MacRae about the growing use of such reviews. "Our laws and our culture have not been able to keep up with the changes."

Want To Know Why Straightline Tries Mainly To Use The Courts? Read This

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Fresh concerns have emerged over the State Government's ability to vet staff after revelations that a third public servant with a criminal history has been discovered this year. Just days after revealing a man who allegedly embezzled $16 million from Queensland Health had a criminal history in New Zealand, it was learnt that Corrective Services has hired a prison guard convicted of drug and weapon offences. The guard was handed a job because a person ticked a wrong box during the check process. Jennifer Dann was employed full-time by Queensland Corrective Services in July and worked at the Brisbane and Woodford correctional centres. Dann was sacked three months later but only after concerns from an outsider were raised that a woman with her criminal history would be allowed to guard prisoners. This follows a blunder in March when a Croatian man on Interpol's most wanted list was discovered working as a state government security guard after 18 months patrolling the executive building and courts. The Government does not undertake its own criminal checks, rather it sends names of applicants to the Queensland Police Service, which runs them through the national criminal database Crimtrac. The information is returned to the departments for their assessment. According to court records, Dann has a conviction recorded at Caboolture Magistrates Court in 2000 for possession of a dangerous drug and weapon as well as secure storage of a weapon. Acting Corrective Services Commissioner Marlene Morrison acknowledged the error and said the check did pick up her history and her job application was rejected. However, an administrative error resulted in Dann's employment after she sought a review. Ms Morrison said Dann worked full-time at Brisbane Correctional Centre and Woodfood Correctional Centre for three months but was sacked the day after they found out. "A review of the criminal history checking established that an administration officer mistakenly ticked the incorrect box on a form,'' she said. Ms Morrison said there was no evidence of impropriety during Dann's tenure, but did not say if other people with criminal histories had been employed as prison guards. In similar circumstances, the Department of Public Works only became aware of the past of security guard Marino Katalinic, 36, after he held his job for 18 months. He was sacked on May 31 this year after he was found guilty of impersonating a police officer and The Courier-Mail revealed he was wanted by Croatian authorities over drug and theft convictions from 2004. Responding to the Government's failure to pick up on Morehu-Barlow's criminal history, Police and Corrective Services Minister Neil Roberts this week acknowledged flaws with the system. The three cases raise serious questions about the State Government's handling of employees' criminal checks. The latest revelations come as three senior health managers were stood down on full pay by Queensland Health yesterday pending an investigation into the failure to detect the illegal transfer of millions of dollars. But the decision sparked fresh calls for Health Minister Geoff Wilson to be sacked as the Opposition insisted the Bligh Government had a long record of blaming only bureaucrats. Police have charged Brisbane socialite and Health purchasing officer Joel Morehu-Barlow with one count of defrauding the department of $11 million. An investigation last year cleared him of any wrongdoing despite a detailed complaint, while payments of $4 million to a trading entity set up by Morehu-Barlow are outlined in the department's annual reports.

Cleaning Toilet leads To Criminal record

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

The federal criminal code has grown so large it ensnares everyday citizens who have no idea they are violating the law. Lawrence Lewis ended up with a federal criminal record while trying to deal with clogged toilets at a military retirement home in Washington, D.C. "He was subject to the same law that [would apply to] somebody who knowingly, willingly dumped toxic materials into a navigable water," according to Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner (R., Wis.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee's panel on crime, terrorism and homeland security.

Straightline Criminal Records Test Of Courts And Police Records Produce Unexpected Result

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

by Steven Brownstein Last year, Straightline tested thousands of searches with both the court and police records. The closet study of this nature was performed in the late 90's by the State of Florida comparing name only checks to fingerprint ID checks. All of us who were around then remember the results. Our industry's term, "false positive", came as a result of that study. But what we resulted in our test result was unexpected and stunning. Do not bank on getting as many hits or any hits at all using police databases on a name check basis. The hit ratio from the court far exceeded the one from the state police by up to 50%. The test results are available for those serious about criminal records. Contact Dennis Brownstein at 1-866-909-6678

The Public Record Update

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

News From Courts Hawaii Hawaii recently upgraded the electronic access to the state's Circuit Court records though Ho'ohiki. Users of the system had been experiencing excessive waits and delays. The Judiciairy added additional slots which should alleviate much of the wait time. The long term plan is to replace Ho'ohiki with a new platform for Circuit Court information on the state's Judiciary Information Management System. However, be aware there are gaps in time periods Ho'ohiki, depending on the District. Also, these records are not considered "official" - there is a strong disclaimer at the site. It is advised to use caution if this site is the only source for FCRA compliant searches. See www.courts.state.hi.us/legal_references/records/search_court_records.html Nebraska The ability to electronically file probate case in any of the 93 counties has been added to the Nebraska Judicial eFiling system. This includes cases involving estates, guardianships, conservatorships, and trusts. Civil, criminal and juvenile case types are already part of eFiling. See www.supremecourt.ne.gov/court-information-tech/e-filing.shtml Oklahoma The Oklahoma Supreme Court has modified an earlier position and has determined that the filing of court documents should include the full date of birth and the full DOB should not be excluded from public documents. An earlier decision would have limited the disclosure of this identifier. The Judiciary is in the process of developing a single statewide court database system. Eventually the public will have access to case information from all of the 77 county courts on one platform. Currently there are two systems that together provide case information online from 76 counties. At present, records from Cimarron County are not on either system. For more information on the systems visit www.oscn.net. Wisconsin The Wisconsin Circuit Court Access system (WCCA) is a very popular public online access mode for case and docket information. One of the drawbacks to the system is the lack of records from Portage county. Recently the WCAA announced the addition of Portage court records dating back 25 years. However, users should be aware this case information will not show up on the WCCA for several more months. The data is being slowly added while being checked for completeness and accuracy. A statewide WI check should still include an onsite search in Portage for the next several months. WCAA is accessible at http://wcca.wicourts.gov/index.xsl.

Les Rosen's Corner

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Jury Awards 7 Million Dollars to Family of Truck Driver Killed in Accident in Negligent Hiring Case The family of a truck driver killed in a 2008 accident in Arkansas was recently awarded $7 million in damages in a wrongful death lawsuit brought against a timber company and its truck driver in an Arkansas Federal Court, according to a press release in the Kansas City Star. A group of Kansas City-area lawyers serving as counsel for the family of the man killed in the accident argued that the timber company had negligently hired the truck driver who caused the accident without conducting a basic background search that would have quickly revealed a history of unsafe driving that included having his license revoked twice. According to the press release, the case primarily involved the timber company truck driver's qualifications to drive a commercial vehicle and the timber company's failure to appropriately screen its drivers. Evidence was introduced at the trial that the timber company truck driver never should have been permitted to drive a tractor trailer since he had lied on his application and had received two license revocations, previous infractions that the timber company could have easily discovered with a simple background search that took only 15 minutes and cost $15. The deadly crash occurred only 19 days after the truck driver was negligently hired by the timber company for the driving job. The victim was killed when the timber company truck driver's trailer went across the center line while taking a curve in the roadway and clipped another vehicle, causing the tractor to cross the center line and strike another car head on and veer directly into the cab of the semi-truck driven by the victim, who died from his injuries an hour after the collision. The jury returned a unanimous verdict that awarded $7 million to the victim's family and found the timber company 75 percent liable and its driver 25 percent liable. "Background checks are a necessary step in avoiding negligent hiring," says Attorney Les Rosen, the founder and CEO of Employment Screening Resources (ESR) and author of 'The Safe Hiring Manual,' a comprehensive guide to background screening. "Even after the most diligent candidate selection process, hiring someone without conducting a thorough background check can lead to major legal and financial ramifications for your company. If your new hire is dishonest about his or her education, employment or criminal history, you could face the burden of having an unqualified worker wasting time and resources or even having a violent employee in your office."

Health Care Facilities Workplace Violence Prevention Act Introduced in Pennsylvania

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

To promote a "culture of safety" in health care facilities and help protect health care workers from incidents of workplace violence in the state of Pennsylvania, the 'Health Care Facilities Workplace Violence Prevention Act' (House Bill 1992) was recently introduced in the Pennsylvania House, according to a report from HealthCanal.com. HB 1992 - a joint effort by the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP) and State Representative Nicholas Micozzie (R-163) - requires Pennsylvania hospitals and other health care facilities to take steps to protect health care workers from suffering from workplace violence that include security risks assessments, finding ways to create a safer workplace, and helping workplace violence victims report incidents. Specifically, the 'Health Care Facilities Workplace Violence Prevention Act' would provide for "violence prevention committees" in health care facilities, for their powers and duties, and for remedies. HB 1992 helps health care facilities develop a plan addressing risk factors, train security personnel, build staffing, and create a hospital "culture of safety." The full text of Pennsylvania House Bill 1992 (HB 1992) the 'Health Care Facilities Workplace Violence Prevention Act' is available at http://www.legis.state.pa.us/CFDOCS/Legis/PN/Public/btCheck.cfm?txtType=PDF&sessYr=2011&sessInd=0&billBody=H&billTyp=B&billNbr=1992&pn=2761. According to the text, "this act shall take effect in 180 days."

UK's Definition Of Hireability Undergoing Changes

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

The UK government is considering widening the definition of a criminal record when employers decide on a person's suitability to work with children. In a review into criminal records and vetting and barring procedures, the government's independent adviser on criminality information management Sunita Mason wants to widen the definition to include convictions for non-imprisonable offences as well as cautions, reprimands and warnings from police.

Luzerne, PA County's Civil Court Records Are Now Online.

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Luzerne County's online access started last month, and the prothonotary's office received $8 on the first day from online purchases of records, Deputy Prothonotary Art Bobbouine said. Searching the database is free, and the prothonotary's office is charging $1 for the first page of a document purchased and 10 cents for each additional page in the document, Bobbouine said. Buyers will also have to pay a $1.50 convenience fee to GovPay for its electronic invoicing system, Bobbouine said, adding that fee will be charged for each transaction of records purchased. To access Luzerne County's civil court records, go to http://bit.ly/sPEeNe

Cuyahoga Sheriff's Facebook Page Nets 1,000 Fugitives

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Since the launch of its Facebook page in January 2010, the Cuyahoga County (Ohio) Sheriff's Office has made more than 1,000 arrests it can relate to information posted on the site. The page averages more than 5,000 views, and the sheriff's office uses it to share posts and collect tips from the public. Cuyahoga County has averaged two arrests per day that it can link to the site. The sheriff's office recently added a section on missing persons and noncompliant sex offenders and started a Twitter feed.

Free License Background Checks For Saipan And Guam Businesses

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Steven Brownstein announces a free license check promotion for Saipan and Guam businesses that employ or are interested in employing professsionals that heve been or are licensed in the USA. License checks include all professions that are regulated b the States. Normally offered to only Saipan and Guam Chamber of Commerce members this promotion is offered to all businesses on the islands through January 31st, 2012.
Contact Steven Brownstein at 1-670-256-7000 or Dennis Brownstein at 1-866-909-6678.

Mumbai City Wide Police Clearances Are Now Available

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Straightline International announces the availablity of Mumbai city-wide police clearance reports to all interested businesses and HR departments. As of now, you probably have avoided getting police clearances at all, but Straightline International, has made it easy and seamless to obtain them. The chances of a criminal looking for work and having a police record at a small local station has proven a waste of time and money. Beginning today in Mumbai, there will be no more 'local police station searches' wasting your time and cash. The city-wide search casts a net across Mumbai. There will be no more slipping throughthe cracks. Steven Brownstein, one of Straightline International's owners, says that the turnaround time that the Mumbai Police has guaranteed us gets the certificates into your hands in 3 weeks. That is a significant change in turn-around time as now it is taking a lot longer, even months. Steven Brownstein goes on to say that even though certain documents have to be included in the filing for clearances, most India companies are familiar with these; and if not, Straightline International's customer service department is well trained to help walk you through the procedure. Straightline International is offering a free trial period for you to try Mumbai Police Clearance Certificates through the end of January. You can contact Straightline International at orders@straightlineinterational.com

Russia Criminal Record Checks

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Straightline International background checks processes requests for Moscow and Eastern Russia through its London, Paris, Saipan and Macau based offices. info@straightlineinternational.com

"If your company is going to do searches in the USA without an FBI clearance certificate, you should have no difficulty accepting the results from your vendor in Moscow."

Our many trips to Moscow have shown me that although it is no longer communist the people are still not comfortable with dealing with people they do not know.

In Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Eastern Russia, they know Straightline International.

The Moscow criminal courts are divided into 2 two types of courts - the District courts and the City court.

Both courts have a computer system and they can search by name.

The city court handles the more severe cases.

Because of the language barrier we do hire a translator.

You can also have your applicant apply for a police certicate and trust them to give you a copy when the Ministry gives it to them, similar to the FBI method in the USA, but "if your company is going to does searches in the USA that is not a FBI clearance certificate, you should have no difficulty accepting the results from your vendor in Moscow."

That vendor if not, should be Straightline International.

Moscow Criminal Record Checks

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Paris Background Checks

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Straightline International background checks also has an office in Paris, France. info@straightlineinternational.com

Steven Brownstein says, "If your company is going to do searches in the USA without an FBI clearance certificate, you should have no difficulty accepting the results from your vendor in France."

My many trips to Paris have shown me that the French do not want to do work performing pre-employment screening.

Take criminal records. Only, in the United States is accessing criminal records through the courts the norm.

In Paris, and France, accessing criminal records is done through an agency in Nantes.

But you can save yourself a lot of time (especially) if you are the employer going to the courts.

Court records are stored and accessed similar to the USA.

And privacy issues can be averted by getting an 'informed consent' from the applicant; the same consent you would need to use information even if given to you by the applicant.

Which by the way would have to happen because in no way would the certificate be issued directly to a 3rd party.

Of course you can do things American-style and go to the court.

Even the same office that processes criminal record request suggests that in case of a problem to contact the courts:

For all information contact:
The ‘Casier judiciaire national’,
The ‘Tribunal de Première Instance’ True, the documentation provided by the Casier judiciare nacional is a 'bird in the hand," but if your company is going to do searches in the USA without an FBI clearance certificate, you should have no difficulty accepting the results from your vendor in France. Straightline International has an office in Paris, France.

The Only Criminal Record And Background Check Service In Saipan And Guam

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Steven Brownstein provides the only local public record access service to Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. "Ads on the Internet might read about record retrieval in Saipan," says Brownstein, - "I see ads that say, ".... offers background record and criminal history searches in Saipan designed to yield results not available through public access or common free" and "Saipan Divorce Records Live Searches. Perform Saipan, Mp Divorce Records lookup against our nationwide ... Court Records Criminal Records Arrest Records ..." These companies are not on Saipan nor Guam; Note: They do not perform at the court or police dept. criminal or public record searches in Saipan, Guam, or The Mariana Islands.
Based in Saipan, with easy access to Hagatna, Guam, Steven Brownstein provides all public record services through Straightline International (http://www.straightlineinternational.com/).
When you are ready to order your records search, public document, or filing service in Saipan or Guam contact Steven directly.
1-670-256-7000
1-866-909-6678
steveb@search4crime.com
info@straightlineinternational.com

Read steven Brownstein's newspaper online. The Background Investigator (http://www.thebackgroundinvestigator.com/)

Avoid Criminal Record - Get Good Job

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

As one of the world's foremost experts on criminal background checks, Steven Brownstein should be listened to.
Brownstein catches us off guard with, "It amazes me how young people today are not taught more than just good morals. They should be taught not to get caught."

Being taught good morals is somewhat disputable these days. But not getting caught?

"Hey, he continues, "I mean don't commit the cirme to begin with and keep your trash off of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. I can't begin, well, yes I can, tell you how many background checking firms are offering WebSite and Internat based searches designed to trip you up."

Brownstein's words ring the bit of wisdom he does profess. A recent Google search of "facebook background check" came back in seconds with more than 106 million results; the top ones being companies offering Facebook and Twitter checks.

Brownstein quite seriously suggests, "Keep a low profile on the Internet or you'll end up paying for it with job offer refusals or lower pay. And criminal records? Come on. We all know it's public record. Get caught drinking underage, pulling off some stupid party prank that gets you busted, the list of idiotic things we do can only get you the same result - unemployed."

Some states have drafted and passed laws disallowing use of certain criminal records, even going so far as to declassify them as criminal making them lesser offenses called violations. These violations are in turn not usuable in making an employment decision.

"Maybe in some other world," adds Brownstein, "not this one. Get a criminal record, even a minor one, whatever you may call it, 'violation, misdemeanor, ordinance offense, and you think the HR department is going to ignore that? Especially when there are tens of more applicants that come up clean?"

We're afraid we have to agree with Brownstein. The best bet woud be to walk the straight and narrow and keep your life off the social networks. But what a boring life. There's got to be some better way.

Improve Your Puerto Rico Criminal Background Record Checks

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Provide Maiden Name To Speed Up Puerto Rico Criminal Background Searches by Steven Brownstein, Puerto Rico's criminal background record retriever If you want to speed up your Puerto Rico criminal background searches, especially for pre-employment screening, always include the Mother's maiden name of the subject requested. You can't imagine the insanity of scrolling through hundreds or thousands of common names looking for, say, a date of birth that matches.
And anyway, the computer's database will 'time out' (freeze up) long before you could complete the search.
Then you have to start again.
Best bet is to provide the Mother's maiden name. Call Steven Brownstein at 1-670-256-7000 or by E-Mail info@straightlineinternational.com

Need Background Checks Done?

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Steven Brownstein #1 Access To Criminal Records Steven Brownstein is The Background Investigator

Worldwide Criminal Record Searches.

International Criminal Record Searches. Contact me at steveb@search4crime.com
Steve Brownstein is The Background Investigator.

How Using Straightline International's Turnaround Time Links - A Guide

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Straightline International offers a true turnaround time list for getting results for your criminal record checks, especially in foreign countries. Straightline International specializes in international criminal record checks and other types of government document retrieval. The algorithm used for Starightline to calculate these turnaround times is based on standard statistical methods. There are two searches available. A more generic turnaround times for a country as whole, is offered without an account number. The generic, country, search will get you an amassed turnaround time of a whole nation. For instance, turnaround time in London might be 1 day, but without an account # and using the public access turnaround time for England, it might be 2.5 days. That is because other areas, maybe a hard to access rural county, are included and slows the average down. For the free public access turnaround times: Go to http://www.straightlineinternational.com/ 1. Click on continent desired. 2. Choose from drop-down list the country that you want the 'average turnaround time. Keep in mind the turnaround around times are calculated exactly, combining the last 90 days, for the whole country chosen, including all jurisdictions for that country (rural and urban areas). You can also open an account at Straightline International. This would give you access to more specific turnaround times based on the exact location of the search. Choose London and you'd get 1 day; choose the rural area and it could be 4 days. This turnaround table is better when you need to quote a customer or even if you are just curious. If you have a Straightline International Account you cab log on to your acct. at https://www.search4crime-orders.com/SLIlogin.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fDefault.aspx and search by specific jurisdictions (cities, towns, etc) for the country desired. No Account with Straightline International? You need to first obtain one before being allowed access into the more specific turnaround tables. E-Mail to info@straightlineinternational.com and request your account now.

What Is A Local Police Record Check In India?

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

What is a local police check? It is a check of a police station's records for an arrest at that station. That's it. No more. But sometimes less. Some police stations have no staff, clerical that is. And while one side of a road might have a local police station, across the street there might be another local police station's jurisdiction. And we all know that criminal always tend to saty on their side of the street. Then one question remains. Why perform a local police check? For that answer see this link: http://stevenbrownstein.blogspot.com/2011/01/real-deal-behind-indias-criminal-record.html

Women Raped - Is Dentist's License At Risk?

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

A Fargo surgeon accused of sedating a woman with the anesthetic Propofol and raping her in his home last June pleaded guilty Tuesday to felony reckless endangerment and a misdemeanor count of sexual assault the latter of which was first filed as a far more serious felony. Dr. Jon Norberg, 41, entered Alford pleas in Cass County District Court. An Alford plea doesn"t admit guilt but acknowledges a jury would likely convict based on the evidence. Norberg told reporters afterward he was trying to help the woman, but I probably went too far in trying to help her in that I brought home a medication that people don't think is a good idea to bring home. "And when the Michael Jackson trial and everything came through, and you mention the word Propofol and people think Michael Jackson's dead," he added. The pop singer's 2009 death stemmed from Propofol intoxication. "It's a good drug, it's a safe drug, but I didn't think that there would be any way to convince a jury of that. And therefore I was better off to take a plea than to risk the kneejerk response of jurors that this is a bad drug," Norberg said. The alleged victim " who Norberg knows but who was not a patient " told police she believed Norberg drugged her without her knowledge to have sex with her, court records show. Norberg was charged in August with gross sexual imposition " a Class AA felony that carried up to life in prison " and felony reckless endangerment. His plea agreement reduced the AA felony charge to a Class B misdemeanor, which upon conviction carries no more than a 30-day jail term. The Class C felony conviction for reckless endangerment carries a maximum prison term of five years. Judge Douglas Herman accepted the pleas and ordered a pre-sentence investigation, expected to take two to three months. Defense attorney John Goff said they reached a plea deal in part because the state was willing to reduce the rape charge. "It was my advice to John to not put his freedom at risk by going forward with the gross sexual imposition in the event that there's always a risk that a jury can accept that," he said. That Norberg was able to enter Alford pleas and not admit personal guilt also was a factor, Goff said. "We wanted to get this whole thing cleared up so Jon can try to move on with his life, parent his children, support his children and try to get back to where he can practice medicine again," Goff said. Prosecutors consulted the woman who had accused Norberg, and she approved of the plea agreement, Assistant State's Attorney Gary Euren said. "There are a lot of factors going on with this case aside from the criminal matter, and we're taking everything into account and trying to do the best job we can for the society as a whole and for the victim in this case and believe that this was the best resolution at this point in time," Euren said. Making sure the charges included a felony was a priority, Euren said, calling the allegations "egregious" and "something that should not happen, particularly with a doctor." Without getting into details, Euren said the state's proposed sentencing recommendation "contemplates incarceration time" Goff said the deal allows him to ask the judge for a sentence that may include no time in jail or prison and a disposition "that ultimately may make this case go away off Jon's record." In an unusual request, Goff asked that if Norberg receives probation, the judge make it retroactive to Tuesday. The timing is important, he said, because Norberg hopes to apply for reinstatement of his medical license. Euren resisted the request, and Herman took it under advisement. An investigative panel of the state Board of Medical Examiners has recommended that the board suspend Norberg's medical license indefinitely. Administrative Law Judge Allen Hoberg of Bismarck recently agreed with the panel's recommendation. The board is set to meet on the matter Thursday. Norberg said he expects the board will indefinitely suspend his license. In Hoberg's findings of fact, he noted that Norberg had medical privilege to administer moderate conscious sedation, but he didn't have the privilege or credentials to administer Propofol, which is used in deep unconscious sedation. A Bismarck anesthesiologist testified to the panel that Norberg administered Propofol to the alleged victim in his home at least 32 times without proper monitoring and the necessary special equipment. Norberg, who has been on voluntary leave from Sanford Health, posted $50,000 bail immediately after his first court appearance in August. Bail was later reduced to $5,000 and will remain at that amount until his sentencing. Norberg and Goff both identified the alleged victim while speaking to reporters, but The Forum doesn't typically identify accusers in sexual assault cases. Norberg's wife, who has filed for divorce, is currently living in their Rose Creek Parkway home where the alleged crimes occurred. Norberg is living in a rented home in Fargo, court records state. Goff said he expects there to be an "extensive discussion of facts in the case" at the sentencing hearing.

Credit Reports History In California

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Starting this year California employers will no longer be able to use those credit reports to judge a candidate. "It prohibits most employers from running credit checks on applicants unless it is substantially related to their job," said Amber Yoo. According to the new labor code employers can only use a consumer credit report if the person is applying for jobs like: - A managerial position
- A position in the state Department of Justice
- A sworn peace officer or law enforcement position
- A position where the person regularly accesses certain confidential information including bank or credit card accounts and social security numbers California joins Connecticut, Illinois, Hawaii, Oregon, Maryland and Washington that have similar laws.

Quebec Bill Subverts Open-Court Pronciple

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Quebec Justice Minister Jean-Marc Fournier has tabled a bill to enact a new Code of Civil Procedure, the code containing the rules of procedure for civil suits in Quebec. As a starting point, the new code would recognize the "open-court principle," that civil justice administered by the courts is public. Anyone can attend court hearings wherever they are held and have access to the court records. The Supreme Court of Canada has often said that it is essential to a democracy and crucial to the rule of law that courts are seen to function openly. The courts must be open to public scrutiny and to public criticism. The Supreme Court has therefore set strict guidelines for any exception to the open-court principle. It has held that a publication ban or order excluding the public from the courtroom can be imposed only when the following conditions are met (the so-called Mentuck test): Such an order is necessary to prevent a serious risk to the proper administration of justice, because reasonable alternative measures will not prevent the risk. And the salutary effects of the publication ban outweigh the deleterious effects on the rights and interests of the parties and the public, including the effects on the right to free expression, the right of the accused to a fair and public trial, and the efficacy of the administration of justice. Unfortunately, the minister's draft bill does not respect these guidelines. The new code proposed by the minister would give judges much wider discretion to impose such exclusionary orders. This greater latitude would undermine the open-court principle. For example, the draft bill would give judges the power to exclude the public or to impose a publication ban "to protect the dignity of the persons involved." The case law has been consistent: The "sensitivity" of the people involved is generally not a sufficient ground to justify a publication ban or exclusion of the public. The person seeking such an order must demonstrate that his or her interest, which must be defined in terms of a public interest in confidentiality, takes precedence over the open-court principle. The interest that is strictly personal to the party does not justify a publication ban or an order excluding the public.

Maricopa County Probate Records Will Not Be Available Online

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

A newly imposed rule restricting electronic access to Maricopa County Probate Court records means that cases cannot be reviewed without physically going to the clerk of court's office. The rule has raised concerns among many of those involved in probate court who say it prevents them from gaining access to their own cases or cases involving relatives. It also has some probate judges and lawyers calling on the state's highest court to lift the rule, which they described as inconvenient and problematic. "Apparently these case records were previously provided online in violation of the rule," Presiding Maricopa County Probate Court Judge Rosa Mroz wrote in a December e-mail. "At this time, however, there is nothing we can do." The rule, which prohibits the general public from accessing court records from so-called remote locations, including home and laptop computers, was established in 2009 and has been unenforced for almost two years.

North Dakota Surprisingly Goes Back In Time

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

North Dakota's Supreme Court has endorsed allowing judges to block electronic access to state records of criminal prosecutions if the person accused is acquitted or the charges are dismissed. Jack McDonald, a Bismarck attorney who represents North Dakota newspapers and broadcasters, called it "self-defeating," given the high court's efforts to make judicial information available through the Internet. North Dakota residents who are doing quick background checks now will be denied access to information they are paying for, McDonald said. "It makes the court's electronic records a little less reliable than the paper records, for no good reason," he said. "It dilutes the value of the electronic record." The rule was requested by criminal defense attorneys and takes effect March 1. It was part of a package of procedural rule changes the court adopted last week. It says a criminal defendant may request that electronic access to his or her case records be blocked if he or she is found not guilty, or if the charges are dismissed. It does not affect access to paper records at a county courthouse. Before ordering any restrictions to access, a judge must decide whether doing so is more important than keeping the records open, the rule says. "The court must consider reasonable alternatives to closure, such as redaction (blacking out information) or partial closure, and the court must make findings adequate to support the closure," the rule says. If electronic access to a criminal record is blocked, a search result for the record must say that Internet access to the information is prohibited, the new rule says. As proposed, the rule also would have allowed blocking of access to electronic case records if the case's paper records were no longer required to be kept. The provision was dropped. The rule was approved over the objections of Supreme Court Justice Dale Sandstrom. In comments included in the court's adoption order, he said the final rule was "much less objectionable." However, information buyers will still be able to obtain and sell complete court information, to which the public will not have free access, he wrote. "I do not believe it appropriate to permit court orders denying to the public Internet access to truthful information sought about specific persons, while permitting third parties to buy and sell the information unrestricted, and burdening clerks of court with telephone requests for the information," Sandstrom wrote. The Supreme Court's own website includes a feature that allows for searching of court records statewide. Nick Thornton, a Fargo defense attorney who is president of the North Dakota Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said the first page of search results now show the original charges filed against a defendant, not how the case was resolved. "Far too often, I receive complaints from former clients about the information still being publicized on the Supreme Court's website, and that information being used against them in some negative way," Thornton wrote in an email. "Usually, that meant a potential employer was not hiring them or the basis of a dismissed case, or a landlord would not rent to them merely because they were accused " not convicted " at one point of criminal conduct."

Kill Them All

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

China has executed 12 people in a single day, including a man who bombed a local tax office. The official Xinhua News Agency says Liu Zhuiheng was convicted and sentenced to death for detonating explosives outside a tax office in Changsha city in Hunan province in July 2010. Four people were killed and 17 others wounded. Xinhua says the 52-year-old was venting anger over business losses. Xinhua says China's supreme court approved the death sentence of Liu and 11 others. All death sentences are sent to the supreme court for review and are usually carried out immediately if approved. The other 11 people were convicted of crimes including murder and robbery. China executes more people than any other country around 4,000 people a year.

Super Cool - Super Wireless

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Infrastructure is king. Companies like AT&T and Verizon live and die by the wireless spectrum on which they operate, so when the FCC moved in November 2008 to release TV white space for unlicensed use, it marked a milestone in the evolution of technology.
The release of that spectrum has made it possible for a new technology to emerge the pieces are coming together for what has become known as "super Wi-Fi." "It's a new way to make efficient use of the spectrum," said Julius Knapp, chief of the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology. Unlicensed spectrum in the UHF band could signal a new approach to spectrum management. If all goes well with the release of TV white space, more chunks of the spectrum may be released for unlicensed use as well, Knapp said. Unlicensed spectrum means anyone with an invention or idea has an open field to play on, and super Wi-Fi is just what it sounds like " a longer-ranging, faster version of standard Wi-Fi. It makes use of the empty spaces between TV channels normally set aside to prevent interference. Because TV white spaces are at lower frequencies than Wi-Fi, signals, they provide better propagation and penetration through obstacles such as buildings or trees " the mortal enemies of standard Wi-Fi hot spots. The result is wireless broadband speeds that are available for several miles surrounding a single access point. Often, people view technologies like super Wi-Fi as emerging overnight, but it doesn't usually happen that way , there's an adjustment period during which the technology finds its potential, said Jon Peha, an engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Peha is one of the researchers responsible for developing Wi-Fi in the early 90s, before it had a name. "It's an exciting time," he said. "We have just made it possible to deploy an entirely different technology, one that has a lot of potential." Improved Wi-Fi hot spots, particularly for use in rural areas as a substitute for traditional broadband, may be one of the biggest applications for super Wi-Fi. But the exciting part, Peha said, is not knowing how the technology will evolve. "It is the FCC's job to make spectrum available, and it's the entrepreneur's job to find uses for it. That's exactly what should happen and exactly what is happening," Peha said. "The entrepreneur and researcher in me is very excited with what kinds of systems might emerge." Already there is no shortage of companies seeking ways to make the most of the newly available TV white space. In Houston, an experimental super Wi-Fi hot spot, funded by the National Science Foundation, was developed by Rice University professor Edward Knightly and Will Reed, CEO and president of the nonprofit organization Technology For All. "The way the whole white space thing evolved was helping underserved communities," Reed said. "We're figuring out ways to level the playing field. White space is certainly a big part of that." From both a financial and philanthropic standpoint, Reed said super Wi-Fi looks promising , it's more cost-effective than the alternatives, and it's possible to reach more people with less equipment and fewer technical problems. "Our usage has just gone up like crazy," he said. "Clearly it's meeting a need in the community. We just need the resources to meet that need." Knightly agreed that the project was going well. "We're exploring questions about what the next generation of wireless protocols and networks looks like." Spectrum previously dedicated to television is now serving Internet, and it could just be the beginning. Rural areas typically don't have many TV channels, so super Wi-Fi works well there. But in urban areas, where channels are more tightly packed, a shift may prove necessary , away from giving broadcasters access to the UHF band and toward using that space for high-speed Internet, Knightly said. "Policy will ultimately decide if this takes off." Because super Wi-Fi uses spectrum once reserved to prevent TV interference, television broadcasters have expressed concerns about what this means for their industry. The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) has been actively protecting its territory since seeing the first signs of unlicensed white space several years ago. Dennis Wharton, vice president of communications at NAB, said the association isn't against super Wi-Fi, but warned that any interference caused to TV stations would tremendously hurt broadcasters. "We don't want to sound like we're being anti-technology. We're not," Wharton said. But broadcasters have made it clear that they don't want their livelihood marginalized by any technology, new or old. It's unclear how worried broadcasters should be, but it appears they're not being forgotten. Pending legislation would allow current holders of UHF band licenses to hold "incentive auctions" , so broadcasters may soon be able to lease or share their spectrum with Internet providers to allow broadband more access to the UHF band. Exactly how things will turn out for TV broadcasters is unclear, but change is coming. Protecting incumbent spectrum holders like broadcasters is one goal of a white-space database developed by Peter Stanforth, CTO and co-founder of Spectrum Bridge. The problem with using UHF white space is that it's not uniformly available around the country; there are different TV stations and public safety systems from state to state and from county to county using parts of the spectrum. "What the database does, generically, is it keeps track of who's using what and, more importantly, where there's unused space," Stanforth said. "There's an awful lot of spectrum around the country that sits idle. This could fix the spectrum crisis. You could say the crisis has been artificially engineered, because of the way we distribute spectrum." The database is configured to allow spectrum to be used in the most efficient manner, he said. A lot of unused spectrum is dedicated to public safety functions that are rarely used. The white space database coordinates radios that want to use white spaces, but still gives public safety priority in the event of an emergency, public safety gets spectrum back until the event has ended.

The FCC tested Spectrum Bridge's database for 45 days, ending Nov. 2. The company is now asking the FCC to certify Spectrum Bridge as the official steward of white space. "The basic technology and rules work very well," Stanforth said. "A lot of people are still very confused and leery of what's going on. Their big fear is that we don't protect their interests. Protecting those who were there first is a big part of my job, as is persuading people that this is a good thing for everyone. White space will add more spectrum, more bandwidth. Their worst fears are unlikely to materialize." Wireless technology |is transforming, he said. Instead of auctioning spectrum to the highest bidder, the country is moving toward a pay-per-use model. "It used to be that whoever owned the towers was the king, but that changed," Stanforth said. Now, holding onto spectrum is as futile as holding onto towers.

Health-Care Registry Consolidates Medical Documents Into Centralized Repository

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

The Virginia Department of Heath launched a statewide Advance Health Care Directive Registry on Wednesday, Dec. 7, through a public-private partnership to allow its residents to upload and store medical documents securely online. In the event that registered users are unable to make their own medical decisions, the stored documents can assist with determining a course of action. "You're the driver, you have complete control over who sees this information and how it's used," said Virginia Health Commissioner Karen Remley. Documents , including medical power of attorney, do-not-resuscitate forms, legal wills, organ donor information and other medical requests , can be uploaded into the password-protected, centralized repository, according to the Virginia Department of Heath. Residents receive a PIN after creating an account on the registry's website. Remley said the user can share the PIN with anyone who he or she would like to grant access to the medical documents, such as family members or physicians. In the event that the account holder is incapacitated or unable to make his or her own medical decisions, those who have the PIN can access the medical documents and help honor the account holder's health-care wishes. "This allows people the opportunity to share their information, to think about these issues long ahead of time, and have a way to share that with people they care about and have it be easily accessible," Remley said. Residents who develop an account on the registry are required to create a password, however, account holders should only provide the PIN to whom they wish to have access, Remley said. While physicians may be given a registered user's PIN, they and other health-care professionals do not have automatic access to a user's registry account. Debbie Secor, the state Health Department's CIO, said registry users with existing paper-based medical documents that contain signatures must be scanned and uploaded to the registry in a secured PDF with the legal signature attached to it. The registry itself does not validate signatures, so any legal documents containing signatures must be scanned and uploaded to maintain their validity. Users, medical information may change over time, so they have the option to update any of the medical information or documents in their registry account, Remley said. Documents that have been submitted to the account but are not the most current version will be archived in the Advance Health Care Directive Registry. The registry, developed in partnership with Michigan-based health-care technology company Unival Inc. and Microsoft, adheres to all requirements of the Virginia State Bar, according to the state's Health Department. Eleven other states including Arizona and Mississippi have similar electronic registries. To keep the documents secure, "information provided to the Virginia Advance Health Care Directive Registry is password-protected, encrypted and protected by means of a firewall," according to a state document. Unival, which hosts the website, is in compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. In 2014, Virginia will launch a statewide health information exchange (HIE) that residents can opt in to, and once available, the registry will be interoperable with the HIE, according to the Health Department. The HIE will provide electronic access to residents' medical records for health-care providers nationwide. "There will be the ability for this registry along with other registries the state has , immunization registry, newborn health screening registry , to interface and share that information," Remley said.

Feds Call for Nationwide Ban On Texts, Phones While Driving

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) called for a nationwide ban on nearly all use of personal electronic devices " including cellphones and smartphones " by drivers. The board's recommendation came in a review of a highway accident that occurred last year in Gray Summit, Mo., that killed two people and injured 38 others. A review determined the accident likely was caused by a distracted driver who sent several text messages in the moments before the pileup. The NTSB's recommended that all 50 states and the District of Columbia ban drivers' nonemergency use of portable electronic devices, except for uses that support the task of driving, such as GPS navigation. The board is also calling for the ban of drivers' use of hands-free calling technology. The NTSB also urged CTIA , The Wireless Association and the Consumer Electronics Association to "encourage the development of technology features that disable the functions of portable electronic devices within reach of the driver when a vehicle is in motion; these technology features should include the ability to permit emergency use of the device while the vehicle is in motion and have the capability of identifying occupant seating position so as not to interfere with use of the device by passengers." The board also wants states to heighten enforcement of existing laws that prohibit technology that contributes to distracted driving and to enact public awareness campaigns about the issue. "According to [the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration], more than 3,000 people lost their lives last year in distraction-related accidents", said NTSB Chairman Deborah A.P. Hersman in a statement Tuesday. "It is time for all of us to stand up for safety by turning off electronic devices when driving." A press release announcing NTSB's recommendations cited a Virginia Tech Transportation Institute study of commercial drivers that found "a safety-critical event is 163 times more likely if a driver is texting, emailing or accessing the Internet." According to the nonprofit Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) website, nine states, the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands have laws on the books that prohibit all drivers from using handhelds. Thirty states and D.C. ban all cellphone use by "novice" drivers, which typically includes an age limit; 41 states ban novice drivers from texting. No state currently bans both handheld and hands-free use of personal electronic devices, according to the association. A report on distracted driving released by the GHSA found there is no conclusive evidence that drivers' use of hands-free technology is less risky than handheld devices. About one-third of drivers routinely use a cellphone while driving, the report said. One driver was reported to have been distracted in 15 to 30 percent of crashes, although the report said that proportion could in reality be even higher.

Canadian Government's Online Information Access Plan Falls Short

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

If you want to know about the steps the department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada has taken to combat allegedly crooked consultants, you can read summaries on its website of the records it has released through the Access to Information Act. If you want to learn about the steps that Environment Canada has taken " or not taken " to deal with pollution from the oil sands, you won't find similar summaries on the department's website. Environment Canada has a deadline to post them. On that date, federal departments and agencies covered by the Access to Information act must post monthly summaries that detail the documents, databases and email correspondence they've released under the act, according to new Treasury Board guidelines aimed at "open government." Upon reading the summaries, users can ask for the full records by e-mailing or writing the office that keeps the information. Whether Environment Canada and most of the institutions covered by the law meet the Treasury Board's deadline is anyone's guess. To date, only a fraction of the institutions covered by the act have met made the deadline. With each passing day, the list of compliant institutions grows slightly longer, but at this pace, it's hard to see how that deadline will be met. From studying the information posted by the institutions that have complied so far, it's clear there are wild inconsistencies that seem incompatible with the Treasury Board's open government policy. For instance, while the department of National Defence (one of the first institutions to provide public access to summaries years before the official policy came into place) posts summaries dating back to 2006, Correctional Services Canada's summaries only go back to 2009, and Public Safety to November 2011. The inconsistencies don't end there. Some departments neglect to reveal the number of records, if any, that have been disclosed. Why is that important? Because if nothing has been released, then it's pointless to ask for the records identified by the summary in question. However, perhaps the largest problem is the lack of a central search function. That is, a way for users to search several departments at once using a search engine with advanced functions. So, for instance, if you wanted to know about Afghan detainees, it's not enough just to search National Defence's website, you'd have to search Foreign Affairs (which has yet to post summaries ) and the Privy Council Office (it, too, has yet to post its summaries) and Justice Canada (ditto!). Searching each department is time-consuming. Make no mistake, this system is better than not posting summaries at all. However, it could have been so much better. The frustration with the inadequacy of this system deepens because the Treasury Board, the department responsible for administering the act, suggested a more robust service back in June of 2001. According to a 2004 document CBC News obtained through Access to Information, the Treasury Board recognized citizens should have access to summaries in a centralized, searchable database. But just before the system was ready to go public, the Treasury Board pulled the plug, opting to keep it in-house. That database bore an awkward title, the Coordination of Access to Information Requests System, or CAIRS for short, and was initiated by the Chretien Liberal government in 1999. The idea was that if the departments covered by the act back then could upload their requests to a centralized database, they'd be able to share information to make the process run more smoothly. For instance, access-to-information coordinators could determine if their counterparts in other departments were handling similar requests, thus avoiding duplication. Critics saw something more nefarious at hand. They suggested CAIRS was a way for the government to centralize access to information in order to hide documents, not share them. And they may have had a point. But when the system was ready to go, the Treasury Board changed its mind, citing concerns with the Official Languages Act and that some summaries might contain personal information. The argument for it to be made public continued. A special task force recommended just that in 2002, and in July 2004, the Information Commissioner recommended a "a central location to access to information on ATI requests across government" in a draft report to the Treasury Board that CBC News obtained through the Access to Information. As a matter of fact, the public did have access to a central database of these summaries, but it had nothing to do with the government. Alasdair Roberts, an access expert who taught at Queens University in Kingston and is now at Boston's Suffolk University Law School, provided the CAIRS, summaries in a searchable, online database until he no longer had time to maintain it. Rather than see it shut down and be unavailable to the users who included journalists, academics and federal politicians, I agreed to rebuild the database and keep it going. I posted the summaries in a database located on a server provided by Loyalist College near Belleville, Ont. However, in the spring of 2008, the Conservative government, citing cost, among other reasons, killed CAIRS itself, making it virtually impossible to maintain the public database. (I still maintain the CAIRS summaries, up to 2008, on a different server.) There were two complaints to the Information Commissioner's office about the government's decision. As part of her 2010 investigation, Suzanne Legault's office recommended that, at the very least, the government should provide an alternative to CAIRS; namely, summaries from each institution covered by the act (a greater number after the Conservative government passed the Accountability Act) posted online in a central, searchable database. Earlier this month, Treasury Board president Tony Clement promised a more open government. He could start by taking the next step and ensuring that online summaries of access-to-information requests are easily searchable. In the meantime, the clock continues to tick towards that deadline, with little indication that most institutions covered by the act will meet the target. So what happens if they miss it?

SC Law Adds Criminal Record To Driving License

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Organ-donor, contact-wearer ... Rapist?
South Carolina's new "scarlet letter" law might not be quite the boon to nosy customer service employees as some had feared. At least while the code remains intact. That means the curious -- and potentially discriminatory -- checkout clerk, bouncer, waiter, or anyone else who checks customers' driver's license won't be able to tell if the man who is purchasing a six-pack of beer has been convicted of rape or other violent crime. In July a South Carolina law went into effect requiring people with a violent record to bear a special mark on their driver's license or ID card so that police officers know if they're apprehending someone with a history of violence. When asked for a sample copy of the new specially coded cards, a spokeswoman for the S.C. Department of Motor Vehicles pointed to a section of the new law that prohibits the special markings, described in law as a "symbol, number, or letter of the alphabet" from being specified. "We've told law enforcement what it looks like. They know what to look for," said DMV spokeswoman Beth Parks, adding that disseminating copies of the coded symbol could complicate the targeted population's everyday interactions, such as shopping in a grocery store. "You don't want people staring at them," she added. "You have to show your license for a lot of different reasons." Since 2009, supporters of S. 288 had heralded the effort as one that would make South Carolina the first state in the nation to effectively brand people who have pleaded guilty or no contest or been convicted of a violent crime. A flip of a motorist's driver's license would reveal the violent-record mark, alerting police officers to watch their step. As for whether the new law is already protecting law enforcement officers or harming ex-offenders, civil liberties, four months appears to be too short a period to judge. Since July, the DMV has issued 53 of the marked cards. The courts have sent the agency the names of another 1,099 people, who will be required to purchase a coded card for $50. Both former S.C. State Law Enforcement Division head Robert Stewart, who had championed the bill, and Victoria Middleton, director of the American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina, which had opposed it, said Thursday that they had so far not been informed of any immediate effects. Democrats and then-Republican Gov. Mark Sanford had opposed the effort, warning that it would stigmatize ex-offenders who were trying to start over. They also argued that because police officers approach all stopped motorists with great caution, the coded driver's license weren't likely to make police even more wary. The Republican-led Legislature overrode Sanford's veto in June of 2010. The new law applies to convictions or pleas that occurred on or after July 1 of 2011. It also lets individuals apply to have the mark removed under certain conditions.

You Can Turn Off The Red Light

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

In a glowing review of the rising prevalence of high-tech big brother surveillance gadgets in police force use, the Associated Press reports that East Orange, New Jersey plans to cut crime by highlighting suspects with a red-beamed spotlight, before any crime is committed, a "pre-crime" deterrent to be mounted on nearby street lights or other fixtures. According to the report, police officers monitor hundreds of video feeds from across the city and opt to brand would-be criminals with a red glow if they believe they are about to engage in a crime, such as a street corner mugging. "Whereas London has talking cameras, we're about to deploy light projecting cameras, better known as light-based intervention systems." said William Robinson, Police Chief for East Orange. He added, "The message to criminals is, we're observing you, the police are recording you, and the police are responding." As Robinson mentioned, other "pre-crime" measures have been deployed both in the UK and United States, as well as other countries. Talking cameras in the UK bark orders at "anti-social" offenders, while the Homeland Stasi here has partnered with Intellistreets to release "smart" street lights capable of saving energy while monitoring & recording citizens, as well as displaying government-mandated emergency alerts on digital banners. Now "pre-crime" spotlights that bathe surveillance targets in a criminally-branded red color will help complete the circle of preemptive suspicion. Plus, police squad cars also scan the license plates of every single vehicle they pass, checking them against a variety of lists, from terrorist monitor lists, to unpaid parking tickets, warrants and more. Officers can then pull over vehicles that match watch lists, even if the driver has committed no violations to draw attention from the patrol vehicle. Further, cameras tied into police video monitor stations can also be accessed from squad cars; officers can zoom in on nearby locations to determine if a situation is underway, or if a suspect can be identified. The red light is intended to help track a would-be criminal once surveillance is already underway.

NY Governor Proposes Big DNA Collection

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Gov. Andrew Cuomo outlined his proposal to expand New York's DNA database by requiring a DNA submission from all New Yorkers convicted of a felony or penal law misdemeanor. "DNA can be the key to exonerating the innocent, convicting the guilty and protecting all New Yorkers in a fair and cost-effective way," Cuomo said, "Let's put New York on the cutting edge of criminal justice and become the first state in the nation to collect DNA on all crimes." New York's penal law includes a wide range of offences such as violent crimes like homicide and sexual assault to others including fraud, perjury and gambling. Traffic laws are not included in the penal law, so someone convicted of a drunk driving misdemeanor charge would not have to submit DNA under the new proposal."

NJ Makes Plans To Zap 'Em

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Rather quietly last November, representatives from law enforcement agencies in all 21 counties gathered at the State Police Academy in Sea Girt to learn how to use stun guns. The training for county prosecutors in that week after Thanksgiving was an important step in the ongoing process to certify police and corrections officers in the use of electroshock weapons. New Jersey is the last state in the union to permit police to have stun guns, but in doing so also has established one of the toughest set of criteria in the nation as to how such weapons may be used by officers, according to law enforcement officials.

Pepsi Settles Invented Discrimination Claim

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

by Justin Danhoff Over the last few weeks, I have been warning employers that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has invented a new form of discrimination that may place companies at risk of federal lawsuits. Through an informal guidance letter, the EEOC recently suggested that having a high school diploma requirement for certain job openings might be illegal discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Some have expressed skepticism that the guidance won't mean much because it does not carry the weight of law. While technically true, a major American company just learned the hard way that EEOC guidance carries significant power. Last month, the EEOC announced that Pepsi Beverages Company would pay $3.13 million to settle a discrimination complaint. Following similar informal guidance, the EEOC said Pepsi illegally discriminated against black job applicants because it conducted criminal background checks for potential employees. According to the EEOC: The EEOC's investigation revealed that more than 300 African Americans were adversely affected when Pepsi applied a criminal background check policy that disproportionately excluded black applicants from permanent employment "Adversely affected" means they likely didn't get the job because of a prior arrest. So how is this discrimination under the 1964 Civil Rights Act? Well, since a higher percentage of black and Hispanic Americans have criminal records than the population at large, employers who use criminal background checks can be guilty of illegal discrimination, so dictates the EEOC's guidance. While the informal guidance does not carry the full weight of a law or regulation, in this case, it signals how the EEOC would interpret the Civil Rights Act. If they went to court, Pepsi would need to argue that the EEOC's interpretation is wrong. This is not an easy burden. Under Supreme Court precedent (Chevron v. NRDC), courts provide initial deference to agency interpretation of laws and regulations. However, this guidance seems to misconstrue the Civil Rights Act and goes beyond the law's original intent. Pepsi would have had solid legal footing to challenge the EEOC. Besides, is it Pepsi's fault that blacks statistically get arrested at high rates? Pepsi had what was obviously considered at the time to be a common-sense hiring policy meant to foster a safe work environment. They did not actively discriminate against anyone. According to the Associated Press, "the EEOC did not find any intentional discrimination." So when does "did not find any intentional discrimination" turn into illegal discrimination? When the EEOC says so. Instead of looking for actual bias and real discrimination, it seems the EEOC simply bean-counts and declares invented discrimination where it sees fit. Who saw this coming? We here at the National Center did. In August 2010, the National Center issued two press releases deriding the guidance on such background checks as wrongheaded and detrimental to the economy. Then, last July, after the EEOC held hearings on its wayward guidance " suggesting that criminals need jobs or else they will commit more crimes " I commented that: When parsed out, the EEOC's logic is so convoluted it collapses on itself. One the one hand, the EEOC is telling employers, "don't worry, hire criminals, they are contributing members of society" But on the other hand, an EEOC spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal, "if ex-offenders are not given jobs the chances are that they may re-offend." So these folks will commit more crimes if companies don't hire them, but they will be model employees if corporations do employ them? Yeah, that makes sense. The EEOC needs to abandon this misguided guidance and let employers resume hiring based on valid business considerations. America does not have a crisis of too few regulations. It has a crisis of too few jobs. Perhaps, if we got rid of some of the former, we could have more of the latter. It could be argued that Pepsi choose to settle the complaint to avoid a public relations nightmare. But, they didn't. Just take a look at some recent headlines: from ABC News, "Pepsi Beverages Pays $3.1M in Racial Bias Case," from the Wall Street Journal, "Pepsi Bottling Unit Settles Discrimination Charges for $3.1M," from the EEOC announcement, "Pepsi to Pay $3.13 Million and Made (sic) Major Policy Changes to Resolve EEOC Finding of Nationwide Hiring Discrimination Against African Americans." These headlines do not paint Pepsi in a positive light. It would seem the EEOC basically extorted Pepsi, and the soda company was too timid to fight back. Instead of essentially rolling over for the EEOC, Pepsi should have gone to court. The EEOC's informal guidance misconstrues the legal concept of disparate impact and creates a de facto protected class that Congress never intended. The EEOC, as courts have proven, is not an invincible government machine. Just weeks ago, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously struck down an EEOC ruling that misconstrued the First Amendment in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC. In a rare showing of consensus, all nine justices agreed that the EEOC lacked the power to tell religious organizations who they must hire. Since the EEOC is unlikely to revoke either its criminal background check or its high school diploma requirement guidance, it is up to the legal system to reign in this federal freight train. Let's just hope the next company to enter the EEOC's crosshairs for violating one of these guidances has a little more courage of their convictions.

Les Rosen's Corner 'Top Ten Trends in Background Checks' for 2012

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Number 1 Criminal Background Checks of Job Applicants by Employers Coming Under Greater Scrutiny by EEOC
With a recent survey showing nine out of ten employers conduct criminal background checks on some or all job candidates, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) held a public meeting in July 2011 examining the use of arrest and conviction records by employers for criminal background checks to determine if the practice was an unfair and discriminatory hiring barrier to job seeking ex-offenders. The EEOC's actions, coupled with the growing "Ban the Box" movement seeking to remove the criminal history question from job applications, shows that employer use of criminal records is under fire now more than ever. Read more about Trend Number 1 of the Employment Screening Resources Top 10 Trends in Background Checks for 2012. Number 2
Credit Report Background Checks of Job Applicants by Employers Increasingly Regulated by State Laws
In recent years, several U.S. states have passed laws regulating the use of employment credit reports of job applicants and current employees that have impacted the way employers conduct background checks. Seven states : California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Oregon, and Washington , currently have laws that limit the use of credit report checks by employers for employment purposes, with the most recent law, California Assembly Bill 22 (CA AB 22), taking effect January 1, 2012. Other states, and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), are considering further restrictions on credit checks by employers. Read more about Trend Number 2 of the Employment Screening Resources Top 10 Trends in Background Checks for 2012. Number 3
Social Media Background Screening Checks of Job Applicants Becoming More Prevalent and More Controversial
Employers and recruiters have discovered a treasure trove of information about potential job applicants on social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and so-called "social media background checks" are becoming more popular and prevalent than ever. However, the use of social media background checks for job applicants has become controversial and can present legal risks. Failure to utilize social media resources can arguably be the basis of a negligent hiring claim if an unfit person was hired for a position where a search of the internet may have raised a "red flag." Conversely, employers face numerous landmines and pitfalls that can include that include privacy, discrimination, and accuracy issues. Lawsuits and developments in this area will likely be an ongoing topic in 2012. Read more about Trend Number 3 of the Employment Screening Resources Top 10 Trends in Background Checks for 2012. Number 4
Automation in Employment Background Screening Leads to Both Increased Efficiency and Increased Risks
In recent years, employment background screening has gone from a costly and time consuming task reserved for selected job applicants to an increasingly automated and technology driven business necessity in a global economy where employers expect fast, accurate, and inexpensive results from screening providers. However, both employers and background screeners are finding with increased efficiency comes increased risks, especially when it comes to the use of unfiltered information going directly to employers from criminal database or inaccurate information obtained by "screen scrapping or automated robotic searches." Read more about Trend Number 4 of the Employment Screening Resources Top 10 Trends in Background Checks for 2012. Number 5
Background Screening Accreditation Program Proof of Increased Emphasis on Professionalism in Industry
When the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS) was formed in 2003 as a professional trade association for the background screening industry, the idea of an accreditation process was a central driving force in order to demonstrate that background screening was a professional endeavor. Currently, NAPBS accreditation is quickly becoming a requirement of many employers when considering a background screening provider since it is the only practical means of third party verification of the professionalism and competency of a particular screening firm. Read more about Trend Number 5 of the Employment Screening Resources Top 10 Trends in Background Checks for 2012. Number 6
Diploma Mills Offering Fake Degrees and False Credentials Likely to Increase in Tight Job Market
A 2011 report from Europe's leading background screening firm revealed an astounding 48 percent increase worldwide in the number of known fake diploma mills in the previous year, and the number of what the report describes as "largely online entities whose degrees are worthless due to the lack of valid accreditation and recognition" is likely to increase in the coming year as desperate job applicants knowingly " and unknowingly " do business with companies that offer fake degrees and false credentials for a price. Read more about Trend Number 6 of the Employment Screening Resources Top 10 Trends in Background Checks for 2012. Number 7
Employment Screening Lawsuits Increase as Attorneys and Consumers Become Familiar with FCRA Laws Regulating Background Checks
Consumers and attorneys are looking more closely at background check reports and laws governing employment screening and filing more lawsuits against employers. On one hand, employers are being sued by victims that alleged the employer failed to perform adequate screening. On the other, employers and background screening firms also face lawsuits from job applicants complaining about the accuracy of background reports, or failure to meet the guidelines of the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). In a number of cases, class action suits are being utilized as the vehicle to bring legal actions against employers. Read more about Trend Number 7 of the Employment Screening Resources Top 10 Trends in Background Checks for 2012. Number 8
New E-Verify Laws Create Complex Web of Federal and State Rules for Employers
While federal law mandates that federal contractors and subcontractors in all states must use the otherwise voluntary electronic employment eligibility verification system known as E-Verify, several U.S. states " including Alabama, Arizona, California, Georgia, and North Carolina " recently enacted laws mandating the use (or non-use) of E-verify, a free web-based system that allows employers to verify the legal work authorization status of newly hired employees, creating a complex and confusing web of laws and regulations. Read more about Trend Number 8 of the Employment Screening Resources Top 10 Trends in Background Checks for 2012. Number 9
Offshoring Personally Identifiable Information Outside of US Increases Concern Over Privacy and Identity Theft
A new California law due to take effect January 1, 2012 " Senate Bill 909 (SB 909) " appears to be one of the first in the nation that addresses the growing concerns over the controversial practice of "offshoring" personally identifiable information (PII) collected during background checks of job applicants by sending the data outside of United States and its territories and beyond the protection of U.S. privacy and identity theft laws. Read more about Trend Number 9 of the Employment Screening Resources Top 10 Trends in Background Checks for 2012. Number 10
Self Background Checks Proactively Conducted by Job Seekers to Help Verify Accuracy of their Public Information
If jobseekers want to get hired for a job these days, they will probably have to undergo a background check. And if they have to undergo a background check, it would be in their best interest to make sure the information found on the background check is accurate, up-to-date, and complete. As a result, some jobseekers are taking matters in their own hands by proactively conducting "self" background checks on themselves to verify the accuracy of their public information.

Self Background Checks Proactively Conducted by Job Seekers to Help Verify Accuracy of their Public

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

by Lester Rosen If jobseekers want to get hired for a job these days, they will probably have to undergo a background check. And if they have to undergo a background check, it would be in their best interest to make sure the information found on the background check is accurate, up-to-date, and complete. As a result, some jobseekers are taking matters in their own hands by proactively conducting "self" background checks on themselves to verify the accuracy of their public information. This is Trend #10 on the list of the fifth annual Employment Screening Resources (ESR) "Top 10 Trends in Background Checks" for 2012. Background checks have become commonplace in today's security conscious world. A 2010 survey from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) revealed that approximately three out of four businesses conduct background checks on job applicants. More specifically, 76 percent of organizations conducted reference background checks for all job candidates and 73 percent of organizations conducted criminal background checks for all job candidates by reviewing consumer reports of candidates. The SHRM survey also found that 60 percent of employers credit background checks on either some or all candidates while 40 percent did not conduct any credit background checks at all. Because of this focus on employment background checks , especially for positions with financial responsibility and access to confidential information , job applicants are finding ways to check on their own personal information before their prospective employers do to verify its accuracy. One way to verify public information found during employment screening is through a "self" background check. By conducting self background checks, job seekers may discover that they have fallen victim to some of the following situations that have popped up during real background checks, situations that could hinder their attempts to find employment: -A job seeker is the victim of identity theft. -Someone with the same name as a job seeker has committed a crime. -Some minor or old criminal matter that the job seeker thought was judicially set aside or was too old to matter still pops up. -Some past employer or school does not have the job seeker's record under the proper name so that a background check may be inaccurate. -A school may have a job seeker under a different name, or may not have given the job seeker the degree due to not paying a final bill and the school did not officially give the degree. -A driving record check may reveal an old ticker that the job seeker thought was taken care of but went to a warrant for failure to appear. With self background checks, job seekers can verify their employment, education, credentials, licensing and clean criminal record. Self background checks allow job seekers to conduct searches similar to those conducted by professional and accredited background check companies, including: -Education Verifications
-Employment Verifications
-Professional License/Credentials Verification
-County Criminal Court Search
-Department of Motor Vehicle (DMV) Search
-National Multi-jurisdictional Database Criminal Search
-State Sex Offender Registry Search
-County Civil Court Search
-Federal Civil Court Search
-Federal Criminal Search
-Statewide Criminal Search (where available)
-Terrorist List Search If job seekers doubt the need for learning what might show up on a background check, a story from the Associated Press ,AP IMPACT: When your criminal past isn't yours, serves as an example of how an inaccurate backgorund checks can harm a job seeker. In the story, a clerical error led to a case of mistaken identity and landed an unemployed job seeker who had a clean criminal record on the streets when a background check for a job turned up a criminal record belonging to another woman. The AP story, an example of how some background checks may contain inaccurate and incomplete information, is available at: http://news.yahoo.com/ap-impact-criminal-past-isnt-yours-182335856.html. However, job seekers will be glad to know that background checks are heavily regulated by the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) as well as many state laws. Job applicants know ahead of time a report is being run and must consent. In addition, employers have an absolute legal obligation to notify an applicant about the results of a report before taking adverse action and informing them of their rights. Once an applicant realizes that erroneous information may show-up, an applicant can certainly advise an employer ahead of time there may be a mistake in the public reports. In fact, background checks are often the first time an applicant finds out they are the victim of identity theft, or that old or inaccurate records are showing up under their name. Furthermore, an applicant has an absolute right to have any mistake re-investigated by a background screening firm, and if a background screening firm fails to do so within strict time periods, they face large potential liability. For resources for job applicants concerned about background checks, visit: http://www.esrcheck.com/Applicant-Resources.php. In addition, job seekers should be warned that a "real" self background check does not consist solely of a cheap and instant online database search. A 2011 white paper examined the accuracy of background check mobile phone apps and instant background check web sites and found users of these fast, cheap, and easy to use services may not be provided with entirely accurate information. According to the report "Background Check Mobile Phone Apps and Instant Background Check Web Sites: Fast and Easy, But Are They Accurate?," apps and web sites that allow users to perform instant background checks by searching publicly available records and checking social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn find information that is "viewed as a lead source for further review" by professional investigators or researchers but in the hands of the average person "can lead to hasty and dangerous conclusions." These dangers include: -Reporting inaccurate information since these services typically return raw data not fully verified or confirmed with the original record source and can include results that lead to "false positives" , where an innocent person is found to have a record , and "false negatives" , where a person with a record comes back clean. -Returning information for the wrong person with the same name , an issue often referred to as "common names" , since these services do not generally require identifiers such as dates of birth, they can return results that match the name entered but do not match that exact person. -Creating a false sense of security when a "clear" background check result is naively interpreted as a promise that the person being searched has no criminal record. -Privacy issues for the person being checked since the average person is not knowledgeable about the proper usage of public records and there are no privacy controls in place for the individual being searched. -Reputational injuries to the individual being searched if the information is not correct.
Misuse of information for employment or tenant purposes since even though some of these services say that the data should not be used for employment or tenant screening or any FCRA purpose, these warnings are often buried in fine print and there are even web sites that do not mention the FCRA. The white paper also notes that unsuspecting users of less-than-reputable background check apps or Web sites may not understand that it is just not that easy to get a complete picture of an individual's background, particularly their criminal history. The white paper ,Background Check Mobile Phone Apps and Instant Background Check Web Sites: Fast and Easy, But Are They Accurate?, is available at http://www.esrcheck.com/Download/. Besides "self" background checks, another way job seekers and consumers may verify their information is to view their credit reports, something they can do for free thanks to the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction (FACT) Act of 2003. The FACT Act amended the FCRA, the U.S. federal law that regulates the collection, dissemination, and use of consumer information, including consumer credit information. The FACT Act provides the ability for consumers to obtain a free copy of their consumer file from certain consumer reporting agencies once during a 12 month period. Job seekers can visit AnnualCreditReport.com (https://www.annualcreditreport.com/) and request a free credit file disclosure , commonly called a "credit report" , once every 12 months from each of the nationwide consumer credit reporting companies: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Free credit reports requested online are viewable immediately upon authentication of identity while credit reports requested by phone or mail are processed within 15 days of receiving the request. There are literally millions of resumes on the Internet and they all have one thing in common , they all depend upon what people say about themselves. Yet employers know that up to 30% of resumes contain serious misrepresentations or omissions and some 70% of applications have no real relevance to the job. When job applicants run a "real" self background checks that means they have submitted their qualifications and information to a professional background screening firm for confirmation. As a result, employers know what they are getting job candidates that are for real, who value their credentials and references, and verified to be safe, honest, and qualified job applicants.

Con Artist Starred in Sting That Cost Google Millions

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

New information has come to light about a 2009 sting operation that focused on the aid Google provided for illegal online prescription drug sales. The sting began after federal prosecutors set up a task force to look into allegations by David Whitaker that he was able to start an online pharmacy and sell steroids and human growth hormone (HGH) to consumers in the U.S. via Google ads. Whitaker posed as an agent for advertisers and worked with federal agents to try to set up a Web site that was designed to look as if it had been set up by a Mexican drug lord to sell HGH and steroids. Although Google initially rejected that site as well as another one that was designed to sell drugs over the Internet, the company's ad executives allegedly helped Whitaker bypass Google's rules so that the sites could be set up. Federal agents also created several other sites, including one that was based outside the U.S. and sold the abortion pill RU-486, which can in the U.S. can only be administered to patients in doctor's offices. Google approved the creation of that site and made it so that consumers in the U.S. who searched for RU-486 would see an ad for the site. Google also allowed the ad for the site to say that the drug was available without a prescription. Agents later added links to the site that allowed consumers to purchase the drugs directly, which violated U.S. laws that forbid the sale of drugs from outside the country and without a prescription. Records in the case indicate that Google executives may have known about the legal problems with the ads. Google eventually settled the case for $500 million and said that it had improperly and knowingly helped online pharmacy advertisers run ads for illegal pharmaceutical sales.

BRB - The Public Record Update

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

California Birth and Death Certificates Effective January 1, 2012, the fee for a certified copy of a birth, death, or fetal death certificate increases by $2.00 per record. This increase will take place at the California Department of Heath (CADH) and also at the county level. The fees at various county clerk and recorder's offices vary and do not necessarily have the same fee structure as the CADH. The fee increase is part of Assembly Bill 1053 signed by the governor. The legislation also provides for two additional $2.00 increases to take place January 1, 2013 and January 1, 2014. View AB-1053 at www.leginfo.ca.gov/bilinfo.html. Motor Vehicle Record News

Arkansas As of December, 2011. Arkansas Drivers may now request, view and print their own record online at https://www.ark.org/personal_tvr/index.php. The name, DOB, DL, the DL issue date, and last five digits of the SSN are required along with a major credit card. The fee is $8.50 for an insurance record or $11.50 for a commercial record.
Another new development in Arkansas is the CDL Medical Certificate data will now displayed on commercial records. For more information about this certificate, visit www.dfa.arkansas.gov/offices/driverServices/Pages/medCert.aspx Oregon The Oregon Department of Administrative Services (DAS) recently signed a contract with NIC to provide E-Government services on behalf of Oregon state agencies. DAS has an agreement with DMV for the exclusive rights to have NIC provide access to electronic driving records through the new state web portal once developed. This new service only involves electronic driving records. Vehicle records are not part of the arrangement, nor are any other DMV records offered via electronic or hardcopy. The changeover to the NIC processing will mean an signficant increase in the cost of obtaining OR driving records. No timetable or fee change annoucement has been made at this time. At present, the Oregon fee of $2.00 per electronic driving record is well below the national average of $8.39. The new fee is expected to be close to the national average. Wyoming The fee for an electronic driving record in Wyoming will increase from $3.00 to $5.00 effective January 1, 2012. The fee for a manually processed record remains the same at $5.00.

Employees Don't Do Most Of The Killing

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Report: Most Workplace Homicides Happen During Robberies A new report from the National Council on Compensation has found that the number of workplace homicides and assaults that result in injuries have dropped since the 1990s. Just 11 percent of all workplace deaths are the result of homicides, the report found. Meanwhile, the rate of homicides that result from robberies and other crimes has fallen since the late 1990s, due in large part to the decline in the number of violent deaths of cab drivers. The report noted that the murder rate for taxi drivers and chauffeurs dropped from 16.4 per 100,000 private sector workers in 2003 to 6.8 per 100,000 in 2009. However, homicides that are the result of robberies and other crimes still represent 69 percent of all deaths in the workplace. In addition, the number of workplace murders committed by work associates--which includes customers--has increased, due in large part to the growing number of violent acts committed by customers. As for workplace assaults, they represent just 2 percent of all workplace injuries. Workplace assaults typically take place at healthcare facilities like residential and long-term care facilities, the report noted.

South Dakota Raising Court Search Fee

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

The second time was the charm for a controversial increase in South Dakota court record fees. After lengthy and occasionally testy debate, the South Dakota House of Representatives approved HB 1058, which would increase the fee for a court record search to $25 from $15. The $15 fee was set in 1997. Increasing the fee was projected to raise more than $1 million for the judicial system, which in large part would be used for technological advances. Supporters said the increase was necessary to offset last year's cuts, pay for the technology upgrade and keep rural clerk of court offices open. "If we do not pass this now, they will fall further back in some of their technological advances," said Rep. Dean Wink, R-Howes. Opponents said it was a backdoor tax increase and unrelated to an actual increase in costs for the state's courts. "Our fees should directly relate to the actual increase in costs for delivering service," said Rep. Stace Nelson, R-Fulton. The bill at first fell just short of the two-thirds threshold required to pass a permanent fee increase with a 45-21 margin. When reconsidered, several lawmakers changed their votes to push HB 1058 over the top. The final margin was 48-19, one more than necessary. The bill now heads to the South Dakota Senate.

Online Dating Background Checks To Be Regulated

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Legislation has been introduced in the Illinois State Senate and Illinois House that would require dating sites to disclose whether or not they conduct background checks on users. Sites would have to tell Illinois customers if criminal background checks are done before users can sign up for the service. They would also have to post safety tips and encourage users not to list their home addresses.

Chicago Has Most Gang Members In Nation

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Chicago has the largest gang population in the country according to a new report that finds between 68,000 and 150,000 gang members are living in the city.

Watch Out Kids - Here Come The Background Checks

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

by Steven Brownstein SecureWatch, an ADT dealer, takes steps to make sure job applicants don't have criminal backgrounds. The company was shocked when a brand-new door-to-door sales rep it had hired, who Securewatch had checked out clean, was charged with raping and attempting to murder a potential customer. SecureWatch declined to name the company they hire to do background checks but said it is used by the industry's top security companies and is "supposedly the cream of the crop."

The company reported Hales had no criminal background. "There was nothing. The guy was as clean as a whistle," Securewatch said. "Then it turned out because of the level of access we had in our commercial background search, we didn't see until I read in the paper that he had some juvenile offenses." The sales rep previously was charged with misdemeanor offenses'battery when he was 14 and trespassing when he was 15. So the underlying question is, was the rep charged as an adult, and if not, are we now we insisting juvenile records get reported?

Are Background Check Hit Ratios Reliable?

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

by Steven Brownstein Where in the world do criminal record hit ratios come from in the background screening business and how reliable are they? You might be interested to know that if your company does 100 searches ( a hypothetical number used for this report) and you do work in two counties, find 8 records in one county and 2 records in the other your hit ratio might not be 10%. It is more like 8%. But I could see why you want it as 10%. Suppose you did 98 searches in the one county and found 8 records. In the other county you did 2 searches and found both had records. That' a no brainer. I could advertise the hit ratio in my ad: "Some Counties Report Back 100% Hit Ratio!" And without proper use of statistics or at least basic arithmetic skills fudging might be the only way to sell a product such as criminal records for background screening. That means that decisions are made without careful consideration of the facts. And it is really scary if the guy sitting next you scratches his head and goes"Huh?" Can you believe you've got to compete against that? Why complicate things with other factors such as volume? Math is a necessary skill, maybe not thought of highly anymore because why learn when all you have to do is press a button on the keyboard? But at least learn which software to use. (Maybe?) The more skills you have the more likely you will succeed. It used to be like that once upon a time. Of course that was before success was measured by how well and quickly you can use your thumbs for texting.

Innovative Enterprises Introduces Verifie™

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Unique Product Provides Employers and Property Managers with Instant Access to Applicants' Employment and Income Information from Official State Records NEWPORT NEWS, VA - January 31, 2012 - Innovative Enterprises, Inc., a strategic partner to the background screening industry and expert provider of court research information products, smart data solutions and ancillary services, today introduced the official release of VerifIE™, an employment and income verification solution designed to instantly determine applicants' past and present employers, including salary information, in a secure, electronic transaction from official state records. The first of a rapidly growing list of available states is now available through VerifIE™. VerifIE™ greatly reduces the time it takes employers and property managers to screen prospective employees and tenants by eliminating the inefficient patchwork of chasing down information, faxing release forms, returning missed calls and dealing with incomplete responses and uncooperative former employers. VerifIE™ easily overcomes many of the most common forms of resume fraud including failure to disclose former employers and overstatement of salary by going directly to official state records instead of relying on applicants to self-disclose their employment and salary histories. "VerifIE™ is the employment and income verification tool of the 21st century," stated William J. Bollinger, Innovative's Executive Vice President. "It's instant. It's accurate. It integrates seamlessly into the existing applicant signed release processes. It's a win for employers and property managers who will find the right people faster. It's also a win for applicants seeking jobs or apartments who will find these decisions being made much more quickly using VerifIE™." VerifIE™ is not sold directly to employers and property managers but is instead available through Innovative's carefully-selected network of Screening Industry Partners™. About Innovative Enterprises, Inc. Innovative serves as a strategic partner to the background screening industry as an expert provider of court research information products, smart data solutions and ancillary services. Innovative commands an intimate knowledge of its core competencies gleaned from more than two centuries of cumulative staff experience in public records research and aggregation, law enforcement, judicial administration and private investigation. An industry leader since 1996, Innovative is a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners and has helped to raise the bar through its active participation in the formulation of a number of best practice guidelines for industry providers across various segments. Innovative was honored in 2008 and again in 2009 as one of the Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Privately Held Companies in America. For more information, please call 1-888-777-9435, email solutions@knowthefacts.com, or visit us online at http://www.knowthefacts.com.

The (High) Cost Of Manufacturing in America

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0600

"The United States is one of the most expensive places on earth to manufacture products. Here's why. U.S. manufacturers were hammered in the recent ""Great Recession."" While the economy as a whole contracted 5.1% between December 2007 and June 2009, the manufacturing economy fell by more than 20%. And although its sharp rebound during the initial phase of the recovery provided enough steam to keep a struggling U.S. recovery from backsliding, the factory sector -- affected by the myriad challenges that have arisen in 2011 -- will, by the end of this year, likely have clawed only halfway back to its prerecession peak. The good news is that a growing number of policymakers recognize the significant role the sector plays and have started talking about ways to reinvigorate manufacturing on these shores. But political talk is cheap, and worse, it can serve as a mere smokescreen. While American politicians point to all sorts of challenges facing manufacturing today, they rarely focus on the factors they can most readily influence. The factors they, in fact, have in many ways been responsible for creating. The factors that make the United States one of the most expensive places on earth to make a product. What was found is that structural costs -- corporate tax rates, employee benefits, tort litigation, regulatory compliance and energy -- are continuing to slowly eat away at the ability of U.S. manufacturers to compete effectively in the global marketplace. While manufacturers face a host of challenges, the data demonstrate that domestically imposed costs -- by commission or omission of government -- further undermine our ability to compete by adding at least 20% to the cost of making stuff in this country. U.S. policymakers may pay lip service about the need to build a better business climate for manufacturers, but they've allowed these underlying cost pressures to undercut U.S. manufacturing competitiveness. What's especially frustrating in Leonard's findings is that if it weren't for these structural nonproduction costs, American manufacturers would enjoy a cost advantage over virtually all of their industrial competitors -- and would have costs on par with such middle-income trading partners as South Korea. The single most significant drag on manufacturing competitiveness is the United States' high corporate tax rate -- an average federal-state statutory rate of 40% that has not changed in decades. By ""standing in place"" while other countries reduce their own tax rates, the United States continues falling behind. On a trade-weighted basis, the U.S. rate is 8.6 percentage points higher than its nine largest trading partners, a substantial deterioration from the 7.8 percentage-point differential in 2008 and the 5.6 percentage-point differential in 2003. This represents the single most important piece of the total structural cost burden on U.S. manufacturers. Only Japanese manufacturers endure a higher corporate rate, while those producing goods in Taiwan, South Korea and China enjoy significantly lower rates than U.S. manufacturers. The next largest cost burden on U.S. manufacturers comes in the form of employee benefits -- health care costs and pensions, primarily. While fiscal pressures overseas on publicly funded health systems have over the past decade narrowed the gap between the social insurance costs borne by U.S. and overseas manufacturers, Leonard's most recent analysis shows that gap increasing again. Employee-benefit costs in the United States today are 5.7 percentage points higher than those of the nine largest trading partners, compared with 3.6 percentage points in 2008, a reflection of price increases for health care services and insurance premiums well in excess of overall inflation. As a percent of manufacturing compensation, health care costs have risen from 7.2% in 2001 to 9.2% in 2007 to 9.7% this year. All this even before the Affordable Care Act, which promises to increase prices for companies even more, takes full effect. In addition, the cost disadvantage with our major trading partners in tort costs is 1.6 percentage points, and in pollution-abatement costs is 1.8 percentage points. Only in the area of energy costs did MAPI and NAM find a cost advantage for U.S. manufacturers, of just under one percentage point. "

Getting Customers to Pay -- Around the World

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0600

"I was in the back of my Mitsubishi truck, in Dubai, when it hit me: We might never get paid for this job. Here's what I should have done differently. It was 1 AM. I was sitting in the bed of a Mitsubishi delivery truck with a load of bicycle racks, hurrying to the last location to meet the installation deadline for the 09/09/09 opening of the Dubai Metro. At one point, Id been pretty excited about this project it represented the second-largest order our company had ever received. And thats when it hit me. We may never get paid for this job. And there was nothing we could do about it. Our team had been in Dubai for a few weeks, getting ready to perform installations all over the city. Through the grapevine, I had started to hear that even the large multinational vendors on the project were not getting paid, to say nothing of tiny companies like ours. In the U.S., customers that refuse to pay get taken to court, have liens filed against them, or even have collections agencies sent after them. In Dubai, business is done much differently, and we hadnt made any preparations to enforce payment. In retrospect, it was easy to see where we had gone wrong. Mostly, we had failed to consult with our local government officials. After my aha moment in the back of the Mitsubishi, I belatedly contacted our state Trade Office. They immediately put us in contact with the U.S. Commercial Services office in Dubai. They made space for me in their schedule on extremely short notice, and we met shortly thereafter. It didnt take a genius to see that we would have been in a much better position if we had contacted them before embarking on this project. Then we would have known to: 1) Enlist the U.S. Commercial Services to find a partner that was already vetted 2) Discuss the structure of the final contract with Commercial Services before we even submitted our bid 3) Get in touch with the Export-Import Bank of the U.S. They could have given us some guidelines for the terms of our bid, which would have clarified things for everyone. One of the problems, in retrospect, was that our customer was actually a subcontractor, and our contract required them to pay us even if they never got paid by their customer. If wed known that the contract should be written differently, we might have been able to give the subcontractor a little leeway and still get paid ourselves. 4) Buy Export Credit Insurance through the Export-Import Bank. We tried to do this after the fact, but it wasnt possible. The Ex-Im Bank needed the historical and current financials of our customer before it could provide us with insurance, but those are not easily released in Dubai. In the end, we werent able to get them. For all of the griping about government, our experience with our state Trade Office, U.S. Commercial Services and the Export-Import Bank of the U.S. could not have been better. They gave our small company prompt, professional and complete attention and helped us be much better prepared for future endeavors. The experience in Dubai ultimately turned out to be expensive, but very educational. We spent a lot of time and money delivering and installing a small percentage of the racks before we figured out that it wasnt going to be worth our while. And although we never got paid, it still could have been much worse. Next time, Ill know who to call. Before I get on the plane."

Reducing the Impact of Language Barriers

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Forbes Insights surveyed senior executives at leading U.S. companies to learn how language abilities impact individual and organizational success. The results indicate that corporate leaders see multilingual employees and language training programs as critical ingredients to success in the global economy. Download "Reducing the Impact of Language Barriers" and learn more about the trends and requirements shaping the future of talent management strategy, including: How language impacts employee efficiency, collaboration and productivity Why the need for multilingual executives is accelerating What experience will be required for future company leaders How language proficiency impacts workplace safety To download 9-page study follow this link:
http://images.forbes.com/forbesinsights/StudyPDFs/Rosetta_Stone_Report.pdf

Les Rosen's Corner California Bill AB 1450 would Prohibit Discrimination against Unemployed Jobseeke

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0600

In an effort to help stop discrimination against unemployed Californians looking for work who may be passed over by employers or employment agencies only interested in hiring applicants who already have a job, newly proposed legislation in the state - California Assembly Bill No. 1450 (AB 1450) - would fine California employers and employment agencies that refuse to consider jobless applicants for job openings. The full text of California AB 1450 is available at: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/asm/ab_1401-1450/ab_1450_bill_20120105_introduced.pdf. Introduced by Assemblyman Michael Allen (D-Santa Rosa/San Rafael), California AB 1450 would add Chapter 2.5 (commencing with Section 1812.50953) to Title 2.91 of Part 4 of Division 3 of the Civil Code and Chapter 3.95 (commencing with Section 1046) to Part 3 of Division 2 of the Labor Code, relating to employment. The bill would add protections for unemployed jobseekers to existing law that contains provisions defining unlawful discrimination and employment practices by employers and employment agencies. California AB 1450 would make it unlawful, unless based on a bona fide occupational qualification or any other provision of law, for: -An employer to knowingly or intentionally refuse to consider for employment or refuse to offer employment to an individual because of the individual's status as unemployed, publish an advertisement or announcement for any job that includes provisions pertaining to an individual's status as unemployed, as specified, or direct or request that an employment agency take an individual's status as unemployed into account in screening or referring applicants for employment. -An employment agency to knowingly or intentionally refuse to consider or refer an individual for employment because of the individual's status as unemployed, limit, segregate, or classify individuals in any manner that may limit their access to information about jobs or referral for consideration of jobs because of their status as unemployed, or publish an advertisement or announcement, as described above with respect to employers. If passed, California AB 1450 would also subject an employer or employment agency who violates the new provisions to civil penalties that increase as the number of violations increase: -An amount not to exceed one thousand dollars ($1,000) for the first violation.
-An amount not to exceed five thousand dollars ($5,000) for the second violation.
-An amount not to exceed ten thousand dollars ($10,000) for each subsequent violation. Discrimination against unemployed jobseekers has become more apparent during the recent economic downturn when record numbers of Americans found themselves unemployed. A July 2011 Briefing Paper from the National Employment Law Project (NELP) - "Hiring Discrimination Against the Unemployed: Federal Bill Outlaws Excluding the Unemployed from Job Opportunities, as Discriminatory Ads Persist" - found that hiring discrimination against the unemployed occurs when employers and staffing firms post job listings excluding unemployed jobseekers and expressly deny job opportunities to those workers hardest hit by the economic downturn. An informal survey by NELP of a number of job posting websites found numerous job ads stating that jobseekers 'must be currently employed.' The study claimed the "perverse catch-22" of job seekers not being able to get a job unless they already have a job "is deepening our unemployment crisis by arbitrarily foreclosing job opportunities to many who are otherwise qualified for them." The briefing paper from NELP, an advocacy group for the unemployed and low-wage workers, may be found at: http://www.nelp.org/page/-/UI/2011/unemployed.discrimination.7.12.2011.pdf?nocdn=1. In addition, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) held a public meeting in February 2011 to examine the treatment of unemployed job seekers. The EEOC - the federal agency that enforces the nation's laws prohibiting employment discrimination - examined the practice by employers of considering only those currently employed for job vacancies and excluding currently unemployed persons from job applicant pools, including in job announcements, and also to hear from invited panelists on the potential impact on job seekers. More information about the meeting is at: http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/meetings/2-16-11/index.cfm.

Forcing Teen To Drop Virtual Objects In Online Game Was Real-World Theft

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0600

The Dutch Supreme Court has ruled that forcing a 13-year-old boy to relinquish a virtual mask and amulet in an online game amounted to real-world theft. The Netherlands' highest court confirmed Tuesday that a boy who threatened the 13-year-old with a knife to make him drop the objects in the online fantasy game RuneScape was guilty of theft and ordered him to perform 144 hours of community service. The court did not release the suspect's name, only his year of birth , 1992. It said he and another youth beat and kicked the boy and threatened him with a knife until he logged into RuneScape and dropped the objects in 2007. The court ruled the 13-year-old owned the virtual objects because of the time and energy he invested in winning them.

Dennis Brownstein's Extreme Court News

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0600

It's Not Polite To Bite Officials say a murder suspect was removed from a Benton County courthouse after she reportedly bit a deputy. The Benton County Daily Record reports that Huong Thi Truong was in court so a judge could schedule a hearing to consider results from her mental evaluation. She's charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of a man at her front door. Jail Capt. Chris Sparks says Truong started screaming while she was in a holding cell after her hearing and that she reportedly bit a deputy on the finger as she was being removed from the cell. Sparks says Truong was physically carried out of the courthouse. Prosecutors say she could face additional charges because of the incident. An attorney for Truong couldn't be reached. Picky, Picky, Picky An appellate court has reversed a man's burglary of a dwelling conviction because the bicycle he allegedly tried to take was actually parked on a mulch bed. A three-judge panel of the First District Court of Appeal ruled unanimously on Monday. Florida's definition of dwelling includes attached porches. The bike was on mulch covered by an overhang outside the front door of a townhouse. Prosecutors argued the mulch bed should be considered an attached porch. The court disagreed. It said the area was "open to the general public" and not part of the victim's house. The decision noted that the townhouse's mailbox was right next to where the bike was parked. The case is Colbert v. State of Florida, No. 1D11-117. How Low Can You Get? A Fargo man is accused of stealing the identity of his 10-year-old son to pass bad checks and impersonating a Hooters restaurant manager to avoid the bill for a weeklong hotel stay in Bismarck. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of using his son's Social Security number to open an account on which he allegedly passed $65,000 in bad checks.

This Juvenile Record Is Reportable

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0600

An appeals court in California has decided juveniles convicted of sex crimes in federal court can be required to register as sex offenders for 25 years. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that a registration law passed by Congress in 2006 that removed sex offenders who are 14 and older from juvenile law confidentiality protections does not violate their constitutional rights. The ruling upheld registration requirements for three Montana youths who committed forcible sex crimes between ages 14 and 17 on American Indian reservations. The federal government has jurisdiction over sex crimes on reservations. After release from custody, the sex offenders must report their whereabouts to state and local or tribal authorities every three months for 25 years.

NY To Seal More Records

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Paying your debt to society may be getting a little easier in New York State, or at least less burdensome, depending on your point of view. The New York State Bar Association is supporting a proposal to change the law that would allow judges to seal the criminal records of some people convicted of misdemeanors and low-level felonies, in an effort to help them recover from missteps. The proposal was approved by the association's House of Delegates, and would allow some nonviolent felony convictions to be removed from a person's public record.

Texas: What Is A Court Of Inquiry And When Is It Used?

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0600

When Texas district judges have probable cause to believe state laws have been broken, they may ask the districtss presiding administrative judge to appoint another district judge to commence a court of inquiry, which reviews the evidence and could issue an opinion reaffirming or disapproving an earlier opinion. The court of inquiry, which was established in 1876, can be called to review a past case or any other criminal matter brought to the district judge. Courts of inquiry are unique to Texas, although the U.S. military uses a legal proceeding by the same name to investigate its internal affairs. Although the law would allow a district judge to request an inquiry in any instance where state laws may have been broken, Texas judges have in recent years used this obscure and once seldom-used provision to investigate possible wrongful convictions. Courts of inquiry have also been used to investigate a prostitution ring and reports of bribery in a county probate court. So why request a court of inquiry instead of going to the police or taking a more typical route through the legal system? The reasons vary from case to case, but individuals could seek courts of inquiry because they believe there is corruption or potential conflicts of interest in the legal or law enforcement institutions they would otherwise turn to. Courts of inquiry can also review evidence that would not be admitted to other courts, such as hearsay.

Washington State News Says Stop Shielding Juvenile Records posted by The Daily News Online

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0600

The state of Washington has, we think, a reasonable mechanism for dealing with court records relating to crimes committed by juveniles, which remain open to the public unless specifically sealed by a court order. Courts also have the frequently exercised option of deferring disposition of juvenile cases for one year after a defendant is found guilty, after which the conviction can be vacated. Persons with vacated convictions on their records can then petition the court to have the records sealed. Some state legislators, however, apparently feel that almost all crimes committed by all juveniles ought to be placed permanently behind a legal curtain and have introduced a measure mandating that the vast majority of juvenile records be withheld from public view. The only exceptions would be in case of "serious and violent crimes" such as a first-degree murder. According to the Associated Press, there were only nine such cases in Washington during 2011. While we sympathize with young men and women who'd like the opportunity to "start fresh" without a traceable criminal record on their resumes, we also sympathize with potential employers and college admissions officers attempting to run background checks on applicants. Supporters of the sealed records bills take an opposite tack, saying that employers and colleges often "discriminate" against applicants with criminal records. To our way of thinking, rejecting an applicant because he or she may have a history of assault, drug use or property crimes often qualifies as an advisable hiring or admissions practice rather than discrimination. A decision that an applicant shouldn't be penalized for a youthful "mistake" ought to be an informed decision. Sealing the large majority of juvenile records also severs a link between the courts and members of the public who have a right to know exactly how these cases are being handled. The bills "SB 6292 and HB 2542" have considerable support among attorneys who specialize in juvenile cases. While passage would certainly benefit their clients, we fail to see a benefit to the public at large. That being said, we urge our elected representatives in Olympia to reject both proposals and leave things as they are.

Aussies Do The Darndest Things

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Australian police and prison officials are investigating claims two inmates are secretly breaking out of prison, committing crimes - and then breaking back in undetected. The inquiry was launched after two armed men wearing prison greens stormed a Domino's pizza outlet forcing staff to the ground before raiding the cash register and fleeing with a small amount of money. A white Toyota HiLux 4WD matching the description of their escape vehicle was found abandoned hours later near a minimum security centre for men aged between 18 and 25 years. The vehicle had been stolen, fuelling fears the inmates had broken out of - and back into - jail a number of times. A corrections department spokesman confirmed an investigation was under way but didn't comment on the bizarre events. A police statement said investigations were under way into a robbery at Kelso and an "alleged incident" at Oberon jail. Parliament Member Paul Toole said it wasn't clear how many alleged break-outs had taken place at the centre. "Any break-out is a serious matter and it is certainly being thoroughly investigated. Whether it was a joy ride, a dare, we don't know."

California Says That They Only Have An 8% Margin Of Error

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Computer errors resulted in some 450 inmates with "a high risk for violence" being wrongly released from California prisons. On top of the 450, more than 1000 prisoners, deemed to be at high risk of committing drug and property crimes, were also released into the community. All the offenders were placed on "non-revocable parole" - a program that does not require them to report to parole officers. The program, which started in January 2010, was intended for inmates considered to be at low risk of reoffending. Reviewing 200 case files of the 10,134 former inmates on non-revocable parole, investigators uncovered that 31 were not eligible for the program, while nine of the 31 were deemed likely to commit a violent crime. It was estimated, using a 15 per cent error rate found in the sample, that more than 450 violent prisoners were let go in the program's first seven months. However, the findings were disputed by prison officials who said that some of the computer glitches had since been corrected, making the margin of error eight percent, according to a report by the inspector general. None of the wrongly-released offenders have since been placed on supervised parole or returned to jail, inspector general spokeswoman Renee Hansen said. Authorities declined to name the concerned prisoners and would not say what crimes they had committed.

Prison Population Getting Older

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Australia's prisons are filing up with older criminals, overloading prison authorities with the same age-related health problems facing the community in general. A paper, released by the Australian Institute of Criminology, says statistics show a 128 per cent increase in the number of prisoners aged over 65 in the period 2000-2010 and a 84 per cent increase in those aged over 50. The number of female prisoners aged over 50 has increased by 241 per cent. Australia's general population also is getting older but by nowhere near the same amount.

Stow, Ohio Municipal Court Online

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Computerized records begin in 1992 for Civil, Criminal and Traffic cases. Serving the 16 Communities of Northeast Summit County, Ohio: Boston Heights
Boston Twp.
Cuyahoga Falls
Hudson
Macedonia
Munroe Falls
Northfield
Northfield Center Twp
Peninsula
Reminderville
Sagamore Hills
Silver Lake
Stow
Tallmadge
Twinsburg
Twinsburg Twp. Website: http://docket.webxsol.com/cuyahoga/index.html

Drug Test Work Cheats Using Bleach

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Workers are using bleach in a bid to beat drug tests at Bay of Plenty businesses. Latest figures from the New Zealand Drug Detection Agency reveal the number of workplace tests in the region has more than doubled in the last year. There were 4458 in 2011, compared with 1711 in 2010, with 8.5 per cent positive. The agency's Bay of Plenty general manager Leigh Sefton said the increase could be down to a rise in testing rather than offending. He said more companies recognised the benefits of a testing programme, in terms of morale and productivity as well as safety. Mr Sefton said up to 10 people a week were trying to cheat the tests - with most relying on a friend to provide a clean sample. "This is usually concealed down the donor's pants in small bottles, condoms or similar receptacles." Mr Sefton said the level of cheating depended on the type of industry, but most occurred at pre-employment tests. "The donor is aware that they have a drug test to complete and they come prepared to try and cheat. In a busy week we may have anywhere from three to 10 cheats." People also tried adding chemicals such as bleach to urine to try to mask drug use and others took cleansing or flushing pills available at various health stores. "However we still have a number of people fail the test and get quite upset that the flushing product they purchased hasn't worked." Testing options included pre-employment, random, post-incident or accident and reasonable cause testing - when an employee was displaying recognised indicators or patterns of drug use. He said the fact people attempted to cheat workplace drug tests was "a real shame". "They don't seem to realise, or care, that drug testing is all about providing a safe working environment," he said. Those caught trying to cheat drug tests were usually fired. "It is a serious issue when someone is willingly jeopardising safety in the workplace," he said.

Virgin Airlines Requires Applicants To Pay For Background Check

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Virgin Atlantic is forcing hundreds of new staff each year to pay for their own criminal record checks after referring them to an employment screening firm. New staff at the airline's call centre in Swansea have been asked to pay for the background check. Department of Transport rules require criminal checks for air-side staff but not for other airline employees. Virgin Atlantic says its recruitment process has to be extremely thorough. The airline employs around 8,500 people worldwide and recruits hundreds of staff in the UK each year. The issue was highlighted after a recent graduate contacted BBC Radio 4's Money Box programme. Having recently been offered a job in Virgin Atlantic's call centre, she says she was contacted by a firm called Procius, which does pre-employment screening on behalf of Virgin Atlantic. The graduate, who did not want to be identified, says she was asked to create an online profile with Procius. "Before the online profile could be completed, I was requested to pay to cover the costs of the reference check. She told Money Box there was no mention of a fee when Virgin Atlantic first contacted her about Procius, and she did not like having to pay the fee before really understanding what the check was for. However, she felt obliged to pay the fee if she wanted to secure the job she was being offered. Virgin Atlantic and Procius say the was for a criminal record check. Procius insists that this is made clear when employees are asked to make the payment. Such checks are often outsourced to agencies by big firms who want to check the credentials of people who they offer jobs to. The Trades Union Congress believes the number of firms requesting checks, either directly or through pre-employment screening firms, is growing. Helen Reid, the TUC's senior employment rights officer, says firms should be paying the fees to cover such checks, not newly employed staff: "They should be footing the bill," said Ms Reid. "It's unreasonable to expect people - particularly who've faced unemployment for a long period of time - to pay in order to be considered for a job." The graduate undergoing the check following her job offer from Virgin Atlantic says that if the company wanted to screen her, it was in a much better position to absorb the cost than she was: "I have been left feeling that I am being taken advantage of by companies who are well aware of how difficult it is to find employment, and have realised that they can charge ridiculous fees for even the simplest reference check." In a statement Virgin Atlantic said: "Safety and security within the airline industry is of paramount importance and Virgin Atlantic has to be extremely thorough throughout the recruitment process. "In common with many other employers, we ask all new employees to pay a fee for a criminal record check."

The requirements of other employers in the airline industry varies. British Airways says air-side staff who require a criminal record check have to pay themselves, whilst BMI says it pays for its staff to get their security clearance. Servisair, the ground handling firm, says it asks staff to pay themselves but then refunds them when they start working for the company.

EEOC Has Plans To Limit Background Checks

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0600

The EEOC is considering guidance to limit the use of criminal histories in employment background checks including a plan to limit employers to a seven-year look back period. Recently, more than 50 organizations signed a joint letter to EEOC Chair Jacqueline Berrien regarding the use of criminal histories in employment screening. The letter urges the EEOC to consider the need for thorough background investigations to protect coworkers and customers. The signers are from associations representing private and public sector employers, human resource professionals, business and volunteer organizations. They are concerned that the EEOC will revise long-standing guidance that will make it more difficult for employers and volunteer organizations to review criminal histories of job applicants and volunteers. In their letter, this group of employers noted their full support for equal employment opportunity and their opposition to unlawful discrimination. They recognize that fair and appropriate use of criminal histories is an important tool to protect organizations and their workers, customers, and assets. The signers point out that a fair approach is needed to strike the right balance. Many states require background checks for a variety of private-sector positions and state licenses. Many states have laws that hold employers liable for negligent hiring and negligent retention of employees with a history of violent behavior that cause harm to co-workers or the public. These rules are designed to protect vulnerable individuals such as children, the elderly and the disabled, as well as the general public who might invite strangers into their homes for repairs and deliveries without knowledge of their criminal history.

No Law In Place To Prevent Mining Under Influence

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0600

There is no mandatory testing of miners required by MSHA. This statement from the Mine Safety and Health Administration may seem strange in a time when West Virginia is leading the country in prescription drug abuse. Yet, there is no law on the books requiring people working at surface or underground coal mines to pass a drug screen. Companies usually test employees and potential employees, screening out those who are found to have any of the nine substances in a standard test, among them amphetamines, cannabanoids, cocaine and opiates. But it is not required by law. Legislation is pending in Charleston to make it a legal requirement that miners be tested for drugs. The bill under consideration would require a miner to provide proof of drug and alcohol free status in order to receive their certification to work at a coal mine. But currently no federal or state agency requires testing.

Devon Carries Out 18,000 Background Checks

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Devon County Council carried out more than 18,000 background checks last year, the second highest rate of any local authority in the country, new figures show. Councils, private firms and scout groups were among more than 2,000 organisations which ran three million criminal record checks in England and Wales e equivalent of one in 20 of the population of 55.2 million. Almost 60,000 checks were made by the Scout Association alone, making it one of the highest users. Devon County Council's total of 18,686 checks put it 19th in a national table and was only surpassed by one other local authority, Essex, which made almost 22,000 checks. Cornwall Council carried out 8,694 checks and Plymouth City Council 6,354. A spokesman for Devon County Council said the figure was high because it acted as an "umbrella agency" providing services for "a number of voluntary organisations, charities, external companies, schools/academies and district councils". The campaign group Big Brother Watch, which released the data following a Freedom of Information Act request, said the figures were "a sad indictment of a country that has lost all sight of proportion and has substituted common sense for a piece of paper". Nick Pickles, its director, said: "For nearly three million people to be checked in just one year is remarkable. "Given just how many organisations now have access to the system, there is a clear risk that it is easy to delve into someone's private life and run a CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) check without them ever knowing. "The checks have already been shown to wrongly brand innocent people as criminals and cost people their jobs for totally unrelated incidents that would not suggest they pose a risk. "It's time to go back to the drawing board and fundamentally reform the CRB system." The Government has outlined plans to reform the system of criminal records checks, saying it was time to return to a more "common sense" approach. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced last February that the current system will be scaled back and only those working most closely with children or vulnerable adults will need to undergo the checks. The results will also be able to move with individuals when they change jobs, cutting down on bureaucracy, the Government said. A Home Office spokesman said: "The current system of employment checks is too bureaucratic and intrusive. "That is why we are reforming the regime to scale it back to common-sense levels so that the public are properly protected but the number of excessive checks are substantially reduced."

Your employees, executivbes, or clients might be at risk!

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Many pre-employment screening companies try to save a few dollars per criminal record search by taking the cheapest (and sometimes) the least favorable method of searching for criminal records. Sad be the case in Puerto Rico. Despite the efforts of Straightline International to educate the pre-employmeny screening companies about the efficacies and the flaws, of doing police clearances in Puerto Rico, many of these background check companies still persist in doing the 'next wrong thing.' At Straightline International all Puerto Rico criminal record checks are put through a three part process exclusive to Starightline, called XR2. Straightline is able to effectively provide this search to all pre-employment screening companies regardless of their size. It has been shown that up to 50% more hits are found on the XR2 system than through conventional police clearance methiods. Yet, companies persist in using the police exclusively. It is this blogger's opinion if you are using a pre-employment screening company that is not using the XR2 Purto Rico search you should switch suppliers for Puerto Rico criminal record searches. Straightline International's XR2 search is your solution. Names will not be mentioned, unless a court deposition is needed, for this large pre-employment screening company, that has decided that it is a whole lot cheaper to use police clearances in Puerto Rico. They might get away with this for a while. But do you pay pre-employment screening companies to 'get away' with anything? I expect not. At Straightline International, they mirror or spot check the searches requested for Puerto Rico police clearances with their XR2 search, mostly for statistical reporting, even if the background check company has requested a different type of search. Recently a large (and I mean large) background check firm has reduced their number of searches for Puerto Rico, citing costs and profit margins, in favor of police clearances rather than XR2. They know better than to skimp on the search. What they (intenetionally forget), that is to inform the CEO, is that in the long run it is better to pay for the search done right the first time rather than pay large legal fees for a 'negligent hiring' lawsuit. All in order to add to the bottom line. And with volume that bottom line adds up quickly. Some background check companies like to play the odds in favor that an on the job incicdent might never occur and fool themselves into a feeling of security that the dollars they save now will offset the litgation costs later. They forget the promise they gave you, the customer, that their work is of the highest quality. Moral: Do not be fooled into thinking your criminal record searches are being done the best way possible. Straightline International has numerous examples of the missed records by many pre-employmenrt screening companies that use Puerto Rico police clearance. You do not want to do business with a company that tries to sell or has sold you on the quality of their work based upon Puerto Rico police clearances. I will give you Straightline's contact info below. Find out yourself.

Contact Straightline International at info@straightlineinternational.com or call +1-866-909-6678. Ask for Dennis Brownstein. Let's not settle for a few dollars more in favor of a few lives saved. Your employees will thank you for that.

Warning: If the Email You Just Read Isn't for You, Don't Read It

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Some people who work in jobs in which they use e-mail to send sensitive information to others are questioning the effectiveness of the e-mail disclaimers that are usually placed at the end of such messages. These disclaimers are usually used by lawyers, bankers, analysts, consultants, and others to notify recipients that the message might contain privileged, confidential, or proprietary information, and that the recipient should not use, distribute, copy or disclose this information to another person if he received the message accidentally. Those who accidentally receive messages containing sensitive information are also usually asked to destroy the message and notify the sender. Some lawyers say that the disclaimers are necessary because they inform unintended recipients that they do not have permission to take advantage of confidential, proprietary, or legally privileged information. However, some say that the disclaimers are usually not enforceable because they do not create a contract between the sender and the recipient. In addition, some experts say that it would be difficult to get a judge to enforce the language included in these disclaimers because the admonitions are usually attached to every message that people in certain jobs send out, regardless of whether these messages contain sensitive information or not.

Straightline International Welcomes New Staff Member

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0600

"Straightline International announces the hiring of a new employee, Jihong Wang, to their Saipan staff. Jihong Wang's duties will include interpreting the many documents and information that are increasingly being asked of Straightline written and spoken in Mandarin. Ms. Jihong, a native of northern China, will concentrate on areas such as Dalian, Harbin, Jilin, and Changchun. Ms. Wang can be reached at 1-670-256-7000 or jwang@search4crime.com

Who's Pulling Your Leg About Criminal Record Checks In India?

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0600

by Steven Brownstein Now I know I haven't been around long enough to have 'heard them all.' I used to think that having thousands of researchers in all the USA or the, "We have researchers that go to all the counties in the USA," and let's not overlook the fantastic, "We confirm every record found with the clerk of the court" were the ends of the end, but I wss mistaken. I've been shown there is no stopping the creative talents of our fellow brothers and sisters in background screening. Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce the 'New Local Police Search In India" 'Guaranteed to bamboozle your client and close the sale!" By the way I'm sure you're not one those that believe any company in our industry exists that actually has the resources to contact all the local police stations in India, right? But get a load of this: Take the local police station thing a step or space shuttle mission further and change it to this: "We have highly trained research teams that go to each local police station and (this is the best part) search the records ourselves!" I needn't write anything else than that. But one more thing: I actually kmow of one pre-employment screening company that bought into it. Hook, line, and sinker! By the way, this hands-on search is priced a wee bit less than other India searches. So you can save a little money, too!

Convictions Remain On German Certificates About 5 Years

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0600

The length of the period before the expiration of which a conviction will no longer be included in the certificate differ. It is - three years after convictions for offences that are punished with a suspended sentence of less than one year; - five years for most other convictions; - except convictions for sexual offences with a punishment of more than one year, the period here will be ten years. The period starts with the day of the final judgment and is extended by the length of the respective prison sentence; in cases of life sentences where parole is granted this extension is at least 20 years. The effect of the expiry only occurs when no other entry can be found; no reconviction has been recorded and all sentences have been fully executed. Whenever more than one conviction is recorded in the register, the latest conviction overrides and defines the expiring date. This means nevertheless that an average criminal act may disappear from the certificate of conduct five years after the full execution of a sentence.

Forcing Teen To Drop Virtual Objects In Online Game Was Real-World Theft

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

UK CRB News

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The cost of translation services We have received a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 for the following: How much did the Home Office spend on providing translation services in each of the following financial years:

(1) 2008-09;
(2) 2009-10 and
(3) 2010-11. We released the following information on 29 September 2011.
Financial Year                               Cost (£)
2008 – 09                                     9,464,495.37
2009 – 10                                     8,472,411.34
2010 – 11                                     6,948,595.39 The number of cheques issued and received by the Home Office in 2010. We have a received a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 for the following: 1. How many cheques were issued in total (including both to individuals and to organisations) by your organisation between the dates of the 1st April 2010 and the 31st March 2011? 2. How many cheques were received in total (including both from individuals and from organisations) by your organisation between the dates of the 1st April 2010 and the 31st March 2011? We released the following information on 26 July 2011: 1) The Home Office HQ, UK Border Agency and Criminal Records Bureau have issued 138,165 cheques between 1st April 2010 and 31st March 2011. 2) The Home Office HQ, UK Border Agency and Criminal Records Bureau have received 95,194 cheques between 1st April 2010 and 31st March 2011.

3 Va. Localities Pioneered Online Access To Court Records Their Storie

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

by Mark Bowes Three Virginia localities have opted to go their own way when it comes to managing their court records and making case information available online. The city of Alexandria developed its own system before the state did, but didn't make online information available until 2003, said Clerk Edward Semonian Jr. Demand for online access is increasing, he said. Basic criminal and civil information can be accessed without charge, but land records require a paid subscription, as designated by state law. "It's certainly more convenient to be able to use (the online system) rather than come into the office — we're in Northern Virginia, where congestion is pretty substantial," Semonian said. "I get emails from all over the place from people looking for information, and they access the system." The Virginia Beach Circuit Court clerk's office used the state's system until developing its own and switching over in July 2009. Users can get basic criminal information such as court dates, charges filed and a finding of guilt or innocence of a defendant, but not sentencing information, said Gigi Smith, chief deputy clerk of the criminal division. Information on civil proceedings such as divorces and lawsuits also can be obtained, but not the corresponding documents for those actions, she said. Any historical court information from before July 31, 2009, is still available through the state system, she said. Smith said the clerk's office is working to provide actual documents online, such as court orders, but funding issues have temporarily halted that effort. That service will require a user fee. The clerk's office has not received any substantive complaints about privacy concerns since the office transitioned to the new system, said Smith, who helped develop the project. Fairfax County was the state's first locality to provide remote access, in the late 1980s, but that system was "very primitive" compared to today, said Fairfax Circuit Court Clerk John Frey. The Virginia Supreme Court, he said, copied elements of Fairfax's case management system in developing Virginia's statewide system, Frey said. Fairfax's existing system requires a monthly $50 subscription fee for unlimited access to criminal, civil and land records 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Frey said. "And they can make their own copies." The criminal and civil information is limited to what Frey describes as a "register of action," which includes names of parties, their lawyers, court dates and case dispositions. The court hasn't yet begun scanning individual court documents for public view, he said. A total of 657 companies and 1,026 individuals pay to use Fairfax's system, and an additional 69 government agencies and 1,150 individual users within government entities can access the system without charge, Frey said. Frey said he's not opposed in principal to allowing free access to some court information, but that would require a two-tiered system. "I think the main purpose here is that we have not tried to make a distinction in our records that some records are more private than others, or more open than others," Frey said. "It's an administrative efficiency, whether that be right or wrong."

Criminal Records Should Stay Permanent

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

An Albuquerque Journal Editorial Every few years, it seems, there is a move in the Legislature to get various criminal records expunged. In 2007, it was sold as a way to protect victims of identity theft who were wrongly arrested. In fact it went much further, allowing for the removal of any reference to a misdemeanor or felony arrest from public documents if the defendant was acquitted, the charges were dropped, or he/she entered a pre-prosecution program. Then-Gov. Bill Richardson vetoed it. In 2009 it was sold as a way to protect individuals from being branded criminals for life for the mistakes of youthful impulsiveness or passion. In fact it went much further, with the original version wiping the slate clean for people convicted of drunken driving or some violent felonies, and the final version not providing a public notation there had even been an expungement. That was particularly worrying to employers doing background checks on potential hires for jobs in child care and nursing homes. Richardson again vetoed it. In 2012 it was sold as a way to help people move on from petty crimes committed years earlier and to keep false accusations from tarnishing the reputations of the wrongfully accused. Again it went much further, allowing felony charges — including domestic violence — to be deleted from public view if there was no conviction. Gov. Susana Martinez vetoed it recently. Even the most forgiving members of society know innocence is not the only reason a case is dismissed; if it were, the term “beat the rap” would not be ingrained in our lexicon. Likewise many misdemeanor convictions start out as felony charges. Ex-offenders can petition for pardon or clemency to clear their names. And while a revision to the status quo may be warranted, in no way shape or form should a criminal record magically and completely disappear. After all, records are supposed to be records. Going this far, as the Legislature has done three times now, removes the public’s ability to fully examine a candidate’s past, impedes prospective employers’ ability to do thorough criminal background checks, and invalidates victims’ personal experiences with a state-sanctioned revision of history. That leaves the public in the dark — and at risk. Thankfully, Martinez and Richardson — who don’t agree on a lot — realized that.

What Letters Of Recommendation Say...And What They Really Mean

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Here's a classic glossary of American academic letters of recommendation, courtesy of the Chronicle of Higher Education: Hard-working, workmanlike, industrious, diligent, persistent
=This person is not very original, but he sure tries hard. Shy, low-key, keeps his own counsel.
=This person is socially dysfunctional. I recommend this person ... without reservation, with enthusiasm, with my highest endorsement.
=Hire this person. I recommend this person ... warmly, strongly, to any department with a job in her area.
=Do not hire this person. Well-grounded.
=This scholar is hopelessly mired in bourgeois notions of proof. This student is always willing to engage in vigorous debate.
=This student is really obnoxious. Solid, competent, scoured the archives, good study habits.
=This student is a plodding dullard who will never produce anything of interest. This person is an outstanding scholar (without any mention of teaching).
=This person is lousy in the classroom. This person is an outstanding teacher (without any mention of research).
=This person is a lousy scholar. Path-breaking, brilliant, first-rate, making fundamental contributions to the field.
=This scholar is at the top of her discipline.

This is a person of great promise, who is working on important issues.
=As a scholar, this person has not yet arrived. Eclectic or synthetic scholarship. This academic is a flake.
=At first, this student wasn't sure she wanted to be an English major, but in the last couple of months, her work has really flowered. This student has a lot of bad grades.
=Independent thinker. This student is arrogant and wouldn't follow his adviser's recommendations. (Depending on the context, however, it can also mean imaginative.)
=The acorn hasn't fallen far from the tree. This student's work is dreadfully derivative and adds nothing to what her dissertation adviser has already written.
=Articulate. This person is a safe minority scholar who will not give you any trouble.
=He will blossom with further mentoring. I have serious doubts that I will ever see this person publish an article, much less a book.
=Smart. This person is clever but superficial. (Although, if said about someone in the humanities, it might mean that the person is well-dressed.)
=When this student walks into class, the room lights up. We had long discussions after class.
=I am hopelessly in love with this student.

Look No Further Than This Internet Site

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Felonbook.com aims to unify 65 million Americans* with criminal records via a private, members only social media networking community, all built upon game changing principles of anonymous viral activism, or A-V-A. Felonbook exists to give personal power back to those with a criminal history, all in the pursuit of productive social change. The negative social force affecting people with criminal pasts can now be eliminated by felonbook's controversial approach. Although the felonbook model is focused on fixing issues related to people with felony convictions, the community invites all those who understand the nature of the "system" and want to change it. Felonbook encourages anyone, felon or not, to sign up and engage the community with their most uplifting personal vision of changing the "game" for the benefit of all. The community then votes on the best plans and pours millions of dollars into the highest regarded ideals.

35pc Of New Lawmakers Have Criminal Records (What's Your Hit Ratio?)

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

NEW DELHI More than one-third of candidates elected in the just concluded state Assembly elections have criminal cases against them, with Uttar Pradesh topping the list. Thirty-five per cent or 252 of the 690 MLAs elected to the five assemblies - Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa - have criminal background, a rise of eight per cent since 2007. Also, 66 per cent or 457 of the newly elected MLAs were multi-millioners, according to an analysis of affidavits the candidates had submitted to the Election Commission. The analysis by Association for Democratic Reforms and National Election Watch also shows that compared to assembly elections in 2007, there is over 32 per cent increase in the number of multi-millionaire MLAs and about eight per cent rise in the winning candidates with a criminal past this time. According to the analysis, a total of 189 (47 per cent) of new MLAs in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly have declared criminal cases against them, compared to 140 (34 per ent) in the 2007 Assembly. Similarly, 271 or 67 per cent new MLAs in the state are multi-millionaires, compared to 124 multi-millionaire MLAs elected in 2007. While Samajwadi Party’s Mitra Sen who won from Bikapur seat topped the list of tainted MLAs with 36 criminal cases, Nawab Kazim Ali Khan of Congress from Suar constituency topped the rich list with a declared total asset worth Rs560.89 million followed by Shah Alam of BSP from Mubarakpur with assets worth Rs540.44 million. North eastern state Manipur is the only state, where not a single elected candidate who has declared any pending criminal cases against him or her. However, the new Assembly witnessed a sharp rise among wealthy MLAs with 16 have declared assets worth more than Rs1 million. In 2007 Assembly there was only one MLA who was a millionaire. In Punjab, the recent polls witnessed 22 candidates with a criminal past winning the elections, compared to 21 such tainted MLAs in the 2007 Assembly. So far as the money power is concerned, more than 86 per cent of the candidates fared well in the state, as voters sent about 86 per cent or 101 millionaires to the 117-member Assembly this time. There were 77 (66 per cent) millionaires in the 2007 Assembly. In Goa, voters have chosen 37 (93 per cent) millionaires and 12 (30 per cent) candidates with tainted past to the 40-member Assembly this year. In 2007, their number was 22 and nine respectively. Similarly in Uttarakhand, 19 (22 per cent) new MLAs have criminal cases against them, while 32 (46 per cent) millionaires managed to enter the new Assembly. Their figures in 2007 were 17 and 12 respectively.

Colorado Manufacturer Looks Past Criminal Records When Hiring Workers

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

When you're looking for work in a tough job market, having a criminal conviction on your record usually makes things tougher. Unless you're applying at Loveland's Advanced Manufacturing Technology. There, the owners believe in giving people second chances. "I like hiring people who want to change," said Rodney Talbot, AMT's vice president for manufacturing and co-founder with president Tom Ingraham. "They turn out to be the people who come to work every day," he said. "They've been in a worse spot. Coming to work is a blessing." Advanced Manufacturing Technology builds systems that use air blowers to move bottles through the production line at bottling plants. The company is growing -- it employs 110 workers and could add 10 more by summer, Talbot said, and it is building a 10,000-square-foot addition to its facility at 3920 Patton Ave. near the Walmart Distribution Center. Since Talbot and Ingraham started the company in Fort Collins 16 years ago, Talbot said he has followed the practice of looking past criminal records when interviewing people for jobs. "It's not a policy; it's just my personal preference at hiring." Talbot cited two main reasons for the practice. "One is, my trade is a little bit of a rough trade," he said. People working as welders, millwrights, ironworkers and assembly workers "don't tend to have as clean records as most trades do," he said, adding that he started out doing such work himself. The other reason is that he believes the criminal justice system is out of control, "busting people for minor things." He said sometimes, people end up serving time for actions that don't necessarily deserve jail time. And then, "when you come out, you have no prospect of improving yourself," Talbot said. "Is that fair? They've done their time," he said. "They want to be a part of society. They need a place to work." Lew Wymisner, assistant director of the Larimer County Workforce Center, said having a criminal record, especially during a labor surplus, "puts people at a disadvantage. It's just that simple." "It's another barrier to employment, absolutely," Wymisner said. He said he wasn't aware of AMT's hiring practices but said, "They should be applauded. For whatever reason they're doing it, good for them." Talbot said he draws the line at "the three evils" -- certain crimes involving harm to women and children. He said he asks applicants whether they've been convicted of those offenses. He tells them, "If you don't have those three, don't worry about it. We're just doing the background check to make sure." Fort Collins resident Wes Terry is a temporary worker hoping to get on full-time with AMT. He benefited from the company's attitude about workers' criminal records, even though he didn't realize it. Terry, 21, said he didn't know about the practice when he went to work there in January. He said he had several misdemeanor offenses as a teenager and ended up spending a year and a half in juvenile detention programs. He fits Talbot's profile of somebody turning his life around. "It has been five years since I've been out of jail," Terry said. He spends 50 to 58 hours a week at work, doesn't associate with the friends he had when he was getting into trouble and is talking about going to school to learn an automotive trade. Talbot said, "The people who come here are looking for real work. "Come to work sober and want to work hard. That's all I care about." His hiring practices have served the company well, Talbot said. "I've never regretted making that decision. "I've never seen anything due to anybody's background cause any issues," he said. Talbot declined to say how many of his employees have been in trouble with the law but said he has hired a lot. And those workers often are the most loyal, he said. "We treat people with dignity, and I think they tend to stay."

A Case Against Expungement

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Wisconsin courts currently can order expunction at the time of sentencing for certain convicted cases without offering the same option for cases involving acquittals or dismissals. The Wisconsin Bar Association petitioned the Court that it makes little sense to allow records to be expunged for certain convicted cases without offering the same option for cases involving acquittals or dismissals. That petition remains on the Supreme Court's agenda for consideration but with no timetable. Advocates of open government oppose the change. Expunging a conviction is fine, but expunging the record is a mistake, they say. "Just because a case is expunged doesn't mean there's no historic or practical value to those records anymore," the open record advocates say. "There may be future occasions where you're going to want to have a record of what happened. Eliminating the court records isn't in the public's interest and it isn't even automatically in a defendant's best interest, they said. "The fact is, you can't get away from your past anymore," the advocates said. "If you get your name in the paper because you were arrested … that'll be out on the Internet possibly for the rest of time. The court record should be there to provide more information." "The court records should also be there in cases where charges were dismissed. The state shouldn't be able to come in and disrupt people's lives with arrests and criminal charges and lose a case because charges never should have been brought to begin with and then make all trace of it disappear off the face of the earth."

More Kids Today Arrested Than Ever

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Arrests of young adults age 23 and younger have increased dramatically in the U.S. over the last 50 years. In fact, more than one-third of young adults are reportedly arrested for something other than a minor traffic violation by the time they reach the age of 23. This figure represents a significant increase in arrest rates among young adults compared to a study of juvenile offenders in the U.S. in the mid-1960s. The reason for the dramatic increase in arrests among juveniles is unknown, but there are a number of competing theories attempting to answer this very question. One answer proposed by mental health professionals is that the high rate of arrests may be linked to mental health disorders and behavioral problems among young adults, placing youth at a higher risk for criminal activity than adults. According to experts, mental illness is incredibly common among young adults in the juvenile justice system. Mental illness is often an indicator of a greater potential for risky behavior, and is often linked to criminal activity. Some experts suggest that multiple arrests can indicate untreated mental disorders. It is believed that somewhere between half and three-fourths of incarcerated youth suffer from some kind of mental illness. Another possible explanation for the dramatic increase in arrests among young adults is a change in policing tactics. According to researchers, U.S. police often choose arrest over alternative enforcement methods, such as ticketing. Experts suggest that police have become more zealous, writing fewer tickets and issuing fewer citations and warnings than they did 50 years ago when juvenile crimes and young adult arrests were first studied. The reason police officers are choosing arrest over alternative enforcement methods is not entirely clear, but it appears that this trend has spread beyond the juvenile justice system. An increase in arrest rates and the decision by police officers to favor arrest over alternative enforcement methods affects juveniles and adults alike. One reason for the shift in policing tactics and enforcement methods may stem from public concern over an increase in criminal activity over the last 50 years and a new tough-on-crime political environment. Unfortunately, while arrests may be necessary in some cases, in other cases the burden of a criminal record that accompanies an arrest may exceed the severity of the crime and create even more problems. Arrests can have serious social implications. Young adults who find themselves in the criminal justice system are often stigmatized. Arrest records also have serious real world impacts -- including significant impediments to finding quality employment and housing. Because it is possible for a stigma of an arrest to follow young adults into adulthood, it is important, then, to speak with an attorney experienced in handling juvenile offenses if your child is arrested. Although arrests are not necessarily indicative of a young adult's propensity toward crime, they can still be quite worrisome. According to some experts, although most children arrested never enter the system more than once, the worst of the repeat offenders often start their criminal careers at a fairly young age. Determining which kids are which is not always easy, given that they are just kids. The factors contributing to the increase in arrests among young adults are numerous and complex. Home life, poverty, school and drug abuse can all affect the likelihood that a child will be arrested. Trying to understand the exact reason why so many more kids are arrested today than 50 years ago may be next to impossible, but it is important to continue searching for answers because we all pay the price if nothing is done.

If Price Really Matters

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

By Lee B. Salz Sales people have always had a laundry list of excuses that keep them from being able to sell today. Yet, is there any excuse more infamous than the price one. "If we just lowered our price, I could sell a ton of this stuff." Oh really? People buy primarily-based on price? Well, if that's true consider this.
If price really matters…
• Everyone would buy generic drugs
• No one would have cable or satellite television
• The seat every fan fights for would be the last row in the stadium
• Satellite radio wouldn't have over 15 million subscribers
• No one would own a Bose product
• You would get your drinking water from a faucet
• A Yugo would be in your driveway
• Nordstroms would be empty
• Everyone would shave with a single blade razor
• Starbuck's wouldn't have poured a single cup of coffee
• The only food in your kitchen would be supermarket brand
• The toilet paper in your bathroom would be single-ply sandpaper
• And… You wouldn't have any clients! After all, someone bought from your company. Not just one person, lots of people have bought from your company. Remember this the next time you let yourself argue that you can't sell because of price. It isn't the price… It's your ability to demonstrate value to prospects. And, people will pay for value. You've just seen evidence that they do, even in your own backyard.

Fee Increase Likely for Washington State Driving Records by BRB Public Record Update Newsletter

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Engrossed House Bill 2660 has passed both the House and Senate in the Washington State legislation and is now waiting the governor's signature. The bill increases the fee for an abstract of driving record, vehicle certificate of ownership, certain vehicle license plates, and vehicle dealer licenses. The fee for an abstract would increase from $10.00 to $13.00 per record - note this is a compromise as the original bill had the fee set at $15.00). If the bill is signed by the governor (or if not vetoed by March 31, 2012), all fee increases will take place effective October 1, 2012. For more information visit www.leg.wa.gov/pages/home.aspx and search for HB 2660.

San Luis Obispo County, CA by BRB Public Record Update Newsletter

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Per PRRN Member Judith Smith, the Executive Director of the San Luis Obispo Superior Court - Ms. Susan Matherly - has simply had enough. Ms. Matherly has had it with all the public record search firms hired by employers to check criminal records of local residents that apply for jobs. On March 14th she announced at a local Bar Association luncheon that she was shutting down the public access terminal to background screening firms. And on Monday March 19th she did it. The IT staff removed the public access computer and put it in a locked room to be accessible only by attorneys and their investigators. To better understand Ms. Matherly's logic, consider the following summarized statements she also made at the March 14th luncheon, as reported by Ms. Smith: Public access information was never intended for background screeners. Background screening companies just make people not get hired. Employers shouldn't be using background screening companies, but rather should be using the DOJ/LiveScan [the FBI]. There are penal codes stating that the type of research that background screening researchers are doing is illegal. [But she refused to mention what these laws are.] Background screening companies and researchers are not trained to know what they are doing. There is no identifying information in the computer to know if a researcher has indentified the correct person. [Note: The terminal does display a full name and the DOB.] At present according to Judith Smith, Ms Matherly has instructed the Superior Court Clerks to do the following: Only attorneys and their investigators now have access to the locked room where the public access computer with access to the public records now resides. Clerks are not allowed to provide dockets to anyone except to the defendant or their attorney of record. Record searchers may only provide clerks with 10 names a day. Ms Matherly has instructed clerks that requesters cannot hand the clerk a list. All names and DOBs must be given verbally. Clerks may only provide very limited information (for free) if there is only one case recent case. Provided is the case #, violation and disposition date, the charge and disposition for convictions. If a charge was dismissed the clerk will not inform the requester. Also, no information is provided on sentencing or parole violations. However, the researcher can obtain this information for a $15.00 fee. If a subject name has more than one case, the clerks will only provide the case numbers. The researchers then must order each file to review for a $15.00 fee per case. For those interested: Judith Smith can be reached at Judie@jhsmithconsulting.com. The presiding judge and Ms. Matherly's supervisor is Judge Barry LaBarbera. Ms. Matherly can be reached at: Ms. Susan Matherly Executive Director, Superior Court 1050 Monterey Street San Luis Obispo, CA 93408 susan.matherly@slo.courts.ca.gov 805-781-5421

PACER Goes to $.10 a Page on April 1st

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The Federal Court System provides public access to court case information via the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system. Effective April 1, 2012, the fee to electronically access information will increase from $.08 to $.10 per page. However, it should be noted that PACER users who do not accrue charges of more than $15 in a quarterly billing cycle would not be charged a fee. The pre-April 2012 exemption is $10 per quarter. PACER documentation indicates that this expanded exemption means 75 to 80 percent of all users will still pay no fees. See www.pacer.gov/. South Dakota Raises Fee for Court Record Searches On March 20, 2012, the South Dakota Governor signed HB 1058. The new law will increase search fees charged to view or obatin Circuit Court records. The current $15.00 fee will increase to $20.00 as of Jan. 1, 2013, but the fee would return to $15.00 effective July 1, 2017. (HB1058 was actually a compromise - the original bill had an increase of $10.00.) The additional funds will be used to offset last year's budget cuts and to support an upgrade of the court's computerized case management system. The $20.00 fee is for a search of statewide criminal and civil records, and also is applicable for local onsite requests to check individual court case files. View the bill at http://legis.state.sd.us/index.aspx.

Free Driver License Status Checks by BRB Public Record Update Newsletter

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Motor vehicle records (driving records, title, registration, accident reports) are not public when the records contain personal information. A requester must have a permissible use per both federal and state law. However, some states do provide some useful records online at no charge. The seleced list below is taken from The MVR Access and Decoder Digest. Florida - https://services.flhsmv.gov/DLCheck/ Idaho - https://www.accessidaho.org/secure/itd/reinstatement/index.html Kansas - https://www.kdor.org/DLStatus/login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fdlstatus%2fsecure%2fdefault.aspx Massachusetts - https://secure.rmv.state.ma.us/LicInquiry/intro.aspx Minnesota - https://dutchelm.dps.state.mn.us/dvsinfo/mainframepublic.asp Nebraska - https://www.nebraska.gov/dmv/reinstatements/client.cgi North Dakota - https://secure.apps.state.nd.us/dot/dlts/dlos/requeststatus.htm Ohio - www.ohiobmv.com/abstract.stm South Carolina - https://www.scdmvonline.com/DMVpublic/trans/DRecPoints.aspx Washington - https://fortress.wa.gov/dol/dolprod/dsdDriverStatusDisplay/ West Virginia - http://www.transportation.wv.gov/dmv/Pages/dlverify.aspx Wisconsin - https://trust.dot.state.wi.us/occsin/occsinservlet?whoami=statusp1

Pending New Jersey Bill Will Increase Many Court Fees

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

NJ Bill A763 was passed by the NJ State Assembly and now is making its way to the State Senate. In general, the bill contains fee increases that include (but are not limited to) the fee to file motions (papers) in the courts; the recording of judgments or orders in the Special Civil Part; the fee to affix a seal, or certify a copy or for an exemplification; and the fee to file a lien. The bill also authorizes the Judiciary to fund a statewide digital e-court information system which would include public access to digital court records. Indication from the bill's primary sponsor is the Senate and the Governor both favor of the bill's current language. If and when signed, the new law would take affect July 1, 2012. For more information, visit the state's legislative site at www.njleg.state.nj.us/ and search for bill number A763.

New EEOC Strategic Plan

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

by Les Rosen
The United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the nation's leading enforcer of employment anti-discrimination laws, recently approved its 'Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2012-2016' that establishes a framework for achieving the EEOC's mission to "stop and remedy unlawful employment discrimination." The first of three strategic objectives in the EEOC Strategic Plan is to combat employment discrimination through strategic law enforcement with the goal of reducing employment discrimination, remedying discriminatory practices, and securing meaningful relief for victims. The new EEOC Strategic Plan is at: http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/plan/strategic_plan_12to16.cfm. Implementation of the new EEOC Strategic Plan began in March 2012. To accomplish its stated mission, the EEOC is pursuing three strategic objectives and their outcome goals: STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE I: Combat employment discrimination through strategic law enforcement, with the outcome goals of: 1) have a broad impact on reducing employment discrimination at the national and local levels; and 2) remedy discriminatory practices and secure meaningful relief for victims of discrimination; STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE II: Prevent employment discrimination through education and outreach, with the outcome goals of: 1) members of the public understand and know how to exercise their right to employment free of discrimination; and 2) employers, unions and employment agencies (covered entities) better address and resolve EEO issues, thereby creating more inclusive workplaces; and STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE III: Deliver excellent and consistent service through a skilled and diverse workforce and effective systems, with the outcome goal that all interactions with the public are timely, of high quality, and informative. Focusing on STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE I, to reach the goals of reducing employment discrimination, remedying discriminatory practices, and securing meaningful relief for victims, the EEOC strategy includes: Developing and implementing a Strategic Enforcement Plan (SEP) that: (1) establishes EEOC priorities and (2) integrates the EEOC's investigation, conciliation and litigation responsibilities in the private and state and local government sectors; adjudicatory and oversight responsibilities in the federal sector; and research, policy development, and education and outreach activities. Rigorously and consistently implementing charge and case management systems to focus resources and enforcement on the EEOC's priorities. Using administrative and litigation mechanisms to identify and attack discriminatory policies and other instances of systemic discrimination. Using EEOC decisions and oversight activities to target pervasive discriminatory practices and policies in federal agencies. Ensuring that remedies end discriminatory practices and deter future discrimination. Seeking remedies that provide meaningful relief to individual victims of discrimination. The Strategic Enforcement Plan (SEP) would replace the current National Enforcement Program and ensure a targeted, concentrated, and deliberate effort to identify and pursue priority issues and practices and prioritize types of investigations and cases. The SEP would also further an integrated, holistic approach to enforcement by lowering the barrier between the EEOC's work in the investigation and conciliation stage and its work in the litigation stage. The result will be an EEOC where all of its operations work in tandem to achieve its mission of stopping and remedying unlawful employment discrimination. The Strategic Enforcement Plan will be approved by the EEOC no later than September 2012. Read the full article at: http://www.esrcheck.com/wordpress/2012/03/16/new-eeoc-strategic-plan-combats-employment-discrimination-through-strategic-law-enforcement/.

Pressure Builds for Civilian Drone Flights at Home

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Unmanned drone aircraft, formerly used exclusively by the military, may soon be in use by law enforcement agencies, the news media, utility companies and others. At present, less than 300 government agencies have received waivers for limited use of drones in the United States, but the Federal Aviation Administration has received a Congressional mandate that civilian and military drones must be permitted to fly in civilian airspace in less than four years (by September 2015). The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol is one of the agencies that have received a waiver, flying drones along the U.S.-Mexico Border where they have assisted in the seizure of more than 20 tons of illegal drugs in the past six years. The U.S. Department of Justice has four drones available for loan to law enforcement agencies. "We look at this as a low-cost alternative to buying a helicopter or fixed-wing plane," said Michael O'Shea, National Institute of Justice Aviation Technology Program Manager.

Nebraska Agencies Using Facebook as a Law Enforcement Tool

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Incidents as varied as identifying a woman who drove off without paying for gasoline and locating a sex offender who failed to register have been resolved thanks to the use of Facebook® by the Hastings and Grand Island, Nebraska police departments and the Hall County Sheriff's Department. All three agencies launched their social media sites during 2011 and have been very pleased by their success.

Someday, Someone Should Background Check This Guy

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

A Minnesota teen who was hoping to bring a pornography actress to his prom will have to find a new date Mike Stone of Tartan High School in Oakdale tweeted a series of pornography stars asking if any would be his prom date. Megan Piper tweeted the 18-year-old back, saying she'd love to be his date as long as he paid for her flight from California. But district superintendent Patty Phillips said Piper won't be allowed to attend. She says the school's policies include a caveat that denies guests whose visits are "not in the best interest of students, employees or the school district."

Las Vegas Court Cuts Hours, Days

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Las Vegas Municipal Court is adopting a four-day work week in a move the system chief executive says will cut wait times at clerk windows and telephones. Friday service is being eliminated effective next week in the court that handles misdemeanor criminal city offenses, traffic infractions and civil ordinance violations not exceeding $2,500. Hours will be from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday. Court Administrator Matthew Fisk calls it a "new business model" that will provide better overall customer service. The move also puts the court on the same Monday-through-Thursday schedule as Las Vegas City Hall. Las Vegas Municipal Court is located in the Regional Justice Center in downtown Las Vegas.

Ontario's Highest Court Rules For World's Oldest Profession

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

A ban on brothels puts prostitutes at risk and is unconstitutional, Ontario's top court has ruled, in a case that is expected to be appealed to Canada's top court and have ramifications for the country at large. The Ontario Court of Appeal said sex workers should be allowed to work safely indoors. "The world in which street prostitutes actually operate is a world of dark streets and barren, isolated, silent places," said the five-judge panel in their ruling. "It is a dangerous world, with always the risk of violence and even death." The court in Canada's most populous province has given the government a year to rewrite the law if it chooses.

Slam Dancing A Crime In Boston

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Add slam dancing to activities banned in Boston. Police recently cited a city club for allowing violent mosh pit dancing and vowed a crackdown on what they called "dangerous behavior" and a "public safety hazard." The Boston Herald reports that police cited the House of Blues for a license violation because of a mosh pit that broke out during a Feb. 21 show by Flogging Molly. Police say 60 concertgoers engaged in slam dancing. Police say the dance violated safety rules and the club was cited because security did not intervene. The club has agreed to put up signs that say mosh pits are banned. Brian Fair, vocalist for Boston band Shadows Fall, called the clampdown "ridiculous." Musicians say slam dancing is part of the metal and hardcore culture.

Thieves Use Texas Court To Steal ID's

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

An identity theft ring based in Albuquerque has stolen the identities of 232 people, most with ties to Tarrant County. Turns out the thieves got the information from Tarrant County court records available free online for use by the public. Millions of records with sensitive information were on the county website. A member of the criminal ring showed a police detective on a computer how easy it was to pull names, birth dates, and Social Security and driver's license numbers from county clerk records, according to a police report. Data miners, part of a drug ring, used the information to steal the identities of Texans and residents of other states who had ties to Tarrant County through court cases. The ring used the information to open lines of credit in the names of some of the victims.

Portage County, WI Court Records Finally Online

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Starting April, 1st you will be able to look up Portage County court files online. County and state court staff have finished transferring more than 180,000 case files to the state's Consolidated Circuit Automation Programs or CCAP system. The county had planned to debut the system March 1st but pushed it back to today because some financial information – such as fines – was not transferring over correctly. Portage County had been the last in the state to join CCAP. It had used its own system since 1993 that required anyone who wanted to look up court records online to get a user name and password or to go to the courthouse. Clerk of courts Trish Cal Baker says moving to CCAP will let anyone access information and protect the data better than the county's old system.

California's Integrated Court Record System Project Abandoned

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Plans for a computer database that would allow California courts to easily share domestic violence and other records have been abandoned, after cost overruns and budget deficits plagued and delayed the project. The California Court Case Management System was supposed to be in place in 2008, and was to allow courts to share records and other information easily, according to the San Francisco Appeal online newspaper. The database was first planned to cost $260 million in 2001, a cost estimate that this year ballooned to $1.9 billion and a completion date extended to 2015. The state has spent $522 million to date on the project, according to reports. "Poor management" and "inadequate oversight" led to the project spiraling out of control, according to a report from the Administrative Office of the Courts. The statewide budget crunch has led courts to lay off employees and operate on reduced hours. Judges and court advocates said that "shelving" the expensive database in order to send money to the actual courts was the best move.

Saline County, AR Court Records Now Online

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Saline County has become the ninth county in Arkansas to put access to public court records on the Internet, Saline County Circuit Clerk Dennis Milligan announced. "The days of people driving to the court house to look up or copy court records are vanishing. With the high price of gasoline, accessing records on the Internet just makes good sense," Milligan said. Saline County has joined Clark, Crawford, Faulkner, Garland, Hot Spring, Pulaski, Searcy and Van Buren counties in having court records available on the Internet. The records are available through a system the Arkansas Supreme Court is requiring counties to participate in to make public access and data standards uniform in all 75 counties. Partial information is available from the following counties: Arkansas, Ashley, Baxter, Bradley, Calhoun, Chicot, Cleveland, Columbia, Dallas, Desha, Drew, Greene, Hempstead, Howard, Jackson, Johnson, Lafayette, Lincoln, Little River, Lonoke, Madison, Marion, Ouachita, Polk, Randolph, Sevier and Union counties. The Administrative Office of the Courts is working to have 80 percent of Arkansas counties online within five years. "Saline County criminal, civil and domestic relations court records are available on the Internet because the county is part of CourtConnect. People no longer have to come to the court house to view their records," Milligan said. "People can now see public court records on their computer or cell phone with Internet access. This makes getting copies of public records easier." Probate records are not online, but should be available soon. Under the CourtConnect system, each county has a number. Saline County was assigned the number 63. People using the system can look for court information using case numbers or the name of a party in a case, Milligan said. Saline County began the conversion to CourtConnect in November. CourtConnect is part of the ACS Contexte Case Management System. Contexte is an internal system that provides access to court documents to judges, prosecutors and others involved in the justice system. Contexte has all information available, but CourtConnect keeps information that could be used for identity theft restricted from public view. From the CourtConnect website, users can search records of any county on the system. Courtconnect also links to images of some court documents so users can view, print, or download the actual documents filed on the case. "The good news is that these court documents are free of charge. If you come to the circuit clerk's office and print records from the five public computers available there, we have to charge 25 cents per page to cover office expenses. With CourtConnect, those records can be downloaded as a file on your computer or printed on your own printer," Milligan said. "CourtConnect is a first step towards a paperless court system," he said. "Pulaski County is currently testing an e-filing system that will allow attorneys and those wanting to represent themselves to file court documents using the Internet rather than having to deliver them in person or by mail. Once the e-filing system is perfected, Saline County will be one of the first to use it," Milligan said.

Unaccredited, Even Fake, Colleges In India Add To Education Crisis

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

After studying for two years to be a teacher, Anam Naqvi found out the degree her school offers is worthless. Now, instead of attending classes and finishing a mandatory internship, she and her classmates protest every day outside the gate to their university in the northern city of Aligarh. It is a story being replayed across many Indian cities. Poorly regulated, unaccredited and often entirely fake colleges have sprung up as demand for higher education accelerates, driven by rising aspirations and a bulging population of young people. "New colleges are mushrooming everywhere, but many are flouting norms," said Nilofer Kazmi, director of the government's regulatory commission for higher education. "Many are conducting courses that have no approval or accreditation from the government regulators." More than 5 million Indians enter the 15-to-24 age group every year, adding to the demand for more colleges and universities. Properly educated and employed, these young people could bring the country a demographic dividend, the sort of surge in growth that buoyed many of the Asian "tiger" economies from the 1960s to the 1990s. But if India does not create high-quality colleges for its young people, it risks reaping a demographic disaster. The higher-education commission recently released a list of 21 "fake universities," many of them no more than a mailing address or signboard hanging over a shop, temple or hole-in-the-wall office space. A government regulator that focuses on technical schools named 340 private institutions that run courses without its accreditation. Of more than 31,000 higher-education institutions, only 4,532 universities and colleges are accredited. "India's university system is in a deep crisis," said Devesh Kapur, director of the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania, who has written extensively on the subject. "There are so many regulatory barriers to setting up a college or university that it deters honest groups but encourages those who are willing to pay bribes. "Millions of young Indians will have high expectations, paper credentials, but will be poorly educated. We can be absolutely sure that it is not going to be pretty." India aims to raise its college enrollment rate to 21 percent in five years, up from 13 percent now. In contrast, the enrollment rate is 23 percent in China and 34 percent in Brazil. Kapur said that to reach its target, India would have to open one new college every working day for the next four years. With much of the government's money directed toward combating rural illiteracy by boosting primary-school education, the private sector has filled the gap for colleges. Even so, many of India's colleges and universities — both private and public — face acute shortages of faculty, ill-equipped libraries, outdated curricula and poor infrastructure, according to a report last year by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and Ernst & Young. The government is working on at least nine higher-education bills to improve the sector, including one that would enable international universities to set up campuses here. But two Indian rules — that universities operate as not-for-profit entities and that foreign universities must start with seed money of more than $11 million — might prove prohibitive. So far, only a few universities, including Virginia Tech and the University of California, Davis, plan to set up research centers in India. Meanwhile in Aligarh, Naqvi and other students are consulting a lawyer to take Mangalayatan University, a private school, to court. "Where do we go now? People laugh at us and say, 'Oh, you are the ones with the useless degrees?' " said Naqvi, 22. "The university has played with our dreams. Now we are not even capable of dreaming." The university's vice chancellor, S.C. Jain, said a delay in getting government approval for the teaching course was causing "anxiety among students." But Vikram Sahay, a senior official in the education department in New Delhi, said the university should not have begun classes and that the degrees are not valid. The problems are not exclusive to private colleges. In 2010, a government investigation revealed that the state-run Rayalaseema University in southern India had awarded 2,660 doctorate degrees in just two years for subjects not taught there. In the booming New Delhi suburb of Gurgaon, call centers and glitzy malls sit side by side with dozens of one-room shops offering degrees in engineering, management, pharmacy, nursing and computers through online courses with state and private universities. Workers roam, handing out pamphlets that promise quick and easy degrees. "Study centers" are often tiny, dimly lit offices. Executives frequently tell applicants there is no need to study. "We guarantee 100 percent success," Ram Babu, an executive of @IBMeducation center told an elderly man who had stopped by to ask about a business-management degree for his niece. Babu showed the man brochures from private and government-run universities. "No matter what, we will place a business management degree in your hand from a reputed university that we are affiliated to." "You can go abroad, apply for jobs with these degrees. The certificate will not even say the words 'distance education,' " Babu said. In February, activists in six states launched a campaign calling for a greater government role in monitoring higher education. "The government must not abdicate its responsibility in creating knowledge," said Anil Sadgopal, a leading education activist. "So many parents are selling their farmland and spending their life's earnings to send their children to colleges that are nothing more than private shops."

Straightline International Announces Addition of Donald R. Schneider to Worldwide Staff

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Straightline International has announced that Donald R. Schneider has joined the company as Business Sales Director for the domestic resellers market. Schneider will be charged with development, implementation, and execution of strategic products, as it pertains to the USA application of international criminal records. In his work, Schneider will work collaboratively with Steven Brownstein to maximize Straightline's USA pre-employment screening presence, as well as identifying applications for solutions in other markets. Schneider's previous experience has earned him expertise in sales, marketing, and call center administration. "Donald's ability in closing the sale and making a life-long customer; he brings a dynamic to the floor that few people possess. His enthusiasm is catching and I am glad to welcome him as a member of our organization," states Dennis Brownstein, VP Worlwide Operations. The addition of Schneider will have an immediate impact as he attends the annual NAPBS meeting of the background check screening industry,April 15th-17th of April in Nashville.

Steve Brownstein, Dennis Brownstein, and Donald Schneider Make Presence In NAPBS - Nashville

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Steven Brownstein, Dennis Brownstein, and Donald Schneider, a super-powerhouse of criminal record check, background screening, and sales dynamics will be in Nashville April 15th-17th at the annual NAPBS Conference. Steven Brownstein, whose conference in 2003 and whose efforts there formed the NAPBS, has been absent for several years from the annual conference. This year is different. "It is sort of like a home-coming for me, quips Steven Brownstein. The NAPBS, it has been several years since my international travels have coincided with the NAPBS annual conference. This year that I am in the USA. I wouldn't miss this conference for anything." His brother, Dennis Brownstein, couldn't agree more, " I usually attend the NAPBS conferences wiith my sales and marketing staff. It is such a pleasure to have my brother, Steve, here. He brings to the conference a dynamic that no one else in the industry quite does." Donald Schneider, Straightline International's newly appointed Director of USA Sales, admits to being rather awed by the immensity of the NAPBS Conference and that it is such a successful garthering of industry titans. Yet, having known Steven Brownstein, he admits that it comes as no surprise the industry had through his effort evolved into this great entity. Schneider adds, "As a relatively new-comer to the pre-employment screening industry, I see that there are many committed members to NAPBS. I hope to be one of those committed. It is with a matter of pride that I announce that Straightline International and our sister newspaper, The Background Investigator, will host the NAPBS Newcomer Reception." About hosting the NAPBS Newcomer Reception, that's Brownstein through and through. Always giving a hand to the underdog. Always helping the industry and its participants to excel and succeed. And he gives without any strings attached. That it is indeed a quality he has, a quality rarely found these days.

Government Out Of Control: Four California Teens Cited for Sexting

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Four 15-year-old boys in Yucaipa, California have been cited for sexually exploiting a minor after posting nude photographs of their friends on the Internet. The citations could carry felony charges along with a misdemeanor possession of harmful matter of someone under the age of 18. The San Bernandino County district attorney’s office has not yet determined whether or not they will file criminal charges. The photos, which also included semi-nude pictures, were of eight female students, ages 14 to 15, of Yucaipa High School. According to police, the girls were taking photographs of themselves and sending them to their friends before the four male suspects began uploading them onto Yahoo.com’s social networking message board. Also... Movie Tries To Stop Kids From being Kids According to the new film, Bully's Web Site, over 13 million American kids will be bullied this year, making it the most common form of violence experienced.

Large Crowd Inspires NAPBS 2012 Conference

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Sunday night's vendor cocktail event at the NAPBS 2012 conference was highligted by one of its largest attendance. NAPBS estimated the turnout at approximately 650. At the vendor event, there would be no one to dispute that fact. Everyone was enjoying themselves too much to rally care. The first time attendee reception also, hosted by The Background Investigator, was an overflowing event. Steven Brownstein, one time envisioned this camaraderie seen yesterday in Nashville. He envisioned it in Long Beach. He envisioned it in Clearwater. We think he's seen it in Nashville."

Flint, MI District Court Now Online

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Another Michigan county has entered the 21st century as Flint County announces the availability of its District Court Records online at www.68thdistrictcourt.com This court search had always been a hands-on search that pre-employment screening companies had difficulty completing due to a lack of court record researchers in the area. No doubt this online search is welcomed with open hands."

Expert Says "Let Them Steal Pens"

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Employee misconduct or theft is not always a cut and dry issue, especially in many cases when the employee did not feel like they had done anything wrong. According to the National Retail Federation, 43 percent of the total losses in the retail industry in 2010 resulted from employee theft, and a 2007 study by the Institute for Corporate Productivity found that at least a quarter of all respondents said that theft of company office supplies, products, and electronic equipment has risen as a result of the recession. These incidents represent different levels of a problem, says California State University's David Whitney, who studies industrial-organizational psychology. "When we're at work, there's a belief of things that we're going to provide the organization and what the organization will provide to us," he says. "Part of that is the written contract, what we do for them and what they'll do in exchange.
There's a psychological contract that goes along with that as well." " Whitney goes on to explain that both employees and employers acknowledge that it is pretty much "the norm" if a worker might take a few more pens than they truly need. Such incidents are seen as "an expected cost of business." Where Whitney often sees problems arise is often when an employer crosses an invisible line, violating unwritten employee expectations about how the company or manager should behave. For example, if an employee has not received a raise in three years, they may feel considerably less guilty about taking items of larger value, or acting out in other ways. He encourages employers to prevent this kind of behavior by treating workers fairly and ethically, not giving them the occasion to feel slighted. This fairness does not just mean that companies must give in to employee demands. Instead, experts suggest setting out clear standards of behavior and consequences for employees, including some "minor" behaviors such as taking excessive breaks or viewing inappropriate content on work computers.

Substance Abuse in the Workplace Is a Safety Hazard

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Human resources experts say that employers need to be more aware of the hazards caused by substance abuse on the job. They argue that, contrary to certain stereotypes, many substance abusers are employed. Common substances that can pose safety hazards include sedatives, sleeping pills, and alcohol as well as illegal drugs because they affect reflexes, reaction time, concentration, perception, and judgment. Regardless of the substance being abused, the first step to preventing workplace accidents caused by drug use is recognizing some of the signs of addiction such as frequent absences or late arrivals, poor concentration or coordination, slow mental and physical reflexes, nervousness or paranoia, defensive or argumentative behaviors, impaired judgment and decision making, mood swings, forgetfulness, carelessness, and bizarre or violent behavior.

Les Rosen Reports: Report On Inaccurate Criminal Background Checks May Itself Contain Inaccuracies

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Report on inaccurate criminal background checks may itself contain inaccuracies
A new report on background check companies from the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) called ‘Broken Records: How Errors by Criminal Background Checking Companies Harm Workers and Businesses’ claims mistakes on criminal background check reports conducted for employers cost job seekers employment and recommends solutions for improving the accuracy and accountability of background check providers.

However, a San Francisco-area based safe hiring expert finds the NCLC report “is itself fatally flawed with errors and inaccuracy” and has written an article, ‘Consumer Group Report on Inaccurate Criminal Background Check Reports Loses Impact Due to Lack of Objectivity and Errors,’ to address the “erroneous information and unfounded conclusions” contained in the report. According to the Executive Summary in the report from the NCLC, a nonprofit advocacy organization seeking to build economic security for economically disadvantaged Americans:

Since 2007, the United States has experienced the worst unemployment rates since the Great Depression. Adding to this job crisis, criminal background checking companies are making it even more difficult for workers to obtain employment. Approximately ninety-three percent of employers conduct criminal background checks for some potential applicants, and seventy-three percent of employers conduct criminal background checks for all potential applicants. The widespread dissemination of criminal record histories limits employment opportunities for an estimated sixty-five million adults (nearly one in four adults) in the United States who have some sort of criminal record. Although background check firms – also called Consumer Reporting Agencies (CRAs) – are required to “follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of consumer information” under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the report describes several types of mistakes in criminal background check reports that affect a job seeker’s ability to find employment that include:
•Mismatching the subject of the report with another person;
•Revealing sealed or expunged information;
•Omitting information about how the case was disposed or resolved;
•Containing misleading information; and
•Mischaracterizing the seriousness of the offense reported.

The NCLC report also claims that many of these background checks report errors can be attributed to “common” practices by background screening companies that include:
•Obtaining information through purchase of bulk records, but then failing to routinely update the database;
•Failing to verify information obtained through subcontractors and other faulty sources;
•Utilizing unsophisticated matching criteria; Failing to utilize all available information to prevent a false positive match; and
•Lack of understanding about state specific criminal justice procedures.

Based upon the issues identified in the report, the NCLC recommends the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) – the federal agency that holds primary responsibility for regulating consumer protection in the United States – and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) use their rulemaking authority under the FCRA to require mandatory measures to ensure greater accuracy and investigate background screening companies for FCRA compliance violations regarding consumer reports for employment purposes. The NCLC also recommends U.S. states should help to ensure the accuracy of background screening companies.

In his article, Attorney Lester Rosen, founder and CEO of San Francisco-area based background check firm Employment Screening Resources (ESR) and author of ‘The Safe Hiring Manual,’ writes that while the NCLC report “suggests inaccurate criminal background checks are widespread,” the report only “cites a handful of anecdotal stories and some court cases where an inaccurate background check had grave consequences on a consumer’s ability to get a job out of the millions of background checks conducted yearly.”

According to Rosen, statements in the report such as “professional background screening companies routinely make mistakes” and “criminal background checks often contain incorrect information or sealed information” are simply not supported by the few cases and anecdotes taken out of millions of reports prepared yearly. Consequently, “this report on errors and inaccurate information is itself fatally flawed with errors and inaccuracy.”

Rosen’s article cites several examples of erroneous information and unfounded conclusions in the NCLC report that include:
•The NCLC report insinuates that the problem of inaccurate reports is widespread by citing a few anecdotes. Yet in the entire report, only a handful of examples are given even though the background screening industry performs millions of background checks per year.
•The NCLC report fails to mention that consumer litigation provides a powerful tool for consumers who may be the victims of an inaccurate report.
•The NCLC report fails to note that a United States Supreme Court case decided in June 2007, Safeco Ins. Co. v. Burr, substantially increased the risk of punitive damages by ruling that a reckless disregard of the FCRA could be sufficient to show “willful” non-compliance, a decision that has led to a dramatic increase in class action litigation.
•The NCLC report omits, and completely fails to recognize, the great benefit that background screening reports provide society in reducing workplace violence, theft, and fraud, along with putting the best qualified candidate in each open position. The employer also has the legal obligation to exercise due diligence in hiring.
•The NCLC report fails to recognize or understand the service background screening firms perform in working with applicants to help correct inaccurate data. Since background check reports are often the first time an applicant discovers there is inaccurate information in the public sphere that needs correcting.
•The NCLC report does not differentiate between “data brokers” who dispense aggregated and unconfirmed data and Consumer Reporting Agencies (CRAs) that assemble and evaluate material from a number of sources to provide a background check report where all information reported has been confirmed at the source during its preparation.
•The NCLC report, in lumping CRAs together with data brokers, fails to note that a group of approximately 170 leading Consumer Reporting Agencies called ‘Concerned CRAs’ has publically rejected the use of databases without taking the steps necessary to a ensure accuracy and completeness as required under the FCRA.

Rosen concludes that the real issue is that background checks occur at the intersection of two fundamental American values – security and giving people a second chance:

On the one hand, background checks can promote safety, security, and honesty while lessening the chance for workplace violence or the hiring of unqualified workers with fake credentials. On the other hand, employers using background checks should be concerned with issues of fairness and privacy while combating discrimination, as well as the need to give ex-offenders a second chance so that they can become law abiding tax paying citizens, which requires a job. Otherwise, as a society we will build more jails and prisons and less schools and hospitals.

NAPBS Conference Was Rather Good

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The weekend of April 15th-17th brought the pre-employment screening community together for its annual conference. It was held at the Nashville Renassaince Hotel, a rather nice hotel, just off the main drag, Broadway where all the country western bars are and a few good bbq joints. But the music and the food isn't the story. The conference is. And in Nashville terms - it was a big hit! There were according to the NAPBS more than 600 attendees, Though one couldn't actually see all attendees at one time, the hotel was crowded and the number doesn't seem exagerrated. The exhibitor area was full. Many vendors were happy with the crowd. It seems though that most buyers of their products were left backin the office. The attendees were typically upper management and though could make a decision would probably bring information back to their offices before a purchase was made. Nothing really stood out in the vendor area as new. the lack of county searchers exhibiting tends to support the idea above that purchases just aren't made at this conference. The sessions seemed ordinary. It is hard to year after year keep bringing new topics to the table. There might be a few, but it is hard to fill two days with exciting topics. Still those present had plenty of opportunity for education and of course there was networking. Networking seems to be the biggest benefit gained from the conferences. It is a place where everyone gathers at a non-competitive site and withtheir defenses down a lot of sharing is done. I wonder how many trade secrets slip out doing those informal discussions. You'd have to be there to know. Anyway, no matter how you slice it Nashville NAPS 2012 was a success. I enjoyed it as much as anyone and I learned a lot.

Corporate Screening Named to Workforce Managements 2012 Hot List

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Corporate Screening Services, Inc. (CS) is pleased to announce that it has been named as one of Workforce Management magazine’s 2012 “Hot List” of background screening providers. This is the third consecutive year that CS has been included on this list, which features the top providers, products and services for the human resources industry. “We are delighted and honored that Workforce Management has once again confirmed Corporate Screening’s standing as a leader in the background screening industry,” said CS President, Greg Dubecky. “For three years in a row, it has substantiated that our pride in our revolutionary background screening technology, customized solutions and client-focused customer service is not misplaced. We remain committed to these high standards.” Workforce Management magazine is a monthly publication that reaches human resource leaders. Each year it publishes its “Hot Lists.” This announcement follows Corporate Screening’s recent recognition as a NEO Success Award winner, which recognizes top-performing companies in Northeast Ohio.

EEOC: New Rules Set On Background Checks

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

By Eve Tahmincioglu Federal regulators Wednesday approved new rules that could make it easier to find work for convicted criminals and others who have gotten into legal trouble.

By a 4-1 vote, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission approved the rules for employers who use criminal background checks, calling for careful consideration of how and when such reviews can be used in pre-employment screenings and in the workplace because of their potential to be biased against certain groups, such as racial minorities. “The new guidance clarifies and updates the EEOC’s longstanding policy concerning the use of arrest and conviction records in employment, which will assist job seekers, employees, employers, and many other agency stakeholders,” said EEOC Chair Jacqueline Berrien. The changes are seen as a boon for workers who have been unable to land jobs or have lost jobs because of their criminal histories. “This is a major change for the good in how employers review prospective employees,” said Samuel Miller, a labor attorney who has litigated criminal background suits on behalf of employees. “It creates presumption that consideration of criminal history is illegal,” he explained. “And it is backed up by thorough documentation of racial disparities. So it should be given much more credence by employers and judges.” Earlier this year Pepsico’s Pepsi Beverages unit settled charges of hiring discrimination related to its criminal background check policies. The company was using arrest records and convictions to deny job applicants positions, but the EEOC suit charged the practice impacted minority employees disproportionately and as a result was illegal under the nation’s labor laws. Employer advocates were pleased the EEOC did not entirely bar the use of criminal background checks.

“The new guidance may require employers to tweak existing policies, but is largely a collective restatement of the EEOC's longstanding guidance documents on employer use of criminal background checks,” said Katharine Parker, an employment attorney for Proskauer. The EEOC does not have the authority to ban “all uses of arrest or conviction records or other screening devices,” said EEOC spokeswoman Christine Nazer. “The EEOC simply seeks to ensure that their use are undertaken carefully to ensure that employment opportunities are not denied inappropriately.” To that end, she added, the new guidance from the EEOC:
•Focuses on criminal record screening and employment discrimination based on race and national origin.
•Discusses the differences between the treatment of arrest and conviction records.
•Reviews the disparate treatment and disparate impact of such reviews.

Criminal background checks have become increasingly popular in the last few years partly because technology has made it easier to dig up dirt and partly because hiring managers want any tools to help them weed through the many applicants, given the tight labor market. Once upon a time, employers only used such background reviews for workers who were in sensitive positions where they handled money or worked with children. Today, their use has become widespread no matter what the gig. About 73 percent of employers use criminal background checks on all employees, according to the most recent data from the Society of Human Resource Management. The update to the rules has been a long time coming for employee advocates. “The last guidance was written before anyone even knew what the Internet was, and a criminal background check was rarely used because it required so much personal attention to detail,” said Nancy Zirkin, executive vice president of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “This update reflects the reality of a 21st century workplace, where background checks are widely performed and applicants are thoughtlessly denied en masse.” But companies view such screenings as necessary to keep the workplace safe, fight against theft and also to protect against negligent hiring suits, said Angela Bosworth, vice president of compliance and general counsel for EmployeeScreenIQ, a third-party employee screening firm. “Right now, employers are trying to build up their workforces as the economy turns around and they’re able to hire again, but we’re concerned this will create a barrier,” she explained. “It’s going to muddy the waters on what employers can and can’t do.”

Feds Warn Employers Of Lawsuits Over Background Checks

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

For many employers, a criminal background check is a no-brainer when hiring workers -- especially those handling money or with safety responsibilities.
Employers don’t want embezzlers cooking their financial books, thieves working the cash register or drug offenders working the pharmacy.

But the federal government is now warning employers that background checks could run afoul of anti-discrimination laws if they use the checks the wrong way. That could result in lawsuits brought by employees and prospective employees who claim some sort of discrimination.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued some guidelines for employers today regarding the use of criminal background checks.

The EEOC said employers can get into legal trouble if they use background checks as the basis for not hiring a protected class of workers. The EEOC board voted 4-1 on the new guidance rules. That includes saying criminal background checks could violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Federal law prohibits employment discrimination based on factors like race, religion, ethnicity, sex and being older than 40 years old.

The EEOC warns employers that arrest records are different from records showing criminal convictions.

The federal agency also noted that minorities are more likely to have been in jail than whites, and employers need to make sure they have consistent hiring policies for various races and other backgrounds.

“About one in 17 white men are expected to serve time in prison during their lifetime. By contrast, this rate climbs to one in six for Hispanic men and to one in three for African American men,” according to the EEOC’s ruling and official guidance on the matter.

The federal agency — which will sue employers on workers’ behalf in discrimination and retaliation cases — said hiring managers need to look at when the offense occurred, the nature of any crime committed and how they might relate to the job at hand.

The EEOC has been more active during the Obama administration as compared with the previous Bush administration.

When Background Checks Violate Civil Rights

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Civil rights activists have long railed against the “collateral consequences” that follow people with arrest or conviction records, statutes disqualifying them from housing, student loans and social services. One of the most impossible barriers, however, is many employers’ refusal to hire people with criminal records even years after they’ve completed their sentences.
Despite 1987 and 1990 policy documents from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, explaining that the general exclusion of applicants based on arrest or conviction records violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (although employers are required to consider the seriousness of the offense, how it relates to the nature of the job, and the time elapsed since the offense), companies routinely ignore the law. And as technology has made criminal records more accessible than ever, today more than 92 percent of employers use background checks in hiring decisions.

Experts say the practice, which closes doors of opportunity to approximately 65 million U.S. adults who have some type of criminal record , has led to higher recidivism rates, and has a disparate impact on African Americans and Latinos, who are arrested at a rate that is 2 to 3 times the proportion of the general population. On April 25th, the EEOC voted to update its enforcement guidance on how employers must handle job applicants with criminal records – its first major statement on the subject in more than 20 years. At a public meeting, commissioners acknowledged employee concerns about negligent hiring liability, theft and workplace violence, but they also expressed the importance of striking a balance between workplace safety and workplace fairness. To that end, much of the revised guidance involves detailed explanations of the issues of disparate treatment and disparate impact.

On the disparate treatment front, the guidance explains that there’s a liability if, for example, an employee rejects an African-American applicant based on his criminal record but hires a similarly situated white applicant with a comparable criminal record. In terms of disparate impact, it clarifies that an employer may still be in violation of civil rights law if a seemingly neutral policy has the effect of screening out a Title VII-protected group.

The guidance also provides best practices that employers can follow, when doing criminal background checks, to avoid being in violation of civil rights law. One example is “individualized assessment” –informing the applicant about the background check and giving them a chance to show how it won’t affect their ability to do the job at hand.

“The individual’s showing may include information that he was not correctly identified in the criminal record, or that the record is otherwise inaccurate,” said Carol Miaskoff, assistant legal counsel for Title VII, at the Wednesday meeting. The individualized assessment process may also reveal evidence of having done the same type of work post-conviction, or having undergone rehabilitation efforts such as education and training.

Before giving her “yea” vote, EEOC Commissioner Chai R. Feldblum clarified the scope of the new guidance, which does not establish drastic changes but builds on the commission’s previous work. “What we are doing today is we’re telling the courts, we’re telling employers, we’re telling employees how we got there,” said Feldblum, who also shot down false concerns that the guidance would prohibit the use of criminal background checks.

“We as the EEOC cannot do a lot with regard to a lot of the reasons that are causing [arrest and conviction] disparities,” Feldblum continued. “What we can do is [enforce] the civil rights law passed by Congress, which said that neutral rules that have disparate impact must be job-related and consistent with business necessity. That’s our job here as an agency.”

In the hours following the vote, which passed 4 to 1, civil rights groups applauded the update.

“We commend the EEOC for its thoughtful, fair and thorough process in soliciting input on this issue of critical concern to millions of U.S. workers, especially workers of color who are hardest hit by the proliferation of criminal background checks for employment,” wrote the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights in a letter to the EEOC, which held two hearings on the issue prior to their vote, getting the views of stakeholders.

“The Equal Opportunity Employment Commission’s decision will help balance the playing field for job applicants with a criminal history,” said NAACP president and CEO, Benjamin Todd Jealous. “These guidelines will discourage employers form discriminating against applicants who have paid their debt to society.”

Straightline International Represents Ontario, Quebec Criminal Record Searches

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Straightline International gets criminal records in Ontario and Quebec. Since the early part of this decade, Straightline International has been retrieving records in Ontario and Qiebec. No other company can enjoy that privilege, except the customer because: Straightline International understands criminal records. That's their business. For more than 2 decades. Straightline International actually goes to the court in Ontario and Quebec. They have been since 2001. Straightline says, "Try this on another vendor: You need copies from a case at the court in Kenora, Ontario. Right away. Then see if they'll even go to that court to retrieve it. At Straightline, we do." With Straightline, you'll get more than good service. You get results!

Employee Theft Causes Major Heartache in Offices

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Employee misconduct or theft is not always a cut and dry issue, especially in many cases when the employee did not feel like they had done anything wrong. According to the National Retail Federation, 43 percent of the total losses in the retail industry in 2010 resulted from employee theft, and a 2007 study by the Institute for Corporate Productivity found that at least a quarter of all respondents said that theft of company office supplies, products, and electronic equipment has risen as a result of the recession. These incidents represent different levels of a problem, says California State University's David Whitney, who studies industrial-organizational psychology. "When we're at work, there's a belief of things that we're going to provide the organization and what the organization will provide to us," he says. "Part of that is the written contract, what we do for them and what they'll do in exchange.
There's a psychological contract that goes along with that as well." "Whitney goes on to explain that both employees and employers acknowledge that it is pretty much "the norm" if a worker might take a few more pens than they truly need. Such incidents are seen as "an expected cost of business." Where Whitney often sees problems arise is often when an employer crosses an invisible line, violating unwritten employee expectations about how the company or manager should behave. For example, if an employee has not received a raise in three years, they may feel considerably less guilty about taking items of larger value, or acting out in other ways. He encourages employers to prevent this kind of behavior by treating workers fairly and ethically, not giving them the occasion to feel slighted. This fairness does not just mean that companies must give in to employee demands. Instead, experts suggest setting out clear standards of behavior and consequences for employees, including some "minor" behaviors such as taking excessive breaks or viewing inappropriate content on work computers.

Why Sealed Records Do Not Keep FBI Fingerprint Records From Showing Up

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

by Ryan Dube One of the most common questions that people ask when they are faced with applying for a new job is whether or not their criminal past will come back to haunt them. More specifically, do sealed records keep FBI fingerprint records from showing up in a background search. The question comes from the fact that there are an average of over 2 million juveniles arrested each year. Once many of these juvenile offenders grow up and mature into law-abiding adults, they find that the criminal history they accumulated during those younger years hang around to haunt them. The worst case is being arrested for a crime that requires fingerprinting. This enters the criminal history and fingerprints into the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS), the national system that stores all criminal fingerprints and "rap sheets" for all arrested individuals in the country. At a moment's notice, an FBI agent or police officer can request those records. The real question is how long the records remain in IAFIS, and whether a court order sealing the criminal records will keep the FBI fingerprint records from showing up in subsequent law enforcement or employment background check requests. The answer is one that you may not want to hear if you happen to have such a criminal record. The records are nearly impossible to have removed from the system, and sometimes even when a court orders a criminal record to be expunged or "sealed", the electronic version of the record never goes away. When a court seals a criminal record, as it often does in some states in the case of many juvenile criminal records, the record is no longer available to the public. The key phrase is "to the public." Police agencies and federal investigators will still have access to your arrest records and your fingerprint records. The sealed records only mean that the criminal history will not show up on a background check conducted by a private company. However, it will show up on a background check conducted by a government agency or if you plan to obtain employment in law enforcement. This is where the line blurs regarding whether sealed records keep FBI fingerprint records from showing up. The answer is that in some cases the sealed records will block them from being discovered, but not in all cases. In fact, according to a NY Times article in 2006, just because your criminal records have been expunged or sealed does not mean they are gone forever. In some recorded cases, the records never actually disappeared from the public databases at all. "Private database companies say they are diligent in updating their records to reflect the later expungement of criminal records. But lawyers, judges and experts in criminal justice say it is common for people to lose jobs and housing over information in databases that courts have ordered expunged." According to the article, some lawyers even tell their clients that expungement is a waste of time, and that "In an electronic age, people should understand that once they have been convicted or arrested that will never go away." The best option if you know that you had a criminal record and want to be sure that a court order to expunge or seal the records has worked, you can perform a background check on yourself just to see what turns up. This will show you what exists in the public records database so that you can enter into an employment or housing application knowing what you're facing. This allows you to be completely forthright with what will turn up on the background check, and you can provide your explanation first, rather than letting it turn up as a surprise. Additionally, you can also verify your own FBI "rap sheet" for a very small fee by just visiting the General Information section of the FBI website and requesting a copy of your own FBI Identification Record (FBI fingerprint records) for review. For a small fee, you are allowed to obtain your own records to verify its accuracy. Also, once you know what records exist for you, you won't have to wonder whether or not a court order to seal your records has worked. By conducting a background check and an FBI fingerprint request yourself, you'll know the answer.

NYC No. 1 In E-Commerce Fraud

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The bulk of online fraud in the United States comes from New York City, followed by Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Omaha, San Francisco, Houston, Washington, D.C., and Lexington, Ky., according to a ThreatMetrix study. The study concludes that if a person conducts online transactions in New York City they are most at risk of fraud. ThreatMetrix sampled nearly 1 billion transactions handled by U.S. e-commerce vendors during the first quarter of 2012 to assess key fraud areas and scored each transaction as either low-, medium-, or high-risk. High-risk transactions are usually rejected automatically by merchants while medium-risk ones tend to result in manual reviews. "As fraudsters grow more sophisticated and expand globally, it's only natural that large cities with international profiles, easy access to shipping, and high connectivity rates will become breeding grounds for new generations of cyberthreats, including both fraud and malware," says ThreatMetrix's Alisdair Faulkner. "We would expect to see a highly connected city like San Francisco rank higher, but perhaps the relatively substantial penetration of Apple devices, which are largely seen to be less vulnerable to malware, explains its relatively low ranking."

Biometrics to Catch Virtual Criminals?

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Security researchers presenting at an upcoming conference in Baltimore will discuss the rise of criminal activity in virtual worlds such as Second Life, and will show attendees how to connect avatars' faces to real-life criminals. Though some of these worlds are very well developed, law enforcement has yet to grapple with the implications of these virtual worlds, as evidenced by one incident in Japan several years ago in which police arrested a person who manipulated an avatar in an online video game to rob other players, steal their virtual belongings, and then siphon those possessions into an online auction site for real-world money. The FBI reports that it also has investigated gambling in virtual worlds, and has reportedly probed Second Life's virtual casinos to find individuals who are making thousands of dollars a month in real-world profits. Experts say that any platform where money changes hands will eventually be used for illegal activities, and some computer scientists working in the field of facial recognition of avatars are now working on biometrics that would authenticate the identity of virtual-world users. Computer scientists say it is easy to track down troublemakers online since each Second Life character, for example, is identified by a username and is connected to a real person, but acknowledge the real threat is in the future, when virtual worlds are likely to decentralize and operate on peer-to-peer networks.

What Will an Arrest Record Search Reveal?

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

by Amanda DiSilvestro The principal purpose of an arrest record search is to help you identify the bad seeds in a sea of candidates. Conducting an employment background check involves searching a person's criminal and arrest history by accessing numerous sources of information. These criminal histories should return all the information about a person's interactions with the law, and in most states, you're entitled to consider this information when making employment decisions about the candidate. You might consider arrest records to be the most revealing of all the public records you can look into when conducting a criminal background search on a potential employee. All arrests and detentions, regardless of the outcome or any clearance of conviction, will be accounted for on an arrest record. Counties and their courthouses are usually the best source of criminal information on any given individual; they tend to have the most complete and up-to-date history. Reports include information about serious felonies, minor infractions, traffic violations, and criminal misdemeanors. Arrest records will indicate whether the offense was: Violent Traffic-related Related to theft or robbery Business-related Involving drugs and alcohol These records can go back 20 or 30 years. They also carry details of arrests that didn't lead to anything, such as cases where charges were dropped or cases that were dismissed. The records are generally available to the public, and therefore you as an employer, though it may be unlawful for you to use all the information available, particularly arrest records. If you're undertaking the arrest record search yourself (and not through a third party), check with the county clerk to understand your state's laws about using arrest information to make employment decisions. Unlike full criminal records, arrest records only report on arrests and prove no guilt. Because of that, they really don't present the entire picture. Plea-bargains, dropped charges or any form of judicial compromise or dismissal will still show up when you conduct an arrest record search, so technically record of an arrest is not an indication of guilt. Without detailed context, this information may suggest a more negative picture. Despite what county courts, federal records databases, and state criminal records might report on, there are restrictions on what you are allowed to consider for employment purposes. These restrictions are driven by your state law. Some states even have laws prohibiting you from using an applicant's arrest record altogether when making the decision to offer them a job or not. Most states also restrict your use of criminal records that are sealed, annulled, expunged and/or pardoned by the governor. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) suggests that the use of criminal records to make employment decisions may have a negative impact on minorities, and recommends that employers not refer to them if it is not an absolute necessity for the position and industry. Because of this, many state agencies have also issued similar guidance in their pre-employment guidelines. As a good rule of thumb, you should consult a lawyer if you find yourself in the position to use any information found through an arrest record search to make an employment decision (if this is, in fact, allowed in your state). Try to keep from making an "all or nothing" policy against hiring anyone who has ever been arrested. As an employer, you're better off relying exclusively on actual criminal records that report on convictions when making employment decisions. Evaluate the position carefully by considering three things: the nature of the offense, the length of time since it occurred, and how it relates to the position.

LexisNexis; Nonprofit Audit Delivers Industry Leading Background Screening Insights, Trends And Best

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

LexisNexis Risk Solutions released its 2012 Nonprofit Screening Review, The Power of Positive Information, a comprehensive analysis of volunteer and employee background checks conducted by LexisNexis for nonprofit organizations between 2007 and 2011. The study reveals a compelling story of how background screening continues to help nonprofits manage risk and protect those they serve. The analysis found that for five consecutive years hit rates for criminal background checks have dropped from seven percent in 2007 to 5.3 percent in 2011, which means that fewer background criminal searches have resulted in matching criminal records. The analysis also includes nonprofit screening statistics, trends and best practices, and program recommendations. "LexisNexis understands the risk challenges faced by nonprofits, and our goal is to help them promote a safe, secure environment, and help them do it more efficiently by using fewer financial and administrative resources," said Lee Rivas, senior vice president and general manager, Screening, LexisNexis. "The results of the study demonstrate that our background screening programs are working for nonprofit organizations and underscore the importance of continued screening vigilance at nonprofits since nearly one-fourth of the records included in the audit were for serious offenses." "As an organization that serves children, background screening is absolutely critical to Boys & Girls Clubs. The benchmarking metrics and best practices within the LexisNexis 2012 Nonprofit Screening Review help us to strengthen our safety efforts, resulting in reduced risk," said Les Nichols, Vice President, Club Safety & Design, Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
"We mandate screening for all volunteers and employees who work directly with children to maximize their protection and safety, our highest priority." Of the more than 5.4 million background checks conducted by nonprofits from 2007 to 2011, 22 percent of the criminal hits revealed serious offenses including drug-related, sex-related, murder, kidnapping or were registered sex offenders. More specifically, the 479,000 individuals with criminal convictions included: 91,607 drug-related offenses, including possession and distribution; 10,438 sex-related offenses; 1,178 murder offenses; 1,021 registered sex offenders; and 603 kidnapping offenses. The study also shares best practices and program recommendations to help organizations maximize program strength and operating efficiencies. Key concepts explored include: Program centralization: developing a standard screening policy that is automated across all branch locations to boost program efficiency and effectiveness. Volunteer rescreening: an initiative that keeps organizations updated about evolving risk. Expanding minimum screening requirements: supplement a national criminal database search with a county-level search to enhance program strength. To learn about these nonprofit trends, best practices, recommendations and much more, you can access and read the full review at http://www.lexisnexis.com/nonprofit.

Dennis Brownstein's Extreme Court News

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Court Ain't No Reality Show A Rockford man is scheduled to be in Kane County court next month, to face charges that he recorded a Kane County court case. Floydrick Suggs-Bay, 45, was charged with felony eavesdropping for recording a traffic courtroom with his HTC Smartphone, according to Kane County court records. According to a search warrant filed in the case, on Feb. 28, Suggs-Bay was in court for two traffic tickets. Hampshire police charged Suggs-Bay with no insurance and driving on a suspended license. A sheriff's deputy alerted two prosecutors that Suggs-Bay was audio recording the courtroom. Judge Katherine Moran asked Suggs-Bay if he was recording, and Suggs-Bay told the judge he was, the warrant says. Moran told Suggs-Bay that he was not allowed to record courtrooms and ordered him to turn his phone over to courtroom personnel. When Suggs-Bay refused, Moran held him in criminal contempt of court, the warrant says. Suggs-Bay began waving his arms and refusing to give up the phone, so he was taken to a holding cell, the warrant says. After being read his rights, Suggs-Bay admitted to recording the entire court proceeding, but refused to say any more to investigators, the warrant said. The warrant sought to recover the recording from Suggs-Bay's phone. Suggs-Bay is scheduled to be in court again on May 9 for the eavesdropping charge. Suggs-Bay later pleaded guilty to driving on a suspended license and the no insurance charge was dropped. Suggs-Bay's incident came just weeks after the Illinois Supreme Court announced it would allow still photography and video cameras into the courtrooms. Currently, criminal and civil county courtrooms are open to the public, but no video cameras, still cameras or recording devices are allowed in. Illinois is one of only 14 states that has not allowed routine use of news cameras in courtrooms. Under the new system, the state's 23 judicial circuits could petition the Supreme Court to allow media cameras in. Once a circuit is approved, individual trial judges would get the final call on cameras. Media members would have to apply for credentials prior to recording a court case. The 16th Judicial Circuit recently formed a panel to study whether to allow cameras into the courtrooms in Kane, Kendall and DeKalb counties. The 16th Circuit will hold a public meeting at 2 p.m. May 2 to gather comment from the public and members of the media about the issue.

Les Rosen Reports:Report on inaccurate criminal background checks may itself contain inaccuracies

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

A new report on background check companies from the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) called "Broken Records: How Errors by Criminal Background Checking Companies Harm Workers and Businesses" claims mistakes on criminal background check reports conducted for employers cost job seekers employment and recommends solutions for improving the accuracy and accountability of background check providers. However, a San Francisco-area based safe hiring expert finds the NCLC report "is itself fatally flawed with errors and inaccuracy" and has written an article, "Consumer Group Report on Inaccurate Criminal Background Check Reports Loses Impact Due to Lack of Objectivity and Errors," to address the "erroneous information and unfounded conclusions" contained in the report. According to the Executive Summary in the report from the NCLC, a nonprofit advocacy organization seeking to build economic security for economically disadvantaged Americans: Since 2007, the United States has experienced the worst unemployment rates since the Great Depression. Adding to this job crisis, criminal background checking companies are making it even more difficult for workers to obtain employment. Approximately ninety-three percent of employers conduct criminal background checks for some potential applicants, and seventy-three percent of employers conduct criminal background checks for all potential applicants. The widespread dissemination of criminal record histories limits employment opportunities for an estimated sixty-five million adults (nearly one in four adults) in the United States who have some sort of criminal record. Although background check firms " also called Consumer Reporting Agencies (CRAs) " are required to "follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of consumer information" under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the report describes several types of mistakes in criminal background check reports that affect a job seeker's ability to find employment that include: Mismatching the subject of the report with another person; Revealing sealed or expunged information; Omitting information about how the case was disposed or resolved; Containing misleading information; and Mischaracterizing the seriousness of the offense reported. The NCLC report also claims that many of these background checks report errors can be attributed to "common"practices by background screening companies that include: Obtaining information through purchase of bulk records, but then failing to routinely update the database; Failing to verify information obtained through subcontractors and other faulty sources; Utilizing unsophisticated matching criteria; Failing to utilize all available information to prevent a false positive match; and Lack of understanding about state specific criminal justice procedures.
Based upon the issues identified in the report, the NCLC recommends the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) " the federal agency that holds primary responsibility for regulating consumer protection in the United States " and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) use their rulemaking authority under the FCRA to require mandatory measures to ensure greater accuracy and investigate background screening companies for FCRA compliance violations regarding consumer reports for employment purposes. The NCLC also recommends U.S. states should help to ensure the accuracy of background screening companies. In his article, Attorney Lester Rosen, founder and CEO of San Francisco-area based background check firm Employment Screening Resources (ESR) and author of "The Safe Hiring Manual," writes that while the NCLC report "suggests inaccurate criminal background checks are widespread," the report only "cites a handful of anecdotal stories and some court cases where an inaccurate background check had grave consequences on a consumer's ability to get a job out of the millions of background checks conducted yearly." According to Rosen, statements in the report such as "professional background screening companies routinely make mistakes" and "criminal background checks often contain incorrect information or sealed information" are simply not supported by the few cases and anecdotes taken out of millions of reports prepared yearly. Consequently, "this report on errors and inaccurate information is itself fatally flawed with errors and inaccuracy." Rosen's article cites several examples of erroneous information and unfounded conclusions in the NCLC report that include: The NCLC report insinuates that the problem of inaccurate reports is widespread by citing a few anecdotes. Yet in the entire report, only a handful of examples are given even though the background screening industry performs millions of background checks per year. The NCLC report fails to mention that consumer litigation provides a powerful tool for consumers who may be the victims of an inaccurate report. The NCLC report fails to note that a United States Supreme Court case decided in June 2007, Safeco Ins. Co. v. Burr, substantially increased the risk of punitive damages by ruling that a reckless disregard of the FCRA could be sufficient to show "willful" non-compliance, a decision that has led to a dramatic increase in class action litigation. The NCLC report omits, and completely fails to recognize, the great benefit that background screening reports provide society in reducing workplace violence, theft, and fraud, along with putting the best qualified candidate in each open position. The employer also has the legal obligation to exercise due diligence in hiring. The NCLC report fails to recognize or understand the service background screening firms perform in working with applicants to help correct inaccurate data. Since background check reports are often the first time an applicant discovers there is inaccurate information in the public sphere that needs correcting. The NCLC report does not differentiate between "data brokers" who dispense aggregated and unconfirmed data and Consumer Reporting Agencies (CRAs) that assemble and evaluate material from a number of sources to provide a background check report where all information reported has been confirmed at the source during its preparation. The NCLC report, in lumping CRAs together with data brokers, fails to note that a group of approximately 170 leading Consumer Reporting Agencies called "Concerned CRAs" has publically rejected the use of databases without taking the steps necessary to a ensure accuracy and completeness as required under the FCRA. Rosen concludes that the real issue is that background checks occur at the intersection of two fundamental American values security and giving people a second chance: On the one hand, background checks can promote safety, security, and honesty while lessening the chance for workplace violence or the hiring of unqualified workers with fake credentials. On the other hand, employers using background checks should be concerned with issues of fairness and privacy while combating discrimination, as well as the need to give ex-offenders a second chance so that they can become law abiding tax paying citizens, which requires a job. Otherwise, as a society we will build more jails and prisons and less schools and hospitals.

Nashville Conference Was Rather Good

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

by Steven Brownstein The weekend of April 15th-17th brought the pre-employment screening community together for its annual conference. It was held at the Nashville Renaissance Hotel, a rather nice hotel, just off the main drag, Broadway where all the country western bars are and a few good bbq joints. But the music and the food isn't the story. The conference is. And in Nashville terms - it was a big hit! There were according to the NAPBS more than 600 attendees, Though one couldn't actually see all attendees at one time, the hotel was crowded and the number doesn't seem exaggerated. The exhibitor area was full. Many vendors were happy with the crowd. It seems though that most buyers of their products were left backin the office. The attendees were typically upper management and though could make a decision would probably bring information back to their offices before a purchase was made. Nothing really stood out in the vendor area as new. the lack of county searchers exhibiting tends to support the idea above that purchases just aren't made at this conference. The sessions seemed ordinary. It is hard to year after year keep bringing new topics to the table. There might be a few, but it is hard to fill two days with exciting topics. Still those present had plenty of opportunity for education and of course there was networking. Networking seems to be the biggest benefit gained from the conferences. It is a place where everyone gathers at a non-competitive site and with their defenses down a lot of sharing is done. I wonder how many trade secrets slip out doing those informal discussions. You'd have to be there to know. Anyway, no matter how you slice it Nashville NAPS 2012 was a success. I enjoyed it as much as anyone and I learned a lot.

Study Says NFL Teams Would Be Crazy Not To Draft Players With Criminal Rap Sheets

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

An economic professor from Hamilton College says NFL teams should stockpile criminals in the Draft, the AP reports. Fine, he doesn't say that exactly. But he found that players who have been arrested in college performed (based on career starts) just as well in the NFL, and are selected 15 picks later in the draft on average. Stephen Wu, the professor who ran the study, separated all draftees from 2005 to 2009 into four groups: 1.Players with no suspensions or legal problems in college
2.Players suspended one game or more for violating team or university rules
3.Players arrested and charged with a crime
4.Players arrested, but not charged He found that the only group that performed worse on the field, was Group 2. Group 3 " players who were arrested but not charged " faired just as well as Group 1, despite being taken later in the draft on average. And Group 4 " players who were arrested by never charged " actually has a better track record than Group 1. Therefore, teams that pass on prospects based on their criminal records are doing it wrong. Intuitively, this makes sense. Good coaches, including Bill Belichick, draft based on value and don't fall in love with any single player. So if a player's stock drops because of a frivolous off-field incident, their value goes up.

Domino's Pizza Named In FCRA Lawsuit

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Justin D'Heilly was working as a Domino's Pizza delivery driver in St. Paul, Minn., in 2009 when he pulled over to take a call from his manager, who told D'Heilly he could no longer drive for the company. A background check had found some problems with his motor vehicle history, but D'Heilly wasn't told exactly what the trouble was, nor was he given a copy of the damning report. When he checked with police to see if his license had been revoked, D'Heilly learned that it was valid and that he had only a couple of speeding tickets. He was fired the following month. "They never officially told me why," D'Heilly said. "I just kind of faded away from them, I guess. ... I've always been a good employee there. I've never had any kind of disciplinary problems whatsoever, so to get that call out of the blue like that, you know, it just threw me off." D'Heilly is now a named plaintiff in a budding class-action lawsuit that claims Domino's willfully violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act by running employee background reports without proper authorization and by not sharing the reports with applicants and employees before taking adverse job actions against them, such as termination or denial of employment. Domino's has denied the allegations in court filings. Company spokesman Tim McIntyre wouldn't comment on the case, but in an email response, he was clear: "We do not apologize for conducting criminal background checks."
-------------------Domino's Pizza Named In FCRA Lawsuit Justin D'Heilly was working as a Domino's Pizza delivery driver in St. Paul, Minn., in 2009 when he pulled over to take a call from his manager, who told D'Heilly he could no longer drive for the company. A background check had found some problems with his motor vehicle history, but D'Heilly wasn't told exactly what the trouble was, nor was he given a copy of the damning report. When he checked with police to see if his license had been revoked, D'Heilly learned that it was valid and that he had only a couple of speeding tickets. He was fired the following month. "They never officially told me why," D'Heilly said. "I just kind of faded away from them, I guess. ... I've always been a good employee there. I've never had any kind of disciplinary problems whatsoever, so to get that call out of the blue like that, you know, it just threw me off." D'Heilly is now a named plaintiff in a budding class-action lawsuit that claims Domino's willfully violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act by running employee background reports without proper authorization and by not sharing the reports with applicants and employees before taking adverse job actions against them, such as termination or denial of employment. Domino's has denied the allegations in court filings. Company spokesman Tim McIntyre wouldn't comment on the case, but in an email response, he was clear: "We do not apologize for conducting criminal background checks."

Increasing Numbers Of Employers Request Extracts From The Criminal Records Registry

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

It has become evermore common that employers check whether an applicant for a job has a criminal record. The number of enquires made to the Criminal Records Registry in 2010 was 34 times higher than it had been in the middle of the 1990s. This is the conclusion of a thesis from the University of Gothenburg, which analyses also the causes of this increase. "One reason is that several new laws make checking the Registry compulsory for certain employers, such as schools. But another reason is that employers who are not covered by these laws have started to request that an applicant present an extract from the Registry," says Christel Backman. Her thesis presents studies of how employers use criminal background checks when taking on new personnel. A criminal background check has been compulsory when employing personnel within childcare and the school system since 2001, in order to exclude people who have been convicted of sexual crime or certain violent crimes. Christel Backman's thesis presents a historical analysis of the growth of the Register and the changes in legislation that have taken place. The thesis includes also a study of interviews with employers who request extracts from the Register even though this is not required by law, and an analysis of the discussion in the media, from 1997 until today, concerning such criminal background checks. The study shows that employers who require that applicants present an extract from the Register despite this not being founded in law do so because the employees deal with theft-attractive goods, that it will give a competitive advantage, or that they have customers who require it. "It is easy to understand individual employers who believe that they must do everything possible to prevent the employees committing crime", says Christel Backman. "But we should be more critical to this development from a societal perspective." Debate in the media during the past ten years has swung from criticism of the use of criminal background checks to criticism of the fact that they are not used more frequently. The focus previously was on rehabilitation of a convicted person. Today, it has become preventing crime by excluding convicted persons. Christel Backman believes that there is a risk that increased use of criminal background checks will lead to convicted people being excluded during recruitment, and thus finding it more difficult to become reintegrated in society. This is occurring at the same time that research shows that having somewhere to live and having a job are the most important factors in preventing a convicted person reoffending. Christel Backman interprets the fact that employers who are not covered by the legal requirement to request an extract from the Criminal Records Registry do so as a sign that measures that previously would have been considered a violation of privacy are now being more readily accepted. "I call this 'function creep'," says Christel Backman, and continues: "It's a common effect in various forms of surveillance. We can see the same thing happening in CCTV monitoring and in the use of DNA registers. We become accustomed to measures that violate our privacy, and start to ask why they are not more widely used. Finally, we demand that such measures be introduced, and ignore the negative consequences that this has." Background: Just over 184,000 compulsory criminal background checks of job applicants were carried out in 2010. More than 160,000 people requested an extract from the Registry in the same year. Most of these were people who had applied for a job with an employer who required such an extract.

Cops To 'Adopt' A Criminal

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

In a bid to keep a close tab on those with criminal records, one criminal at a time, the police commissionerate has decided to embark on an 'adoption' programme. According to this new scheme, specific criminals will be assigned to police personell for constant monitoring. This is being done to ensure that cops have a clear picture of the criminal's profile at all times. With the increasing rate of crime across the city, including the recent spate of property offences, vehicle thefts and house break-ins which have rattled the city police and citizenry alike, the city's police department decided to launch this unique initiative to be able to track specific criminals on an on-going basis. Police personnel at all the police stations will be given one or two individuals with a criminal record. They will have to maintain a written record of the criminal in terms of his or her movement. The log will also include the criminal's history and areas of operation along with continually updated data on the individual's source of income, the nature of crime(s), places recently visited, gangs they might operate under, their friend circle and other such pieces of information. ACP Ganesh Shinde said the the scheme has already been startedat the Gangapur police station and will soon be incorporated within all police stations in the city. Officials said that the lure of easy money has made many youngsters take to crimes like burglaries, chain snatching, etc. If they do get caught, they are out on bail within a few weeks and are then back to their usual business of crime. In cases such as chain snatching and burglaries, tracking down criminals is a particularly difficualt task until they are caught again or the police take them in custody on grounds of suspicion. The city police are hoping that the scheme will prove to be a double-edged sword --to help the police machinery stay constantly updated on a criminal's profile and to work as a crime deterrent if criminals know they are being constantly monitored.

Your Information Online: The Good and the Bad a Woodinville Patch Opinion

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Take a step beyond Google and learn about all the other ways your private information is available online - legally. Plus, that might not always be a bad thing, particularly if you're the information seeker. People find it surprising when they learn how much private information can be found by ordinary people, legally, on the Internet. At first blush, this seems bad because it can help someone steal your identity. But it isn't all bad. Better information helps ordinary people make better decisions. With some exceptions, the following can be found online: birthdates, addresses, former addresses, vehicle registration information, speeding tickets, lawsuits, name changes, divorces, judgments, real property loans and random things on Google. 1.Voter records. If you are registered to vote in Washington State, your birthdate is available online at www.soundpolitics.com/voterlookup.html. Not only is your birthdate there, but the date you first registered to vote, the last date you voted, and your address. You can also do a reverse search " by address " and view who is registered to vote here. 2.Department of Licensing records. If you own a car, your vehicle registration is available for almost-public view on the Washington State Department of Licensing's website. This is how private parking lots find you if you park and do not pay. This is also how the parking lot's attorney finds you. Wisely, the Department of Licensing has an approval process for anyone who wants regular access to the database. However, it is still public information, and is not secret from anyone who writes to the Department and asks for it. If the Department provides the information, it will notify the licensee that it did so and state to whom the information was given. The DOL also has information related to business licenses issued for various professions, like hair stylist, real estate agent, notary, etc. (Editor's Note: Brad Benfield, a spokesperson for the state Department of Licensing clarified a few points for us. The DOL does not release registered owner information from vehicle records to the general public. Access to this information is governed by the federal Driver Privacy Protection Act (DPPA) and a copy is provided as PDF to this article. Those who have access to the online lookup system qualify for it through the specific provisions of this law. They also are required to sign contracts with DOL that strictly control the use of this information. The DOL will not release this information to anyone unless it is established that the requested information conforms to the permissible use provisions of the DPPA. This is true of companies seeking access to the DOL online system or individuals who submit requests in writing.) 3.Court records. If you have received a speeding ticket, been a party to a lawsuit, or been charged with a crime, you can find the date, court, and case number on the King County Superior Court Clerk's website, www.kingcounty.gov/courts/clerk.aspx. This database is statewide (although linked at the King County Clerk's website). Name changes and divorce records are also there (although to view specific divorce documents, one must travel to the courthouse ' those are protected from online public view). This database came in handy for a friend who was selling his house. A buyer proposed to lease the home first, with an agreement to buy it later. A quick search showed the buyer had multiple lawsuits against him which all resulted in judgments, all for not paying rent. In ten minutes, my friend said no thanks to the offer. 4.Real property records. If you own real property and financed it, the deed and mortgage may be available for public view. Just go to your county's Auditor/Recorder's website. Not every county offers online viewing of documents. To check your county, Google it, or go to www.netronline.com, which provides links to county auditor and assessor websites all over the country, and tells you whether the data is available online. 5. Google. Finally, (and this is no secret) there is Google. We may control what we put online, but we can't control what others put online. Here's a real life example. A client won a $1 million judgment against a fraudster (we'll call him Mr. X) who was clever enough to not own anything. His son and various associates "owned" his house and business so there was nothing to seize in order to satisfy the multiple judgments against him. The fraudster was careful to keep things out of his name so creditors could not find them. The gig was up when he " and his $300,000 boat " joined a local yacht club. Unbeknownst to Mr. X., the club posted its newsletter online, welcoming Mr. X, his wife, and his new custom built yacht. With that information (and a few photos from the yacht club's website) the client had the yacht's name, approximate value, its location, and with a little extra work, easily proved in court that the yacht belonged to Mr. X, not the friend. These information sources, by themselves, probably are not enough for one to do too well in stealing someone's identity, but they certainly can make it easier for the bad guys. Now more than ever vigilance is important in reviewing bank and credit card statements, watching the mail, and of course, always avoid Nigerian royalty soliciting you with a Yahoo! email address. On the flip side, good information helps the ordinary person make more informed decisions. Does your nanny really have a clean driving record? Does your potential renter pay his bills? Is your realtor as honest as he says he is? These days, nothing is stopping you from finding out.

Young County, TX To Go Online

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Young County commissioners voted unanimously to put many county records online during a regular meeting of commissioners court Monday. By a 4-1 vote, commissioners voted to spend $27,000 to put records from the county clerk's office and the Precinct 1 Justice of the Peace office on the Internet.

Drop In Youth Crime Baffles Experts

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

by Jeffrey Butts The state of Florida transfers far more juvenile offenders to the criminal (adult) court system than any other state in the nation. In this sense at least, Florida can rightly claim to be No. 1. Florida'spopulation is roughly half that of California's, but it transfers youths to adult criminal court at a rate that is eight times that of California. According to FBI statistics, the rate of violent youth crime in Florida dropped 57 percent between 1995 and 2010. Juvenile arrests for murder fell 69 percent. The Orange County State Attorney's office recently connected these dots and claimed that the falling rate of violent juvenile crime in the Orlando area was caused by the large numbers of youth tried in adult courts. Like most easy answers, this easy answer to youth violence is wrong, and here's why. Orange County and the state of Florida are not the only places where juvenile violence has plummeted in recent years. Violent youth crime has declined nationwide since the 1990s. According to the most recent statistics from theU.S. Department of Justice, rates of youth violence across the country are half what they were in the mid-1990s. In fact, juvenile violence is lower than at any time since the 1970s. So, Orlando cannot claim the prize for declining youth violence. In fact, compared with other states, Florida's crime drop is about average. The Research and Evaluation Center at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City recently examined the uses of criminal-court transfer and the scale of declining crime in Florida and five other states where the data allow for a fair comparison ; Arizona, California, Ohio, Oregon and Washington. While juvenile violence dropped 57 percent in Florida between 1995 and 2010, it fell in these other states as well. The largest drop was in Ohio, where violent juvenile crime plunged 74 percent since 1995, followed by Arizona's decline of 65 percent and Oregon's dip of 63 percent. California and Washington saw juvenile violence drop nearly as much as in Florida ; 50 percent and 54 percent, respectively. If Florida prosecutors were correct, these variations in the falling rate of juvenile violence would follow a pattern. Namely, we would see the largest crime declines in the states that transferred the most juveniles to criminal court. Florida's use of transfer (approximately 165 transfers per 100,000 youth population) is nearly double that of its closest competitors, Oregon and Arizona (96 and 84 per 100,000, respectively). Yet, both of those states beat Florida in the crime drop. In fact, the state with the lowest use of transfer was Ohio at 20 per 100,000, but Ohio's crime decline of 74 percent was the steepest of all six states. If Florida transfers far more juveniles to criminal court than any other state and yet the state's crime decline is about average, then it is simply wrong to credit criminal-court transfer for recent reductions in youth violence. What did cause the nearly 20-year drop in violent crime across the United States? We will likely debate this for years to come. Some criminologists say it is related to changing social attitudes and economics, or the preventive effects of community policing. Others argue that crime-reduction programs are more sophisticated now, following more than 20 years of investment in research and evaluation. Experts may never agree on the exact causes for the crime decline, but there is one thing we can all agree on: There is no evidence to suggest that the falling rate of youth violence was caused by states prosecuting greater numbers of youth in adult court. Criminal-court transfer is an idea of the 1980s. We can and should do better. Policy makers should realize that the juvenile-justice system has more to offer than the adult system in terms of effective programs and sound solutions. We need to rely on a mix of strategies other than simple punishment, including investments in youth employment, educational development and family-support programs. The nation is ill-served by public officials who respond to fears of youth violence by dusting off old policy ideas from the 1980s, especially when those policies were never proved effective.

Kid On Kid Sexual Abuse Tops 33%

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

More than one-third of the sexual abuse of America's children is committed by other minors. Basic data about child-on-child sex abuse is detailed in an authoritative, Justice Department-sponsored analysis of crime data from 29 states. Conducted by three prominent researchers, the 2009 analysis found that juveniles accounted for 35.6 percent of the people identified by police as having committed sex offenses against minors. Of these young offenders, 93 percent were male, and the peak ages for offending were 12 through 14, the researchers found. Of the victims, 59 percent were younger than 12 and 75 percent were female. The report referred to a popular misconception that juvenile sex offenders are likely to reoffend, and said numerous studies over the years have shown the opposite; that 85 to 95 percent of offending youth are never again arrested for sex crimes. Experts say the young offenders differ from adult sex offenders not only in their lower recidivism rates, but in the diversity of their motives and abusive behavior. While some youths commit violent, premeditated acts of sexual assault and rape, others get in trouble for behavior arising from curiosity, naivete, peer pressure, momentary irresponsibility, misinterpretation of what they believed was mutual interest, and a host of other reasons. Some cases involve sibling incest; sometimes the offenders have autism or other developmental disorders that lessen their ability to self-police inappropriate conduct. The latest juvenile crime data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics indicates that arrests of juvenile sex offenders declined by about 25 percent from 2000 through 2009 but data from New York City, Florida and elsewhere indicates that the prevalence of child-on-child sex hasn't dropped noticeably.

Americans Renounce Citizenship In Record Numbers

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

A year ago, in Action Comics, Superman declared plans to renounce his U.S. citizenship. "'Truth, justice, and the American way' - it's not enough anymore," the comic book superhero said, after both the Iranian and American governments criticized him for joining a peaceful anti-government protest in Tehran. Last year, almost 1,800 people followed Superman's lead, renouncing their U.S. citizenship or handing in their Green Cards. That's a record number since the Internal Revenue Service began publishing a list of those who renounced in 1998. It's also almost eight times more than the number of citizens who renounced in 2008, and more than the total for 2007, 2008 and 2009 combined.

Calgary Citizens Launch Public Sex Offender Registry

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

by Georgialee Lang You're a single mom with three young kids and unbeknownst to you, your next-door-neighbour is a convicted pedophile on probation after serving a miniscule prison sentence. Oh yes, he refused treatment while locked up. Don't you think you'd want to know? If you lived in the United States you would know, because since 1994 Americans and everybody else, has access to the National Sex Offender Registry operated by the U.S. Department of Justice. A user-friendly site, you just click on the State you want to search, then select a County and presto! mugshots galore. I checked out our neighbours in Whatcom County, Washington where 59 names, photos and addresses popped up. So what's the fuss about Canada Family Action launching their website yesterday at stoppedophiles.ca? What are the civil liberties issues and why was stoppedophiles.ca threatened with lawsuits, as reported in the National Post? It sounds to me like the usual group of whiners who challenge any activity that supports a law and order perspective. The notion of legal action against these concerned citizens is amusing, since the data collected and listed by stoppedophiles.ca is readily available from many of Canada's leading news outlets and the website provides readers with their media sources for the information they publish. The site does not print specific addresses, but indicates the city where the offence occurred. The issue of the civil rights of convicted sex offenders is more complicated with the main concerns focusing on vigilantism and false identification, both issues that have been endlessly debated in the United States. The United States Supreme Court has examined the laws on sex offender registries in two cases. In Smith v. Doe, Alaska's highest court held that the retroactive registration of offenders in their public database was punitive and therefore, unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned their finding in a 6-3 decision and upheld the Alaska law, reasoning that the law was civil, not criminal and not punitive. In Connecticut Department of Public Safety v. Doe, America's highest court overturned the Connecticut Appeal Court who found that the public disclosure required by the Connecticut law was unconstitutional. The Justices held that injury to reputation in and of itself, even if defamatory, was not a deprivation of liberty and was not unconstitutional. If Canada Family Action continues to obtain their data from reliable major media outlets, it is unlikely they will fall afoul of legitimate privacy issues. Vigilantism is a rare event in Canada but stoppedophiles.ca recognizes the potential problem and displays a disclaimer warning their readers against it. In my view, stoppedophiles.ca is a helpful compilation of information gleaned from major media sources, gathered by proactive citizens who place a greater value on protecting the vulnerable than coddling criminals.

What's Your Honesty Quotient?

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Being honest is like being pregnant; either you are or you aren't. But one study has discovered that a high percentage of Americans believe in situational ethics. In other words, they view some crimes more negatively than others, and seem willing to commit crimes if they have the assurance they won't get caught. While we wouldn't equate murder with jaywalking, it is troubling that many citizens find that committing some crimes is okay, especially crimes that cost all of us tons of money. These crimes are wide ranging--from stealing cable television to running tollbooths to committing insurance fraud. To better understand how insurance fraud compares to other indiscretions, Progressive Insurance conducted a telephone survey of more than 31,000 Americans. The survey asked respondents not only how likely they would be to commit a variety of crimes if they knew they would not be caught, but also whether they would report someone they knew who had committed fraud. The results indicate that while most respondents say they are honest, a large percentage are willing to cheat and commit crimes that cost the rest of us far more money than we probably realize. According to the survey, nine percent of all respondents--that's nearly one in every 10 of us--said they would commit insurance fraud if they knew they would not be caught. With that as part of the American mindset, it is no wonder the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) estimates that all Americans pay $200 to $300 in increased insurance premiums each year just to cover the cost of insurance fraud. And it's not only insurance fraud that respondents admitted being willing to commit. The survey also found that 13 percent of respondents admit they would steal cable television. Another 13 percent would inflate accomplishments on a resume. Some 12 percent would park in a space designated for a handicapped driver, and nine percent would drive through a tollbooth without paying. Finally, seven percent would take tax deductions they weren't entitled to.

Almost Half Of America Tried Pot

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The Netherlands, with its permissive marijuana laws, may be known as the cannabis capital of the world. But a survey published in PLoS Medicine, a journal of the Public Library of Science, suggests that the Dutch don't actually experiment with pot as much as one would expect. Despite tougher drug policies in the U.S., Americans were twice as likely to have tried marijuana than the Dutch, according to the survey. In fact, Americans were more likely to have tried marijuana or cocaine than people in any of the 16 other countries, including France, Spain, South Africa, Mexico and Colombia, that the survey covered. Researchers found that 42% of people surveyed in the U.S. had tried marijuana at least once, and 16% had tried cocaine. About 20% of residents surveyed in the Netherlands, by contrast, reported having tried pot; in Asian countries, such as Japan and China, marijuana use was virtually "non-existent," the study found. New Zealand was the only other country to claim roughly the same percentage of pot smokers as the U.S., but no other nation came close to the proportion of Americans who reported trying cocaine.

New Jersey Judgments And Liens Online

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The state court system has provided a way to look up judgments and liens online. The new database allows residents to see includes liens resulting from civil, criminal, and family cases, administrative agency judgments, defaulted child support payments, Motor Vehicles Commission surcharge debts, certificates of indebtedness from the office of the Public Defender, and unpaid probation fines, according to a judiciary press release. Such documents have long been considered public record and many are available through fee-based online services. Such information would be useful to those extending credit or negotiating a business arrangement. It also allows potential buyers of property to see liens against real estate before transactions are consummated. Online users can go to www.njcourts.com, then look to the bottom of the lefthand rail to see the link for "Judgment lien search."

Free Driver License Status Checks by BRB Public Record Update

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Motor vehicle records (driving records, title, registration, accident reports, etc.) are not public when the records contain personal information. A requester must have a permissible use per both federal and state law. However, some states do provide some useful records online, without personal identifiers, at no charge. The selected list below for a free search of a DL status is taken from The MVR Access and Decoder Digest. Florida - https://services.flhsmv.gov/DLCheck/ Idaho - https://www.accessidaho.org/secure/itd/reinstatement/index.html Kansas - https://www.kdor.org/DLStatus/login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fdlstatus%2fsecure%2fdefault.aspx Massachusetts - https://secure.rmv.state.ma.us/LicInquiry/intro.aspx Minnesota - https://dutchelm.dps.state.mn.us/dvsinfo/mainframepublic.asp Nebraska - https://www.nebraska.gov/dmv/reinstatements/client.cgi North Dakota - https://secure.apps.state.nd.us/dot/dlts/dlos/requeststatus.htm Ohio - www.ohiobmv.com/abstract.stm South Carolina - https://www.scdmvonline.com/DMVpublic/trans/DRecPoints.aspx Washington - https://fortress.wa.gov/dol/dolprod/dsdDriverStatusDisplay/ West Virginia - http://www.transportation.wv.gov/dmv/Pages/dlverify.aspx Wisconsin - https://trust.dot.state.wi.us/occsin/occsinservlet?whoami=statusp1

Pending New Jersey Bill Will Increase Many Court Fees by BRB Public Record Update

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

NJ Bill A763 was passed by the NJ State Assembly and now is making its way to the State Senate. In general, the bill contains fee increases that include (but are not limited to) the fee to file motions (papers) in the courts; the recording of judgments or orders in the Special Civil Part; the fee to affix a seal, or certify a copy or for an exemplification; and the fee to file a lien. The bill also authorizes the Judiciary to fund a statewide digital e-court information system which would include public access to digital court records. Indication from the bill's primary sponsor is the Senate and the Governor both favor the bill's current language. If and when signed, the new law would take affect July 1, 2012. For more information, visit the state's legislative site at www.njleg.state.nj.us/ and search for bill number A763.

South Dakota Raises Fee for Court Record Searches by BRB Public Record Update

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

On March 20, 2012, the South Dakota Governor signed HB 1058. The new law will increase search fees charged to view or obtain Circuit Court records. The current $15.00 fee will increase to $20.00 as of Jan. 1, 2013, but the fee would return to $15.00 effective July 1, 2017. (HB1058 was actually a compromise - the original bill had an increase of $10.00.) The additional funds will be used to offset last year's budget cuts and to support an upgrade of the court's computerized case management system. The $20.00 fee is for a search of statewide criminal and civil records, and also is applicable for local onsite requests to check individual court case files. View the bill at http://legis.state.sd.us/index.aspx.

Reminder - PACER Went to $.10 a Page on April 1st by BRB Public Record Update

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

CRB checks top 30million but create 'atmosphere of mistrust'

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Adults would rather ignore a lost or injured child than be accused of being a paedophile, according to campaigners who believe mass vetting over the past decade has actually left young people more at risk by creating an atmosphere of mistrust. New figures seen by The Daily Telegraph show that 32million Criminal Records Bureau checks have been carried out in the decade since the system was established, at a cost of 1.5billion. Originally a recruitment check just for those professionals who work closely with children, now anyone who carries out any form of community work faces having their background scrutinised. Women who arrange flowers at cathedrals, volunteers who take their elderly neighbours to the shops and parents of Cubs and Scouts all regularly face CRB checks. But the Manifesto Club, a libertarian group that campaigns against increasing state interference in everyday life, says it is open to question how many children and vulnerable adults have been protected by the vetting regime. It argues that CRB checks, which merely look for previous convictions or police intelligence about an applicant, are no guarantee of safety and are simply used by "box-ticking" bureaucrats to cover their backs in case something goes wrong. Instead, the group believes that young people are being left in dangerous situations because of a growing feeling in society that all adults are potential threats unless they can prove otherwise. In a new briefing marking the 10th anniversary of the CRB system, Josie Appleton, convenor of the Manifesto Club, writes: Mass vetting can actually leave children more vulnerable. CRB checks spread an atmosphere of mistrust, and people start to think that helping children is a state-licensed activity, rather than something we all do as a matter of course. For the first time, there are cases of adults walking past injured children, fearing that their act of help could be misinterpreted. The truth is that children are safe when the majority of decent adults are looking out for them. There is simply no replacement for vigilance. For many years the Government kept a secret register called List 99 of people banned from working with children, so that schools could see if would-be teachers were convicted sex offenders. But in March 2002 the Home Office widened the scope of the scheme by setting up the Criminal Records Bureau, run by the private firm Capita. Checks were to be carried out on anyone who worked with children or vulnerable adults in schools, voluntary groups or professional bodies, and would take information from police files on unproved allegations as well as court records. Just months after the CRB was set up, the Soham schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman were murdered by Ian Huntley, who had been allowed to work as a school caretaker despite two police forces knowing about sex allegations against him. It prompted calls for an even more stringent child protection system. Figures obtained by the Manifesto Club show that in the first full year of the CRB's existence, 2002-03, 1.4m checks were carried out, the vast majority "enhanced" ones that examined police intelligence as well as convictions. By 2010-11, that figure had tripled to reach 4.3m. Of those, almost a million were volunteers rather than professionals. The total number of checks now stands at 32m, with 6.6m carried out on volunteers, although the number of individuals checked will be lower as people who change jobs or work in several roles have to undergo repeat applications. Errors in the vetting system have also meant thousands of people have been wrongly branded criminals, ruining their reputations and careers. The cost of the checks themselves stands at 1.5bn, of which 875m is fees paid to the CRB and the remainder in administration costs. Most of the checks are paid for by employers, but the fees have more than doubled in cost over the past decade from 12 for an enhanced application in 2002 to 44 last year. The Coalition has promised to bring the number of CRB checks down to a "commonsense" level, in response to Labour's abandoned vetting and barring scheme that would have seen a quarter of adults in the country face scrutiny from a powerful new quango. But the Manifesto Club says ministers have proposed "few limitations" on unnecessary checks, which are now often carried out by enthusiastic employers rather than being insisted upon by law. The campaign group wants a full review of the CRB system " and money being spent on monitoring the small number of convicted sex offenders " to stop the "juggernaut" continuing unchecked for another decade. A Home Office spokesman said: "The current system of employment checking has become excessive. This is why we are scaling the regime back to common sense levels so that the public are properly protected but the number of unnecessary checks is substantially reduced. "Our proposals, currently before Parliament in the Protection of Freedoms Bill, will ensure that employers are able to make the right decision on who should be checked, and we have strengthened our guidance to make clear the financial penalties for employers who carry out unnecessary checks."

Are Background Check Hit Ratios Reliable?

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Screener Doesn't Want Case

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

This is a true story. A pre-employment screeneing company admonished a Maricopa vendor for returning a criminal record from a municipal court when all they ordered was a county search. It confused their records' department.

EEOC: New Rules Set On Background Checks

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

by Eve Tahmincioglu Federal regulators Wednesday approved new rules that could make it easier to find work for convicted criminals and others who have gotten into legal trouble. By a 4-1 vote, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission approved the rules for employers who use criminal background checks, calling for careful consideration of how and when such reviews can be used in pre-employment screenings and in the workplace because of their potential to be biased against certain groups, such as racial minorities. "The new guidance clarifies and updates the EEOC's longstanding policy concerning the use of arrest and conviction records in employment, which will assist job seekers, employees, employers, and many other agency stakeholders,"said EEOC Chair Jacqueline Berrien. The changes are seen as a boon for workers who have been unable to land jobs or have lost jobs because of their criminal histories. "This is a major change for the good in how employers review prospective employees," said Samuel Miller, a labor attorney who has litigated criminal background suits on behalf of employees. "It creates presumption that consideration of criminal history is illegal," he explained. "And it is backed up by thorough documentation of racial disparities. So it should be given much more credence by employers and judges." Earlier this year Pepsico's Pepsi Beverages unit settled charges of hiring discrimination related to its criminal background check policies. The company was using arrest records and convictions to deny job applicants positions, but the EEOC suit charged the practice impacted minority employees disproportionately and as a result was illegal under the nation's labor laws. Employer advocates were pleased the EEOC did not entirely bar the use of criminal background checks. "The new guidance may require employers to tweak existing policies, but is largely a collective restatement of the EEOC's longstanding guidance documents on employer use of criminal background checks," said Katharine Parker, an employment attorney for Proskauer. The EEOC does not have the authority to ban "all uses of arrest or conviction records or other screening devices, said EEOC spokeswoman Christine Nazer. "The EEOC simply seeks to ensure that their use are undertaken carefully to ensure that employment opportunities are not denied inappropriately."
To that end, she added, the new guidance from the EEOC: Focuses on criminal record screening and employment discrimination based on race and national origin. Discusses the differences between the treatment of arrest and conviction records. Reviews the disparate treatment and disparate impact of such reviews. Criminal background checks have become increasingly popular in the last few years partly because technology has made it easier to dig up dirt and partly because hiring managers want any tools to help them weed through the many applicants, given the tight labor market. Once upon a time, employers only used such background reviews for workers who were in sensitive positions where they handled money or worked with children. Today, their use has become widespread no matter what the gig. About 73 percent of employers use criminal background checks on all employees, according to the most recent data from the Society of Human Resource Management. The update to the rules has been a long time coming for employee advocates. "The last guidance was written before anyone even knew what the Internet was, and a criminal background check was rarely used because it required so much personal attention to detail," said Nancy Zirkin, executive vice president of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. "This update reflects the reality of a 21st century workplace, where background checks are widely performed and applicants are thoughtlessly denied en masse." But companies view such screenings as necessary to keep the workplace safe, fight against theft and also to protect against negligent hiring suits, said Angela Bosworth, vice president of compliance and general counsel for EmployeeScreenIQ, a third-party employee screening firm. "Right now, employers are trying to build up their workforces as the economy turns around and they're able to hire again, but we're concerned this will create a barrier," she explained. "It's going to muddy the waters on what employers can and can't do."

Feds Warn Employers Of Lawsuits Over Background Checks

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

For many employers, a criminal background check is a no-brainer when hiring workers -- especially those handling money or with safety responsibilities. Employers don't want embezzlers cooking their financial books, thieves working the cash register or drug offenders working the pharmacy. But the federal government is now warning employers that background checks could run afoul of anti-discrimination laws if they use the checks the wrong way. That could result in lawsuits brought by employees and prospective employees who claim some sort of discrimination. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued some guidelines for employers today regarding the use of criminal background checks. The EEOC said employers can get into legal trouble if they use background checks as the basis for not hiring a protected class of workers. The EEOC board voted 4-1 on the new guidance rules. That includes saying criminal background checks could violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Federal law prohibits employment discrimination based on factors like race, religion, ethnicity, sex and being older than 40 years old. The EEOC warns employers that arrest records are different from records showing criminal convictions. The federal agency also noted that minorities are more likely to have been in jail than whites, and employers need to make sure they have consistent hiring policies for various races and other backgrounds. "About one in 17 white men are expected to serve time in prison during their lifetime. By contrast, this rate climbs to one in six for Hispanic men and to one in three for African American men," according to the EEOC's ruling and official guidance on the matter. The federal agency " which will sue employers on workers' behalf in discrimination and retaliation cases " said hiring managers need to look at when the offense occurred, the nature of any crime committed and how they might relate to the job at hand. The EEOC has been more active during the Obama administration as compared with the previous Bush administration.

When Background Checks Violate Civil Rights

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Civil rights activists have long railed against the "collateral consequences" that follow people with arrest or conviction records, statutes disqualifying them from housing, student loans and social services. One of the most impossible barriers, however, is many employers' refusal to hire people with criminal records even years after they've completed their sentences.
Despite 1987 and 1990 policy documents from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, explaining that the general exclusion of applicants based on arrest or conviction records violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (although employers are required to consider the seriousness of the offense, how it relates to the nature of the job, and the time elapsed since the offense), companies routinely ignore the law. And as technology has made criminal records more accessible than ever, today more than 92 percent of employers use background checks in hiring decisions. Experts say the practice, which closes doors of opportunity to approximately 65 million U.S. adults who have some type of criminal record , has led to higher recidivism rates, and has a disparate impact on African Americans and Latinos, who are arrested at a rate that is 2 to 3 times the proportion of the general population. On April 25th, the EEOC voted to update its enforcement guidance on how employers must handle job applicants with criminal records ' its first major statement on the subject in more than 20 years. At a public meeting, commissioners acknowledged employee concerns about negligent hiring liability, theft and workplace violence, but they also expressed the importance of striking a balance between workplace safety and workplace fairness. To that end, much of the revised guidance involves detailed explanations of the issues of disparate treatment and disparate impact. On the disparate treatment front, the guidance explains that there's a liability if, for example, an employee rejects an African-American applicant based on his criminal record but hires a similarly situated white applicant with a comparable criminal record. In terms of disparate impact, it clarifies that an employer may still be in violation of civil rights law if a seemingly neutral policy has the effect of screening out a Title VII-protected group. The guidance also provides best practices that employers can follow, when doing criminal background checks, to avoid being in violation of civil rights law. One example is "individualized assessment" informing the applicant about the background check and giving them a chance to show how it won't affect their ability to do the job at hand. "The individual's showing may include information that he was not correctly identified in the criminal record, or that the record is otherwise inaccurate," said Carol Miaskoff, assistant legal counsel for Title VII, at the Wednesday meeting. The individualized assessment process may also reveal evidence of having done the same type of work post-conviction, or having undergone rehabilitation efforts such as education and training. Before giving her "yea" vote, EEOC Commissioner Chai R. Feldblum clarified the scope of the new guidance, which does not establish drastic changes but builds on the commission's previous work. "What we are doing today is we're telling the courts, we're telling employers, we're telling employees how we got there," said Feldblum, who also shot down false concerns that the guidance would prohibit the use of criminal background checks. "We as the EEOC cannot do a lot with regard to a lot of the reasons that are causing [arrest and conviction] disparities," Feldblum continued. "What we can do is [enforce] the civil rights law passed by Congress, which said that neutral rules that have disparate impact must be job-related and consistent with business necessity. That's our job here as an agency." In the hours following the vote, which passed 4 to 1, civil rights groups applauded the update. "We commend the EEOC for its thoughtful, fair and thorough process in soliciting input on this issue of critical concern to millions of U.S. workers, especially workers of color who are hardest hit by the proliferation of criminal background checks for employment," wrote the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights in a letter to the EEOC, which held two hearings on the issue prior to their vote, getting the views of stakeholders. "The Equal Opportunity Employment Commission's decision will help balance the playing field for job applicants with a criminal history," said NAACP president and CEO, Benjamin Todd Jealous. "These guidelines will discourage employers form discriminating against applicants who have paid their debt to society."

TSA Bypasses Background Checks

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

In a move that could affect security at airports around the nation, the Transportation Security Administration confirmed Wednesday it had such a backlog of background security checks, airport employers were allowed to hire any employee needed. The TSA will complete background checks on accepted applicants at a later date. A TV station obtained a Hartsfield-Jackson International airport internal security memo detailing the policy shift, but the TSA said the policy affects airports across the country. Meanwhile, the TSA said the Atlanta backlog was resolved. There was no mention of backlogs around the country. Before the change, any new employee was required to undergo both a TSA criminal background check and a security threat analysis because of access to certain security areas off limits to civilians. In a statement from Washington, TSA spokesman Jon Allen said, "The TSA was recently made aware that a newly implemented change to the system used to process airline and airport employee background checks resulted in a delay for requests submitted through the American Association of Airport Executives. The cause of the issue was quickly identified, and TSA and AAAE have worked together to implement a solution." Allen also said TSA has given airport employers "interim regulatory relief," meaning it's allowing them to hire people without the completed background checks. "At no time was security at risk, and all new employees will still undergo identity verification and be subject to watchlist matching," said Allen. The TV staion's reporter showed the memo to Georgia U.S. Rep. Paul Broun of Athens. "This is a joke," said Broun. "This letter shows the incompetence of TSA. It shows that they cannot and are not doing their job they were instructed to do through the law." Security expert Brent Brown of Chesley-Brown Security believes the move could be a potential threat to airports. "You can't put unsecured people or people that you haven't checked in a secured environment," said Brown. "By that very definition, you've breached security." Regarding the Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, a TSA official said, "TSA has worked closely with the AAAE and the Atlanta Airport to address the delays in processing airport and airline employee background checks. Currently, all requests have been processed and no backlog remains."

Nigeria To Start National ID Registration

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The Nigerian Identity Management Commission (NIMC) will begin enrolling Nigerian citizens and legal residents into the Nigerian Identity Management System (NIMS) within the next few weeks, reports Business Day. The registrations will comply with the NIMC Act of 2007, which establishes a National Identity Database, ID cards and a National Identification Number (NIN), as well as allows for the integration of existing identity databases. The NIMC intends for enrollment to be a simple process. Implementing smart card usage is designed to ease enrollment, protect cardholders from identity theft and fraud and curtail use of fake or multiple identities. The NIN will consist of a random set of numbers assigned to a particular individual. Enrollees in the system will also have to provide demographic data. The NIMC will capture a full set of ten fingerprints, a photo of the enrollee's face and a digital signature. This information will be cross-checked with the National Identity Database to eliminate duplicates. Enrollees will be given a chip-based card that contains their information. Registration will begin as soon as the NIMC's front end partners are prepared with enrollment to commence in certain locations.

USA Flubs - More Reasons To Do International Background Checks

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The percentage of undocumented deportees with criminal records diminished in the first quarter of the year, even though the U.S. government was specifically targeting that segment, according to data released Tuesday.
These preliminary figures show that of the 37,659 deportations between January and March, 5,450 were undocumented immigrants with criminal records, or 14 percent of the total. In the same period of 2011, of the 58,955 people deported, 9,085 had a criminal record - 15 percent of the total - according to the database of the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research outfit affiliated with Syracuse University.

"This suggests that the announced plan to increase the deportation of serious criminals through Immigration Court proceedings has not been successful," TRAC said.

NAPBS Presents On May 23 A Very Important EEOC Webinar Presentation

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

New EEOC Guidance: What Employers Need to Know about the Use of Criminal Records in the Hiring Process Presented by Garen E. Dodge, Partner in the Washington, D.C. Region office of Jackson Lewis LLP
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has approved, by a 4-1 vote, a revised Enforcement Guidance on the Consideration of Arrest and Conviction Records in Employment Decisions under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Guidance was effective immediately. Before disqualifying an individual with a criminal record from employment, the Commission emphasizes, employers should engage in an individualized assessment involving a dialogue with that individual. While the Guidance states that employers would not violate Title VII if they disqualify an applicant based on separate federal restrictions on the employment of persons with criminal records, an employer may not defend a decision to disqualify an individual solely on state restrictions on the hiring of persons with criminal records. Plan to attend this very important NAPBS Government Relations sponsored Member webinar.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EDT
Register at: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/326195554

About the Presenter

Garen E. Dodge is a Partner in the Washington, D.C. Region office of Jackson Lewis LLP. He is co-Leader of the firm's Government Relations practice, and coordinator of the firm's Government Contracts industry group. Mr. Dodge's practice covers the spectrum of employment litigation, including both state and federal claims involving labor; privacy; discrimination; harassment; wage and hour; and occupational safety and health. He assists companies in establishing workplace harassment, affirmative action, substance abuse and other programs, and trains supervisors and employees on effective personnel policies. He has experience conducting workplace investigations. He represents clients before Congress and key federal agencies. Registration Site: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/326195554

As Fast As Court Redacts, Straightline International Offers Kane County Case Identifications

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Beginning May 21st, Straightline International will begin offering inexpensive look-ups for identifiers in cases found on Kane County, IL's Web Site that have had them redacted. "Redaction poses a serious effect on the bottom line of pre-employment screening businesses", adds Steven Brownstein, President of Straightline International. "Costs have soared in our industry the last several years", Brownstein continues,"Online searches were the one place we could control them. Now, with redaction, as in Kane County, we're back to manually searching court files to see if the identifiers oo the applicant match those found in the case file." "Of course, we'll survive, replies Brownstein to the question what happens next. "So what we've done here at Straightline is not penalize the background screening company for clearing those names they found online without a hit. We've gone ahead and added an extra service where for pennies per case we'll inspect and report back confirmations when found matching those submitted to us. The client just has to send us the name, identifiers they have, and case #'s they want searched. It should just take a day or two depending on the court's schedule of access to files." It sounds like Steven Brownstein has the right idea and Straightline International's remarkable research team in Northern illinois to do the job. What remains to be seen is if the pre-employment screening companies will pay to get the information as it's been given freely for so long.

Kane County, IL Redacts Case Identifiers From Internet

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Since Kane County, IL Circuit Court Clerk’s Office rolled out a beta version to access court records online and officials say they’ve received positive feedback so far. “It’s easier to read the new system and it’s much easier to use than jumping through the windows of the old program,” said Karin Herwick, chief deputy court clerk. Officials introduced the beta version March 1 at the clerk’s website and are still refining it. Herwick said there is no timetable to dismantle the old portal, but it eventually will be phased out. The new system does not show the dates of birth for defendants in criminal cases and that is because Circuit Clerk Deb Seyller wants to do everything she can to protect people’s information, Herwick said. By summer, the office will have developed a system to allow some users, such as law enforcement and prosecutors, to have access to birth dates, Herwick said.

Metro Manila Courts Visited By Steven Brownstein

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

This trip, May 2012, Steven Brownstein has so far visited these courts: Manila City Quezon City Makati City Paranaque City

DEA Recording Americans' Movements On Highways

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The DEA wants to capture the license plates of all vehicles traveling along Interstate 15 in Utah, and store that data for two years at their facility in Northern Virginia. And, as a DEA official told Utah legislators at a hearing (attended by ACLU of Utah staff and covered in local media), these scanners are already in place on "drug trafficking corridors" in California and Texas and are being considered for Arizona as well. The agency is also collecting plate data from unspecified other sources and sharing it with over ten thousand law enforcement agencies around the nation. Automated license plate scanning (ALPR) technology is rapidly being deployed by local police around the country. However, its use by a federal agency raises new issues and questions. To begin with, the federal government is in more of a position to create a centralized repository of drivers' movements, so federal deployment of the technology is even more serious a matter than widespread local deployment. In addition, a federal agency is required by law (the Privacy Act of 1974) to disclose to the American people how it is collecting, using, and sharing data about them. However, a Privacy Act notice is not found anywhere in the Federal Register in which the DEA describes any collection of license plate data. (Two recent DEA Privacy Act notices found do not mention the practice.) The DEA official claimed to the Utah legislators that "we're not trying to capture any personal information, all that this captures is the tag, regardless of who the driver is." The idea that a license plate number is not personally identifiable information is laughable. It is true that different people can drive one vehicle, but they are usually closely related to the registered owner and their identities are rarely difficult to ascertain after the fact. Reports received from ACLU affiliates along what the government calls the "SWB" (southwest border) showed that ALPR technology appeared to be in use at border checkpoints. An ALPR is mentioned in DEA written testimony to Congress. In May 2009, DEA and Justice Dept. officials mentioned the agency's use of the technology along the border. They wrote: "Within the United States, DEA has worked with DHS to implement its "License Plate Reader Initiative" (LPR) in the Southwest border region to gather intelligence, particularly on movements of weapons and cash into Mexico. The system uses optical character recognition technology to read license plates on vehicles in the United States traveling southbound towards the border. The system also takes photographs of drivers and records statistical information such as the date, time, and traffic lane of the record. This information can be compared with DEA and CBP databases to help identify and interdict vehicles that are carrying large quantities of cash, weapons, and other illegal contraband toward Mexico." The word "particularly" in that statement is particularly ominous. In March 2011 written testimony, a top DEA official updated the picture: "DEA components have the ability to query and input alerts on license plates via an existing DEA database, and other law enforcement agencies can do the same via EPIC [the DEA's El Paso Intelligence Center]. DEA and CBP are currently working together in order to merge existing CBP LPRs at the points of entry with DEA's LPR Initiative. In addition, the FY2010 SWB supplemental provided $1.5 million to expand the LPR initiative by purchasing additional devices and barrels and support maintenance to allow DEA to monitor traffic and provide intelligence on bulk currency transiting toward Mexico." Note that "the border" as described by the government is not what most people might think it is; the government's "border" extends 100 miles inward, along with some of the extraordinary powers the government possesses at the true border. We have complained vociferously about this "Constitution-Free Zone," which, according to our study, actually contains two-thirds of the entire U.S. population. No part of Utah lies within 100 miles of the real border, so this latest initiative is something more than the one described in the Congressional testimony. Utah state legislators are rightly skeptical. The law enforcement officials defended the program in part by describing it as an extension of already existing ALPR deployments in the rest of the state. But rather than mollifying the legislators, this answer prompted them to resolve to hold hearings on those local uses of the technology. As usual, the authorities also tried to package their proposal with all kinds of soothing promises: the data would not be used except to catch drug traffickers and to investigate "serious crimes." The data would not be cross-referenced with other databases containing driver's names (and therefore presumably to the vast realms of other information that that would be available). The data would not be used to locate people with outstanding traffic tickets and misdemeanor warrants. This is what you call sugaring a pill so that people will swallow it. Anyone who thinks all of the above will never happen doesn't know much about history This dynamic has been seen many times a new surveillance technique is unveiled supposedly for use only against the most extreme criminals and is quickly expanded to much broader use. (To take just one example: DNA testing was first applied only to convicted murderers, then to all convicts, then to certain arrestees who haven't even been convicted of a crime.)

The DEA official in charge of this program, Gary Newcomb, made it clear that this program is already envisioned as expanding dramatically. He told the Utah legislators that: "Back in 2008 the DEA started a program called the DEA National License Plate Reader Program. It's going to be deployed in three parts. Part one is, we're currently deploying all along the southwest border. We're deployed in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and the eastern part of California...." "What we also received is additional LPR data from other sources who collect and store LPR data but who also provide additional LPR data into our national repository...." It is not clear what the "other sources" are that are feeding their ALPR data to the DEA. But there are state efforts to centralize data. Worst case, it's a preponderance of the rapidly growing list of law enforcement agencies around the country that are deploying this technology. Newcomb continued: "We actually have data feeds coming from portable trailers all throughout the southern border, from fixed sites as well as from covert barrel cams too [i.e., cameras hidden in traffic barrels]. That is done on a strategic operational level. So that that data is then stored within our back-end. The feds have the ability to query it directly, and we also have the ability where we provided over ten thousand state, local, and tribal law enforcement the ability to access this through the Internet". "The final part is, we're hoping to start with Phase II, phase II is where we want to deploy along the hub cities and the high-traffic corridors, to include this state, as well as phase III being the northern border. We hope to have this completed within about two to three years max." Two-thirds of the American population already lives within the "border" as defined by the federal government; when you add in "hub cities" (whatever they are) and "high-traffic corridors," most Americans' movements are likely to be recorded by the federal government under this scheme, it would seem.

NAPBS Presents On May 23 A Very Important EEOC Webinar Presentation

Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

New EEOC Guidance: What Employers Need to Know about the Use of Criminal Records in the Hiring Process Presented by Garen E. Dodge, Partner in the Washington, D.C. Region office of Jackson Lewis LLP The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has approved, by a 4-1 vote, a revised Enforcement Guidance on the Consideration of Arrest and Conviction Records in Employment Decisions under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Guidance was effective immediately. Before disqualifying an individual with a criminal record from employment, the Commission emphasizes, employers should engage in an individualized assessment involving a dialogue with that individual. While the Guidance states that employers would not violate Title VII if they disqualify an applicant based on separate federal restrictions on the employment of persons with criminal records, an employer may not defend a decision to disqualify an individual solely on state restrictions on the hiring of persons with criminal records. Plan to attend this very important NAPBS Government Relations sponsored Member webinar. Wednesday, May 23, 2012 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EDT Register at: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/326195554 About the Presenter Garen E. Dodge is a Partner in the Washington, D.C. Region office of Jackson Lewis LLP. He is co-Leader of the firm's Government Relations practice, and coordinator of the firm's Government Contracts industry group. Mr. Dodge's practice covers the spectrum of employment litigation, including both state and federal claims involving labor; privacy; discrimination; harassment; wage and hour; and occupational safety and health. He assists companies in establishing workplace harassment, affirmative action, substance abuse and other programs, and trains supervisors and employees on effective personnel policies. He has experience conducting workplace investigations. He represents clients before Congress and key federal agencies. Registration Site: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/326195554

Firstpoint, Inc. Names Mark Prince As President & CEO

Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Mike Bumpass Set to Retire After Nearly 25 Years of Leadership FirstPoint, Inc. has named G. Mark Prince as President and Chief Executive Officer, effective June 1, 2012. Prince currently serves as Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for FirstPoint’s Collection Resources division. He succeeds Michael F. Bumpass in the top position who is retiring in May after leading the organization for almost 25 years. A recognized industry leader, Bumpass joined the Greensboro, NC-based organization in 1987 after serving as Corporate Vice President of the Merchants Association of Florida, Inc. for ten years. Under his direction, FirstPoint became a leading national provider of Equifax credit and mortgage solutions, background screening, accounts receivable management and association management services. Bumpass credits FirstPoint’s success to strong client relationships, strategic acquisitions, new customer solutions and aggressive sales growth. Bumpass says, regarding his retirement, "It has been an honor to serve as President of FirstPoint. When I got here twenty-five years ago I found a first-class organization with great employees and customers. My single goal was to leave it better than I found it. I could not be more pleased than to have Mark Prince selected to succeed me. I have had the pleasure of working with him over the past year and a half and he is a consummate business leader with a talent for staff development as well as a strong commitment to customers. I have no doubt FirstPoint will enjoy many more successes.” As FirstPoint’s incoming leader, Mark Prince is an experienced financial, operational and strategic business executive with a 20+ year track record in the finance and healthcare industries. After earning both his undergraduate degree and MBA from East Carolina University, he began his career with Bank of America in commercial lending and branch management. Mark was Chief Operating Officer of Applied Business Systems and President of FirstCollect, a national collection agency. He then took on the role of Senior Vice President of Healthcare Business Resources, one of the nation’s largest physician billing operations. Thereafter, Mark moved on to become Chief Operating Officer and equity owner of AmSol, a national physician practice management company based in High Point, NC. Mark has also served as an Administrator of Southeast Anesthesiology Consultants and Senior Director of MedQuest/Novant Healthcare. Since coming to FirstPoint in 2010, Mark’s diverse array of experience has proven valuable in his ability to effectively lead his division. 2011 was recognized as one of the most successful years in recent history for the Collections operation. Mark has been actively involved in numerous professional and not-for-profit organizations including Healthcare Financial Manager’s Association, American Collector’s Association, United Way and Annual Walk for Hope. He“more has served on Boards of Directors of numerous corporate and charitable organizations over the years. Prince says, “I am excited to have the opportunity to lead this extremely talented organization. Mike Bumpass will always be credited for establishing impeccable professionalism and employee integrity while maintaining an outstanding reputation in the communities and industries we serve. As his successor, I plan to work diligently with the management team and employees to capitalize on the momentum he has created over the past 25 years in an effort to best serve our valued clients.” About FirstPoint FirstPoint, Inc. is a Greensboro, NC-based company with roots going back to 1906. FirstPoint provides accounts receivable management, call center management services, background screening, Equifax credit and mortgage solutions, and association management. FirstPoint has over 200 employees in offices located in Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Raleigh and Roanoke, VA. Learn more at www.firstpointresources.com.

Epic Concepts Unveils Suite Of Integrated Screening Solutions Powered By Innovative

Fri, 18 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Exciting New Services Include Comprehensive Resident Screening, Real Time Arrest Monitoring and Automated Court Research Solutions Epic Concepts, a trusted provider of web-based integration systems for the background screening and tenant screening industries, today announced that it has completed the integration of the latest key services powered by Innovative Enterprises, Inc. Epic's customers using the flagship EZyCHECK(TM) web-based system now enjoy access to Innovative's full suite of comprehensive screening solutions, including a number of highly unique services that will deliver a significant competitive advantage. Innovative's core solution suite available through Epic includes services used by professional screeners at each step in the lifecycle of a comprehensive background screening, from basic verification and validation to court research and analysis. New services now available include AssuredTenant(TM), a comprehensive resident screening solution for property owners and managers; FirstAAlert(TM), a real time arrest monitoring solution with direct integrations to over 3,000 law enforcement agencies across the country; and ACE(TM) Automated Criminal Extraction(TM), a highly efficient and cost effective solution providing quick access to hundreds of online public court record portals through a single interface. "Providing solutions so our clients will grow is our major objective," stated Gary Dewitt, President of Epic Concepts. "With Innovative's experience in the industry and their great new services including First Alert, we are proud to have an integration with a source of information that is cutting edge. Exploring the next wave of services is paramount to success along with client industry support. Innovative mirrors are companies philosophy to give clients the tools to open doors and reach its goals.""We're very excited to expand our partnership with Gary and Epic Concepts," stated William J. Bollinger, Innovative's Executive Vice President. "Through our very close working relationship over a number of years, Gary has proven to be an innovator in the background screening marketplace who delivers a rock-solid, customer-focused technology platform. With the integration of the latest products in the Innovative solutions suite, our mutual customers on the Epic platform are armed with the most advanced set of unique services and are now able to compete and win at the highest levels." About Epic Concepts Epic Concepts is a system integrator with first-hand experience processing reports for end users for over a decade. Our mission is to lower the risk of liability in the hiring process and workplace by providing reliable background check information via wholesale conduits and automation, enabling you to process reports in a thorough, timely and personable manner. Epic Concepts is a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners. By contract, we will not sell reports directly to End Users, therefore avoiding being in competition with our customers. Our service is augmented by our staff's wealth of experience, further enabling us to help your organization to be successful. For more information, please call 1.502.454.4473, email gdewitt@epicconcepts.net, or visit us online at www.epicconcepts.net . About Innovative Enterprises, Inc. Innovative serves as a strategic partner to the background screening industry as an expert provider of court research information products, smart data solutions and ancillary services. Innovative commands an intimate knowledge of its core competencies gleaned from more than two centuries of cumulative staff experience in public records research and aggregation, law enforcement, judicial administration and private investigation. An industry leader since 1996, Innovative is a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners and has helped to raise the bar through its active participation in the formulation of a number of best practice guidelines for industry providers across various segments. Innovative was honored in 2008 and again in 2009 as one of the Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Privately Held Companies in America. For more information, please call 1-888-777-9435, email solutions@knowthefacts.com, or visit us online at www.knowthefacts.com.

First Advantage Announces New Solution In Response To Eeoc Guidance Update

Mon, 21 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

If you're like most researchers, pre-employment screening companies, and end users, you have a problem you don't know you even have. If you are like the majority; and what has been the status quo for many years, you are probably searching records or receiving results from the Puerto Rico Police. We know the Web Site (verificacion de antecedentes penales) for searching results is free. You’re probably using it. You might be paying a third party to access it. It doesn't matter to us how you are getting it, or who you are paying to get it; you’ve got a problem. Here’s how we know: We conducted a study of 795 names that we sent to the Puerto Rico Police for Police Clearance Certificates., the same search you can now do online for free. We submitted Name, DOB, and SSN. We received back from the police 143 names that had records. That’s pretty impressive, though we did salt a few records in the survey. But our story doesn't end there. We sent the same names to the court (Name, DOB, and SSN) and what we got back in results was shocking! Out of the same 795 names we received back 240 names that had records. That meant that the police records missed 97 names! We thought, Wow –the courts really are the way to go. But it doesn't stop there. The police, out of the 143 records they returned to us, had 7 names they returned with records that the courts missed! Now we had a double conundrum. Neither search was 100%. And we had the results to prove it. Wait, it got even worse. We ran the names on the Sex Offender List and found 1 case where both the police and the court had cleared the individual. The court said that the case was sealed, so they returned it clear. We can't tell you the police’s excuse but imagine hiring that person! So that is your problem. Either way you do it, you would miss records. One way or the other you put lives of innocent people and co-workers in jeopardy. There is a solution. We have combined multiple searches, 4 of them, into one search result You get the police clearance. You get the court search. You get the sex offender. At a price that not only can you afford, but a service you can not afford to pass up. We know there’s a problem . We've added up the results. We have the solution.

Corporate Screening Named 2012 Crain's Leading Edge Award Winner

Mon, 21 May 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Corporate Screening (CS), a leading provider of pre-employment background screening services, was named as a 2012 Crain’s Leading EDGE honoree, marking the fourth consecutive year that CS has won this award. Corporate Screening Services Inc. (CS), a leading provider of background screening services, has been recognized as a 2012 Crain’s Leading EDGE honoree. The Leading EDGE recognizes innovative businesses in Northeast Ohio that have generated significant value for themselves and the region, and 2012 marks the fourth consecutive year that CS has won this award. “We are very pleased to be recognized for the value that we bring to the Northeast Ohio community, and are excited to have received this award four years in a row,” said Greg Dubecky, President of Corporate Screening. “Corporate Screening’s commitment to providing our customers with high-quality, reliable products has helped us become an industry leader, and it’s this attention to detail that has led to our continued growth and success. It’s gratifying that others in the area also recognize us as a leading organization in the region.” The Entrepreneurs EDGE is a non-profit organization that is committed to helping middle-market companies in Northeast Ohio grow in value, while building a culture that is supportive of entrepreneurial ventures. The Leading EDGE Award identifies and honors value-creating, middle market companies that operate in Northeast Ohio, including divisions owned by companies located outside the region. This year’s award winners were recognized at an award dinner and program held at the University of Akron on May 16, 2012. About Corporate Screening Corporate Screening (www.CorporateScreening.com) is a Cleveland-based provider of pre-employment screening and background investigations for many of the nation’s top employers. As a leading investigative consultant to human resources and corporate security professionals, Corporate Screening combines state-of-the-art data gathering technology with in-depth examination and analysis to verify information and mitigate the risks associated with hiring employees. Corporate Screening’s professional staff of analysts and consultants serve the needs of hiring professionals representing a full spectrum of industries, with special emphasis on healthcare, financial services and manufacturing sectors.

How Many People Work In The USA And Are Still Poor?

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0500

In 2011, the US Department of Labor reported at least 10 million people worked and were still below the unrealistic official US poverty line, an increase of 1.5 million more than the last time they checked. The US poverty line is $18,530 for a mom and two kids. Since 2007 the numbers of working poor have been increasing. About 7 percent of all workers and 4 percent of all full-time workers earn wages that leave them below the poverty line.

The Background On Philippines NBI Clearances

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0500

by Steven Brownstein The Philippines NBI query a name. They'll get matching name results from all cases reported from the whole country without identifiers save for the jurisdiction. If the address on the application matches a jurisdiction they (the NBI) will send letter to that area's court asking the for personal identifiers (age, address..but not date of birth since no one, as a rule, records DOB on court records); and finally, if there's a match - the case info and dispositon. No match, no record. The applicant gets a clearance. So it goes for NBI clearances. Not too solid of a result. You might as well just do a city and regional court search.

Bogus Address Thwarts NBI Philippines Clearance - Employer Robbed

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0500

by Kawawang Ale, Philippines I would like to share to you the sad fate we faced with a maid who robbed us. Her name is Cecelia Lazo Pacis, a native of Lupao, Nueva Ecija, as evidenced by a copy of the police clearance presented to us. I was able to interview her on April 12 when she arrived with her Auntie Letty at my mother's house. She came with her auntie because according to her, she does not know much about Manila and is afraid to travel. At the course of the interview, she told me that she stayed in her last employer for three years. But when the granny she is taking care of died, she went back to Lupao. She further told me that she does not avail day-offs from her employer. She offered to bring a police clearance should we chose to hire her. Believing that this maid is a good person, we officially hired her as house help last April 18. We asked her, how she would like to be called, she told us to call her Celia. At the time she went to my mother's house with her aunt in tow, I was made to believe that she really knew very little about Manila. Their sincerity of coming to our place with her aunt is one factor why we hired her. The offer to present a police clearance is another factor. We still have an existing house help at home, Lorna, who is scheduled to leave first week of May. On April 19 and 20, first two days of working at our place, Celia showed no sign of irregularity. She even performed household chores very well. On April 21, the two maids were left at home as my husband and I have work. She made a story to Lorna that she knows of an employer who could give Lorna a high salary. She even offered to advance Lorna's fare to Baclaran. Believing on the story Celia concocted, Lorna went to Baclaran. According to Lorna, Celia gave the cell phone number of her Auntie Letty who will accompany the employer to Baclaran. They were exchanging text messages all along, updating Lorna of where they are (Auntie Letty and the employer) from time to time. Around 3pm, Auntie Letty texted Lorna to inform her that the bus encountered problems and had malfunctioned. She also told Lorna that she had terrible headache that time. She then instructed Lorna to go back home and will just text her the following day. Around 6pm, my husband and I arrived at our residence. No one was in there. Celia left the back door open. We were surprised to found out that Celia robbed us of all jewelries and my husband's personal valued stuffs. She forcibly opened our drawer with the use of a screwdriver. I checked on the maid's room and found out that she had no more personal belongings there. Lorna went home at around 8pm as the money offered by Celia as fare is not sufficient. We reported the incident to the barangay, went to two precincts and even went to address on the police clearance she presented, only to find out that she gave a fictitious address. We never imagined that this could happen to us because the maid is really good in concocting stories. I believe that Celia and her partner in crime, Auntie Letty have been doing this modus operandi for a long time as they have already perfected their story. You will not have any idea that she can do such crime because she acted really good. Even the people who have met her say that they couldn't believe that she can do it because of innocent looks. I hope that this modus operandi will serve as an eye opener to everyone and could only wish that we will be her last victim.

BRB Public Record News

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0500

New Law - Maryland Employers and Social Networks Maryland officially became the first state to pass legislation to prohibit employers from asking job applicants for their passwords to social network sites. House Bill 964 (cross filed with Senate Bill 433) prohibits the following: -an employer from requesting or requiring that an employee or applicant disclose any user name, password, or other means for accessing a personal account or service through specified electronic communications devices;
-an employer from taking, or threatening to take, specified disciplinary actions for an employee's refusal to disclose specified password and related information;
-an employee from downloading specified information or data; etc. The bill, signed by Governor O'Malley on May 2, 2012, is scheduled to take effect on October 1, 2012 and is viewable at http://mlis.state.md.us/2012RS/billfile/HB0964.htm. Per several news reports, Illinois and California also are close to passing similar legislations. And U.S. Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) have formally requested that the U.S. Attorney General look into the legalities of this practice by employers. New Oregon Driving Record System Pushed Back Several Months In late 2011, the Oregon Department of Administrative Services (DAS) signed an agreement with NIC, Inc. (www.egov.com) which enabled NIC to provide E-Government services on behalf of Oregon State Agencies. This includes electronic access to Oregon driving records by approved entities. It was hoped that the changeover would occur in early April 2012. However, it now appears as if will be late May or June 2012 before the new system will be implemented. The fee for an electronic driving record will increase to $9.68.

Note: No other DMV records are affected by the transition and fee increase. Until the new system is operational, qualified customers may still access Oregon driving records via the real time connection through AAMVAnet. Maryland Increases Validity Period for Driver License Documents The validity period for drivers 21 or older is changing effective Oct 1, 2012. Until that date license expiration occurs on birth day and month of 5th year; after that date the period expires on birth day and month of 8th year. If the driver is under 21, the period still expires 60 days after the 21st birthday. New EEOC Guidance The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's (EEOC) recently released an updated policy on employer's use of criminal records. If you are involved with the hiring process at your place of employment or if you are part of a consumer reporting agency, you are likely already aware of these new suggested standards. Many professional trade associations connected with employment groups or with background screening have issued clarification and guidance advice. But if you are not aware of these new guidelines, below is a very brief summary. The mission of the EEOC is to prohibit discrimination in the workplace. The EEOC does not create regulations or laws; the EEOC interprets and enforces them. The EEOC's updated policy on the use of criminal records by employers released on April 25, 2012 is the first formal guidance it has issued in 20 years on this subject. The new guidance is part of an effort to control employment practices that would limit job opportunities for minorities who have higher arrest and conviction rates than non-minorites. The guidance is found at www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/arrest_conviction.cfm

Press Release Writing 101: Five Steps to an Attention-Grabbing Lead

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0500

by Andrew Hindes You've got eight seconds. Or maybe just four. There are varying estimates as to the average amount of time journalists spend reading each of the hundreds of press releases and email pitches they receive each day before deciding whether to press delete or continue reading. If you're a small-business owner looking to get media exposure for your product or service, but you don't have the budget to hire a professional publicist, it's essential that you craft an attention-grabbing first paragraph (or "lead"). So how do you do that? Well, obviously it helps to have an amazing news story. The truth is, though, it's possible to pique a journalist's interest with a less than earth-shattering announcement. Conversely, a poorly written lead can turn him or her off before they've even read enough to realize your story is one they would consider running. Here are five essential tips for writing a lead that passes the eight-second test with flying colors 1) Get to the point: Don't start with a long wind-up; get to the meat of the story as quickly as possible. Imagine you're on an elevator and you've got just a few floors to tell the latest news about your company to someone important an investor, say, or a prospective client. Cover all the salient points the who, what, where, when and how as succinctly as possible. Once you've written it, read through your lead a few times to see if there are any extraneous words or phrases you can remove or move into subsequent paragraphs and still get the basic information across. 2) Give them a reason to care: In addition to the essential facts, the first paragraph should also include a sentence or even just a phrase that explains the significance of the announcement and why it will be of interest to a media outlet's audience. This might describe a problem the product or service will solve or how it will impact your community, industry or the world at large. For example: "After years of being underserved by supermarkets, residents in South Los Angeles will have a convenient new way to get fresh produce starting this summer", or "this innovation will significantly decrease the cost of installing solar power for many homeowners." 3) Hook 'em, Danno: If your announcement doesn't have any real broad implications, try tying it into something timely, such as a holiday, cultural event, season or trend. This is a great way to give journalists a "hook" to hang your story on. It also may help get it included in a larger piece or listing of, say, gift ideas, things to do, helpful tips, etc. Example: "Just in time for this summer's London Olympics, Technovision is announcing its latest line of high-definition televisions". 4) Strength in numbers: Powerful, easy-to-understand statistics are another good way to help journalists grasp the importance of your news and explain it to their readers. Example: "With 12.7 million people looking for work in the United States, it's no wonder many Americans are considering going back to school to learn a new skill". 5) Have some fun: If the subject of your announcement is humorous or quirky or lighthearted, you can be a little playful with the lead. Maybe start off with a one-sentence zinger or throw in a play on words. But don't overdo it: being funny in writing isn't easy and in the end you want journalists to take the press release seriously, so make sure it doesn't obscure the meaning of the announcement. Example: "They say every dog will have his day. Well one lucky Chicago dog is about to have a whole year of free dog food, that is! The Pet Food Barn today announced a new online contest". Aside from the headline, the lead paragraph is the most important part of any release. Following these tips will improve your chances of getting a journalist's attention and the coverage you want for your small business.

Unemployment Spurs Background Check Scams

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Hundreds of desperate job seekers have paid £50 for a criminal records check to clinch a job that doesn't exist. Many turned up for their first day of work as a security guard at the London offices of the Trades Union Congress only to be told they'd been scammed. Guards Force Security Ltd, the firm offering the supposed jobs, is not registered at Companies House. Victims paid £50 using online vouchers and were told the money would be refunded if they had no criminal record. "We've had around 200 people come here this year," said a TUC spokeswoman. These crooks, using the same 0845 166 1649 number, have pulled the same trick using fake company names such as All Site Services Ltd in Edinburgh, Eagle Security Ltd in Cardiff, Fusion Security Lld in Glasgow and even Lidl Warehouse Ltd in Birmingham. Other names used include Eurowine Warehouse, Omega Recruitment, Samsung Warehouse and Active Security Ltd. There is no link to genuine companies with similar names, who don't charge job applicants.

Kane County, IL Redacts Case Identifiers From Internet

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Since Kane County, IL Circuit Court Clerk's Office rolled out a beta version to access court records online and officials say they've received positive feedback so far. "It's easier to read the new system and it's much easier to use than jumping through the windows of the old program," said Karin Herwick, chief deputy court clerk. Officials introduced the beta version March 1 at the clerk's website and are still refining it. Herwick said there is no timetable to dismantle the old portal, but it eventually will be phased out. The new system does not show the dates of birth for defendants in criminal cases and that is because Circuit Clerk Deb Seyller wants to do everything she can to protect people's information, Herwick said. By summer, the office will have developed a system to allow some users, such as law enforcement and prosecutors, to have access to birth dates, Herwick said.

As Fast As Court Redacts, Straightline International Offers Kane County Case Identifications

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Tax Court Lags On Access

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The U.S. Tax Court is a powerful but obscure institution that has been opening itself up to the public, but only very slowly, and it still lags behind other courts on access. The court hears cases that range from warring spouses to high-stakes challenges by major corporations to the practices of the tax-collecting U.S. Internal Revenue Service. One case that could be decided any day, for instance, is a dispute involving Medtronic Inc and nearly $1 billion in taxes the IRS says the medical devices maker owes in relation to its Puerto Rican subsidiary. Another soon-to-be-decided case puts more than $350 million at stake in a fight between PepsiCo Inc and the IRS over how the beverages company financed a 1996 reorganization. Set up in 1924, the Tax Court makes decisions that shape U.S. tax law and guide corporate America. Yet its steady flow of legal filings is harder to access than filings at other courts. The Tax Court's orders and opinions are readily available online, but documents filed as part of its proceedings are not. Seeing these filings requires either a trip to the court to search its sole public computer or a request in writing. By contrast, proceedings of district, appellate and bankruptcy courts are on the Web through the widely used, paid site known as PACER, or Public Access to Court Electronic Records, run by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Tax Court officials say they have good reason to be less open to the public. They say they must balance openness with the need to protect taxpayer privacy. About three-quarters of the court's cases involve small taxpayers representing themselves. Personal tax records are confidential, so the court needs to respect that, Judge Mark Holmes and other officials told Reuters. "All of our publicly available records, apart from the very occasionally sealed cases, are available here at the courthouse just like in the old days," Holmes, on the court since 2003, said. "There are some problems with that, I understand." The court was slow to provide easy access to its opinions and orders on the Internet, doing so only in 2008, years after other courts went online. In June 2011, the Tax Court put orders issued by the court online in a searchable way, for free, without limits. But that excludes filings from aggrieved corporations or the IRS, including petitions, responses, depositions and the like. Copies of Tax Court documents cost 50 cents a page - five times the fee charged by PACER. TAX COURT CLASHES About 90 percent of all so-called IRS deficiency cases - in which the U.S. government says a taxpayer owes money in taxes - go through the Tax Court, according to the IRS. These cases can have a major impact on tax policy. A case involving employee stock options used by technology company Xilinx Inc that began in Tax Court is seen as guiding IRS policy on tax treatment of subsidiaries. Tax lawyers say a clash between the IRS and software company Veritas, now part of Symantec Corp, pushed the IRS to settle so-called transfer pricing cases rather than take them to court. "It is probably the most important court in interpreting tax law, short of the Supreme Court, because our mission is to create a uniform body of precedent for the country as a whole," Judge Holmes said. The court's primary allure? In district courts, which are the general trial courts in the United States, a taxpayer must first pay the government the taxes it wants, then dispute the payment and hope for a refund. In Tax Court, a $60 fee gets the taxpayer's case moving and puts any disputed payment on hold. There are other differences. A DIFFERENT ARTICLE The Tax Court began as a board of judges set up as an independent federal agency to hear tax disputes in 1924. In 1969, Congress removed its administrative agency status. Chief Judge John Colvin is one of 19 presidentially appointed Tax Court judges, who can serve multiple 15-year terms, but are not appointed for life like most other judges. Colvin was originally appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1988. Colvin, who was tax counsel for Senate Republicans before joining the court, has been chief judge since 2006. The Tax Court operates under a different article of the Constitution than most of the judicial branch does. It has its own distinct rules. Here are some of its quirks: * There are no juries; * Rules of evidence are less stringent; * The court is not covered by the rules of civil procedure or the Administrative Procedures Act; * Court judges travel to dozens of cities to hear cases. "They sort of exist in their own world," said Richard Pildes, a New York University professor and part of a legal team that successfully challenged the secrecy of some Tax Court proceedings, a case that made it to the Supreme Court in 2005. In that case, the Supreme Court delved into Tax Court accountability in a dispute over the secrecy of reports by special trial judges, who handle some smaller cases. The high court ruled that the Tax Court may not exclude the special trial judge findings from the public record, calling the court's policy "idiosyncratic." "The Tax Court's practice is extraordinary, for it is routine in federal judicial and administrative decision making both to disclose a hearing officer's initial report ... and to make that report part of the record available to an appellate forum," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote in a 7-to-2 ruling. When the actual findings of the special trial judge were made public, the taxpayers were vindicated, said Pildes, the lawyer who represented the plaintiffs. "That case sent a signal to the Tax Court - if you're going to be a court, you have to act like a court and be transparent in decision making," said Norman Williams, a law professor at Willamette University who follows the court.

"We Will No Longer Sell NYC Housing Court Records"

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Some good? news for those of you who pick fights with your landlords, or who are harassed by them for no good reason: New York courts are going to stop selling your names to companies that make it harder for you to secure your next apartment. This policy change in the New York State Unified Court System is going after a phenomenon called "tenant blacklisting," where landlords basically reject potential tenants whose names are on a list, which says they have been parties in housing court actions. These lists don't say what they've done, or what the situation was, or if the tenant brought the landlord to court, or visa-versa. It just says that the tenant was involved in housing court at some point, and because there's such a high demand for housing in the city, that's often reason enough for landlords to immediately reject an applicant. In some cases, landlords may even mistake a potential tenant for someone on the list with the same first and last name. Basic housing court records have typically been sold to tenant screening companies that create lists, which landlords and real estate management agents use to filter out tenants. Now, State Senator Liz Krueger announced today, that information -- maintained by hundreds of tenant screening companies across the country -- will no longer be sold electronically, which Krueger hopes would greatly curb discriminatory practices. Chief Administrative Judge A. Gail Prudenti sent a letter to Krueger, who represents parts of Manhattan, informing her that the courts would stop these sales as of June 1st, 2012. Information regarding individual cases will still be available through the Unified Civil Courts' eCourts website and in the Housing Court clerks' offices, but those avenues would require interested parties to actively seek out the information. Krueger and a coalition of electeds and tenants' advocates brought the issue to Prudenti's attention earlier this year. "It has had a freezing impact on people's abilities to find new apartments," Krueger told the Voice today. "It has translated into people fearing going to housing court...because they are terrified of being blacklisted." She said that the practice has particularly impacted low-income residents seeking apartments, since there is such a shortage of truly affordable housing in the city. The fundamental problem, she said, is that tenants can end up on these lists having done nothing wrong. "No matter what the realities are about you, or your ability to pay rent, or your reputation as a good neighbor, none of that matters." It has been a bit of a tough issue to tackle, in part because Krueger didn't want want to restrict access to public documents that must be available. "But how do you stop exploitation...and the totally flawed use of information?" This latest move, she said, would make it so that landlords could not simply cross-check every person who wants an apartment with a centralized list. Krueger said she plans on monitoring the impact of this policy shift to see if it stops the discriminatory practices. "It's outrageous, and it's been going on for years," she said. "We all need to watch what happens."

Obama's EEOC Runs Amok

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0500

by Jennifer Rubin The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), th agency that enforces federal anti-discrimination laws, shook up employers and the employment defense bar when it issued new "guidelines" on employers' use of arrests and convictions in making hiring decisions. In short the EEOC decided: "An employer's neutral policy (e.g., excluding applicants from employment based on certain criminal conduct) may disproportionately impact some individuals protected under Title VII, and may violate the law if not job related and consistent with business necessity (disparate impact liability)." In other words, because African Americans are disproportionately represented among the population of convicts, if an employer decides, for nonracial reasons, he doesn't want to risk hiring someone with a conviction on his record he can look forward to being sued. There are multiple problems with the guidelines, some obvious and some not. Three members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (a separate entity from the EEOC) wrote a letter on May 4 to relevant House committee and subcommittee chairmen responsible for appropriations and oversight of the EEOC (and the Justice Department more generally). It read in part: As a result of this new guidance, employers will be put in the double-bind of (1) using background checks and risking litigation or even liability for an alleged violation of Title VII or of (2) seriously curtailing or abandoning background checks altogether for fear of violating Title VII and, as a result, risking criminal or inappropriate conduct by employees and negligent hiring lawsuits. They have been put in this position by the EEOC in service to the conventional wisdom that more stringent restrictions on employers' use of background checks will improve the employment prospects of minority workers, who are disproportionately more likely to have criminal histories than non-minorities, according to the agency. In particular, the commissioners cited two studies that found that "employers who do not use criminal background checks may be less likely to hire African-Americans because they are using race, age, or other characteristics as proxies for past criminal history. In other words, in the absence of the salutary information that may be provided by a criminal background check, especially where a candidate has a weak employment history, some employers discriminate statistically against black men." Now aside from potentially handicapping the applicants it is trying to help, the EEOC has created a minefield for employers. One of the signatories on the May 4 letter, Peter Kirsanow, who is also a practicing labor letter, told me via e-mail: "The new guidance on criminal background checks is an overreach by the EEOC trying to micromanage employers who the agency presumes have bad intentions. Even if well-meaning, its approach will wind up hurting its intended beneficiaries." In addition to the unintended impact on African American male job applicants, there are several infirmities with the guidelines. First, the EEOC assumes the national statistics on African American conviction rates are true in every local job market. In fact, there may be no such disparity in a given community, and the EEOC nevertheless is creating an additional hurdle to job creation, especially for small and less-sophisticated employers struggling to comply. It is a cure in search of a problem in many instances. Second, the EEOC has no authority to issue binding guidelines on this or any other topic. In the May 4 letter the commissioners observed: We note that Congress intentionally withheld rulemaking authority from the EEOC when it passed Title VII of the Civil Right Act of 1964.4 The EEOC has nevertheless taken it upon itself to issue "guidances" that effectively substitute for rules a very troubling practice given Congress's clear intent that the EEOC refrain from rulemaking. In this case, the guidelines were issued in an especially capricious fashion. According to informed sources, the policy was not made public until after it was voted on, so there was no opportunity for employers to have anything approaching the type of appropriate notice and comment necessary to truly vet the pros and cons of the policy. Third, the EEOC guidelines would require employers to conduct a case-by-case evaluation of each applicant based on the sort of job at issue, the type of conviction, the time since the conviction and the seriousness of the conviction. If the employer decides after looking at all these factors that he can't risk hiring the person, the applicant has an open invitation to go to the EEOC or to court to second guess whether the employer was justified in rejecting him. And finally, the guidelines set up a maze for employers trying to abide by state law, as one expert explains: The new guidance operates to strip employers of the safe harbor of defending their use of criminal background checks by reference to their need to comply with state and local laws that mandate exclusion of applicants with certain types of convictions from certain types of employment. Under the new guidance, the EEOC takes the position that Title VII will preempt any state and local laws the agency believes "purport[] to require or permit the doing of any act which would be an unlawful employment practice under Title VII." Thus, if the EEOC finds that an employer's exclusionary policy or practice is not job related and consistent with business necessity, the employer will face liability for disparate impact discrimination under Title VII. It is not difficult for employers to be caught in the legal crossfire of conflicting mandates from varying levels of government. Under the EEOC's view of preemption, the agency can indirectly challenge or put pressure on a state or local statutory criminal background check requirement it disagrees with by subjecting the employers subject to compliance with those jurisdictions' laws to Title VII liability. Over time, the pressure brought to bear by federal litigation in this area will likely crowd out the considered judgments of state and local legislatures regarding workplace, customer and employee safety. Can a police department enforce a ban on hiring any convicted felon? Doesn't seem like it. Can a bank impose a flat rule that no one convicted of financial crime can handle cash? Not unless he wants to get sued. This is par for the Obama Justice Department. Under the guise of preventing "discrimination," the EEOC exceeds its legal authority, handcuffs employers, disregards legitimate and sane policies aimed at protecting the public and employers, and comes up with a position that is likely to increase the incidence of discrimination. This is government run amok, brimming with self-righteousness and oblivious to real-world concerns. In fact, that's an apt description of the entire Obama administration.

NAPBS Accreditation: The Grandfathering Issue

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0500

by Derek Hinton Answer: The La Brea Tar Pits.
Question: What do you have left after eating the La Brea Tar Peaches?
---Johnny Carson as "Carnac the Magnificent" The Le Brea tar pits in Los Angeles contain fossils ranging from saber tooth cats to Mammoths to dire wolves. If you are typical of many Consumer Reporting Agencies and have been in business any length of time your files probably contain some fossilized contracts with clients'contracts that do not contain all the stipulations that are required to become accredited. At the NAPBS accreditation meeting in Nashville, the question came up about these "fossilized contracts." The question was "The accreditation standard requires that our contract with employers contain certain stipulations." If our existing contract does not contain a required stipulation, do we have to go back to several hundred clients and get them to sign a new agreement that does contain the missing stipulation or, can we just revise our contract to contain the stipulation and go forward? The answer was that you do NOT have to go back and get previous clients to sign new contracts "but you DO need to revise your current contract and use it going forward. Many CRAs have reviewed the accreditation standard for client agreements, looked at their client agreement, looked at their client list, pondered the process for having all these clients sign a new agreement" and taken a nap on accreditation. The flexibility of grandfathering some of these contracts should wake you up from your nap if this has been the problem. But with that said, I'll do some editorializing: If your contract is close, but missing a little something, I would make the change and begin using the new contract without going back. On the other hand, if you have a contract that is missing, say, an agreement by your client that they must have a permissible purpose or agreement to abide by the FCRA, I would make an effort to update old contracts. The reason is that if there is an issue from a consumer, regulatory agency or even the client, a sub-standard agreement could ruin your P/L statement for the year. The accreditation standard is not fluff. Werner Heisenberg, the famous German theoretical physicist who made foundational contributions to quantum mechanics (and a lot of other stuff I don't understand) had a quote that is easier to understand: "An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in his subject and how to avoid them." The NAPBS accreditation standard is an expert blueprint for Consumer Reporting Agencies "the worst mistakes to avoid, the best practices to incorporate, and the requirement to document and internalize the program. And when you find yourself as the defendant (or potential defendant) in a lawsuit, or in the crosshairs of a state or federal regulator's inquiry" those practices and documentation will matter. And so if the prospect of retroactively getting signatures from hundreds or thousands of old clients is holding you back from accreditation, think again.

New Computer System In South Dakota

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The public eventually should have better access to court case information with a new computer system being installed throughout South Dakota, a court official said. It's also the first full overhaul of the Unified Judicial System's case management system in about 25 years, an official said. The new program, called Odyssey, went live this week in the Brown County-based 5th Judicial Circuit, said Patricia Duggan, state court administrator for the South Dakota judicial system. In fall, six of the 14 counties in the 3rd Judicial Circuit, based in Brookings County, started using Odyssey as part of a pilot program, Duggan said. The remaining eight counties in the 3rd Circuit also switched to Odyssey this week. The old system, a collection of programs authored in-house and called Legacy, is still being used in other judicial circuits. At the Brown County clerk of courts office in Aberdeen, the switch to a new system is going well, said Elisha Kuhfeld, deputy clerk. It's helped that representatives from the Texas-based Tyler Technologies have been around to help with the transition, she said.

Dennis Brownstein's Extreme Court News Blog

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The Most Imperfect Crime: Criminal Films Video of Himself With Stolen Camera Crime doesn't pay is a cliche. "Crime doesn't pay when you get caught" is an ironclad fact. Apparently at least one would-be thief missed both these lessons. The criminal involved "Houaka Yang from La Crosse, Wisconsin" breaks all records for poor impulse control. Yang, who apparently was passing by a parking lot where a local campaign worker had left his camcorder, decided to steal the camcorder for no apparent reason other than just wanting a camcorder. Fortunately for the owner, the object was eventually recovered, but for the time being, Yang was not apprehended. That is, until the original owner went to use the camcorder to film an event, and discovered a charming home movie when trying to play back the footage. This is where things get stupid. Not only did Yang film himself talking to a friend, but he actually looked directly into the camera and introduced himself, all while being confident that the police wouldn't find out what he'd done. "This is my house, yes, and a stolen camera that I stole. But it's OK, the cop won't figure it out," Yang says. "Oh yeah, to introduce you, my name is Houaka Yang. So yeah, how do you do? And this is me. Hi." Working Hours Cut - Now No Working Hours A Salt Lake City man has been charged by prosecutors for setting fire to the roof of the convenience store where he was an employee after his hours had been cut. Talk about dumb! Provo Police: Stupidity Eruption Unless there's been a recent change in Provo police uniforms, green speedos are not regulation attire. And when an officer removes his pants and jokingly approaches staff members at a local high school while on duty, he is not acting in accordance with the professional standards of behavior expected of a member of the force. Those two things seem obvious to most people. Why they wouldn't be obvious to a Provo police officer last week is a mystery. Cody Harris, who was assigned to Provo High School as a resource officer, is under investigation for what has been reported as inappropriate actions in connection with a birthday party for a female staff member. The party had a "Princess and the Frog" theme, and Harris is said to have been the frog. The birthday girl was ushered into a room where Harris's pants came off, revealing skimpy green underwear. If reports are true, the woman screamed and turned away from faux advances by the frog. And then adolescent office staffers "students" joined the party. The pants apparently went back on until the principal, who was late for the party, entered the room. But then they came down again and the frog went for hugs, according to a source. The incident recalls other another "joke" by Provo officers equally inappropriate. In 2010, two officers answering a bank alarm approached a female college student sitting in a car and pretended to treat her as a robbery suspect or terrorist, as a straight-faced practical joke. Not surprisingly, the woman was frightened.

Failed Drug Tests Hinder Hiring At Ohio Businesses

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0500

According to a new survey, almost half of Ohio manufacturing companies have rejected a candidate for an hourly position because of a failed drug test in the past year. Across all industries in the state, 25.5 percent of businesses said they had to dismiss otherwise qualified applicants for an hourly position, but for manufacturing only it was 47.5 percent, according to the survey done by Employers Resource Council for the Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services Board of Cuyahoga County. The results appear to back up the anecdotal assertion that one reason Ohio employers are slow to fill vacancies is rampant drug abuse.

Les Rosen's Corner Les Is Quoted On NPR

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0500

In an article recently published on the National Public Radio (NPR) website, Attorney and safe hiring expert Lester Rosen, founder and CEO of background check firm Employment Screening Resources (ESR), says employers must perform a kind of balancing act with background checks since "every story of a person denied a job because of some youthful indiscretion decades in the past" is usually balanced by a "case of a registered sex offender whose record was not properly checked before being hired for a job involving interaction with the public." The NPR article "How Much Can Potential Employers Ask About You?"is available at: http://www.npr.org/2012/05/21/153201730/how-much-can-potential-employers-ask-about-you. "Our approach has been, there should be a job for everybody, but not everyone is appropriate for every job," says Rosen, the author of "The Safe Hiring Manual," the first comprehensive guide to background checks. According to a recent study by the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) Broken Records: How Errors by Criminal Background Checking Companies Harm Workers and Businesses more than 90 percent of U.S. employers conduct criminal background checks on at least on some job candidates. "You don't want to have a police state," adds Rosen, a frequent speaker on background check issues as part of the "ESR Speaks' program, but you also don't want any liar or miscreant to get any job they want." In the NPR article, Rosen says current regulatory pressures and lawsuits over misinformation will help "cull the herd a bit" and lead more employers to use reliable and professional background check companies instead of "cheap vendors that charge only $10 or $20 and then perform cursory searches of databases often riddled with inaccurate information" as described in the article. USA Company Forfeits $2 Million To Satisfy Illegal Hiring Claim The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) " the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)" recently announced in a press release that a Houston, Texas-based tree trimming company has avoided criminal prosecution for employing illegal workers by agreeing to forfeit $2 million to the DHS related to revenue derived from the employment of illegal workers. The company has also agreed to adhere to revised immigration compliance procedures that include the use of E-Verify, a free electronic employment eligibility verification system run by the U.S. government. The press release from ICE is available at: http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/1205/120518houston.htm. According the press release, ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents began investigating ABC Professional Tree Services Inc. (ABC) in 2008 following complaints that a significant portion of the company's employees were undocumented aliens. HIS agents reviewed the Employment Eligibility Verification Forms, known as "Form I-9" , and other documentation for approximately 2,500 employees at the company. As of the second quarter of 2009, the inspection had revealed that "a significant number of employees", about 30 percent of the workforce, consisted of undocumented aliens who had presented invalid personal identification information when hired.

Early Jail Release Might Be A Bad Thing

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0500

A prisoner who was granted a special remission of sentence is back behind bars after breaking into a house and raping a woman because he was bored. The man was released from a prison in Wepener, Free State (South Africa) on May 8 and allegedly committed housebreaking and rape offences on May 22. According to the Department of Correctional Services, the man said he had committed the crimes because he had nothing to do. The man is one of the 37 783 prisoners who were released from prisons across the country after President Jacob Zuma granted a remission of sentence to certain categories of prisoners. He is not the only one back in jail. Within a month of their early release, 47 are already back behind bars for murder, rape, attempted murder, robbery, assault, kidnapping, theft, stock theft, possession of drugs, possession of stolen goods and housebreaking. When asked why they committed the crimes so soon after their release, they have blamed boredom, homelessness, hunger, poverty, drug addiction and unemployment as the reason they re-offended.

One of the offenders arrested for theft said she had committed the crime intentionally to be re-arrested and put back in prison because she had nowhere to stay after her release. The woman, who had been freed from Pretoria Female Correctional Services, was arrested for theft four days after her release. Another man, who had initially been arrested for assault, committed murder just after being pardoned. The Thohoyandou, Limpopo, man had been out for only two days. "He is alleged to have gone home and found his girlfriend with another lover. A fight broke out and he is alleged to have killed the girlfriend's lover. He handed himself to the police, who arrested him, but he later committed suicide in the cells," said Department of Correctional Services spokeswoman Sibongile Khumalo. One man, who was initially arrested for attempted murder, was released and re-arrested for attempted murder soon after gaining his freedom. Another man from Beaufort West, Western Cape, who faces a charge of stock theft, said hunger was the reason for his crime. The animal he stole has not been specified but the man said there was no food at home and his family was hungry. Many of the crimes committed are housebreakings and theft and, according to Khumalo, the re-offenders claimed that poverty, unemployment and the need to feed their drug habits drove them to commit the crime. Another man, who was on parole for housebreaking and theft, was arrested a few hours after being freed. Khumalo said that as part of his conditions, Correctional Services officials used to check on him periodically at home. However, on May 9, they told him that he was now a free man and would no longer be getting visits. A few hours later, however, he was behind bars for housebreaking and theft. Khumalo said that although the prisoners had been released in a gesture of humanity, those that had re-offended had spat in the face of the government which released them. "And other departments are affected, too. The police have to hunt them and take them to police stations. The Justice Department has to invest time and efforts to bring the suspects to court and sentence them."

PA Removes Cases From Online Search Results

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The office that oversees the operation of Pennsylvania's courts has removed millions of court records from its electronic database. It only affects minor cases such as speeding, disorderly conduct, public drunkenness and landlord-tenant cases. Whereas in the past, these were available indefinitely, they will now be unavailable electronically after three years of final disposition of the case or after fines have been paid. The Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts says the change brings magisterial district court retention schedule in compliance with the State Supreme Court. The information will still be available in printed form and for a fee.

Canadian Students Get More Than They Ask For

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Protesting students may be collecting photos, videos and placards as souvenirs from these heady revolutionary days, but those who are arrested and fingerprinted may end up with a memory that haunts them for years. Even without a conviction, the traces of run-ins with the law cannot be completely erased in these days of surveillance and indelible record-keeping, making it difficult to travel to the United States or get a job, say legal experts and border control agents. "There are dangers associated with this whole thing that many of the students and their parents are unaware of," said lawyer Julius Grey, who is representing a handful of the more than 65 students who face criminal charges. Many hundreds more have been charged under provincial Bill 78, but only received tickets, which, once paid, don't leave a trace. The criminal charges include mischief, obstruction of justice, conspiracy, break and enter, assaulting a police officer and terrorist hoax - charges that are serious and can carry heavy sentences. "Fighting tooth and nail for an unconditional discharge" in court is the only way to avoid headaches in the future, Grey said. Even if it is on the record somewhere, it's not as bad as a conviction or an acquittal. Students who are convicted can eventually apply for a pardon, but only five years after completing a sentence for a summary conviction and after 10 years for an indictable offence. The fee has recently been increased from $150 to $631 and it can take up to a year to process. But a pardon isn't recognized in the United States, so travel to that country would still be prohibited for certain crimes. Right now, driving under the influence, breaking and entering, disorderly conduct and simple assault are not considered crimes that make a person inadmissible to the US, although if there are multiple convictions and or other misdemeanors, one could be denied entry, according to the U.S. Customs Border Protection website. Gregory Bennett, chief customs and border protection officer, wouldn't reveal much about information they have access to, but said there are many variables in deciding who is admissable. "Sometimes we have to look at the actual court records, and I know that people don't usually travel with those, so sometimes we have to request that they bring them next time and send them back," he said. Still, charges that are admissable today, may not be in future, warns Grey. "People do not know that our modern society in the last few years has become absolutely inflexible on criminal records," he said. "There are basically two classes of people - those who have been punished for something and those who haven't. "And as soon as you're convicted and not given an absolution you join a permanent underclass of people without full rights." Scott Mindel, a counsellor at Pardons Canada, a non-profit organization that helps people apply for pardons, said he fields about 50 calls a day from people who find they can't travel or get work because of a run-in with the law. "Once anyone is fingerprinted, there is a record of it," he said. "Even if it goes to court and the judge throws it out, they still have their fingerprints in the system and it will affect them for jobs and travel for the rest of their lives." People with records can apply for a waiver to travel to the U.S., which requires filling out myriad forms, paying $585, then waiting for up to a year. The first waiver is valid for a year, then the whole process, including paying the fee, must be repeated. "These kids have no idea what's ahead of them," Mindel said. "They walk away (from being arrested) and protest again until they wake up one day and say holy cow, I was an idiot." Background checks have become routine for jobs such as nurses, police officers, security guards and volunteers. "There are many people who want to show up the government, but they don't know just how heavy a price they are paying," Grey said. "If it were only a fine, or if it were only the inconvenience of being locked up for a day, I could understand putting on a show." "But 30 years from now they may be cursing the day...."

Drivers Need Background Checks

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Examining 10,037 of the road-rage incidents, the AAA study found only 413 involved females as perpetrators. The majority of aggressive drivers "are relatively young, relatively poorly educated males who have criminal records, histories of violence, and drug or alcohol problems," the researchers said.

Alberta: Being Gay No Longer A Mental Illness

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The province has rewritten controversial billing codes that treated sexual minorities as people with mental disorders akin to bestiality and pedophilia. After more than 15 years of pressure from advocacy groups, the Progressive Conservatives have replaced the offending section with modern language that says gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and queer Albertan's are not suffering from a mental illness. "The old version did say (homosexuality) was a mental disorder, so patients who were seeking treatment for whatever reason, were being classified as having a mental disorder," Health Minister Fred Horne said, noting the change came into effect at the end of May. "Under our billing system, it is no longer classified as a mental disorder."

Nightmare Graduation Ends In Criminal Record

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0500

A South Carolina woman said police escorted her out of her daughter's graduation for cheering and charged her with disorderly conduct. Shannon Cooper said she was escorted out of the South Florence High School graduation at Florence Civic Center for cheering when her daughter, Iesha Cooper, 18, received her diploma. "Humiliation. I don't even think humiliation could describe how I felt. You know, because I feel from just my feelings and then looking at my daughter how she felt, I could take you know you know if I did something ,but like I said, yes they said you'll be escorted out no problem. I'll be escorted out. I'll go nicely because I'm gonna cheer. It was hard work. I went through so much to get her to this point you know," Cooper said. Police refused to comment on individual cases but said the crowd was warned anyone who cheered or screamed would be escorted out of the building. They said people who exhibited disorderly behavior while being escorted out were charged with disorderly conduct. "Disorderly conduct? What's the disorderly conduct? How was I so disorderly you know any different from just a happy parent? I didn't resist arrest, nothing," said Cooper, who was released a few hours after her arrest on $225 bond

South Africans Start Suing Over Criminal Record Errors

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0500

A man from Zwartkop, Centurion (South Africa), who had a "criminal record" for the past 20 years, of which he only became aware through a personnel agency, is claiming R4 million in damages from the Minister of Police for his failure to find a job and for the humiliation he had suffered. The Pretoria High Court also ordered that the minister had to, within 21 days, see to it that the name of Eliza Marthinus Lotz is removed from the criminal record system. Lotz stated in court papers that he only discovered he had "a criminal record for reckless or negligent driving" after he was turned down for a job and the personnel agency told him it was because of his "criminal record". According to police records, he was convicted of this crime in 1991. Lotz said he does not have a criminal record as he had never been charged with or convicted of any crime. He told the police to rectify their records, but apart from saying they were working on the problem, nothing had been done. "In spite of numerous requests, the police are refusing to rectify this. The effect of this is that the credit bureaus also refused to rectify their records as their information comes from the criminal records centre," he said. Lotz stated that he qualified as a gunsmith in 1993 after leaving school. Over the years he was employed at various businesses, which mostly closed down. He also tried to set up his own businesses, which mostly failed, and he battled to obtain a decent job. Since 1991 his details were at various personnel agencies, but his applications were always turned down but no reasons were given to him, he said. This was until he was told in 2005 that it was because he had "a criminal record". Lotz said apart from the fact that this tainted his good name and reputation, it has also had "for the past 20 years" a grave influence on his career path.

"This defamation is continuing because the police refuse to rectify the situation." Lotz is claiming R1 million for his reputation, which he said had been tainted. In a further claim, he is suing the police for R3 million in damages due to a loss of income as he had failed to find a decent job. Lotz stated that as a child he had big dreams of one day becoming a pilot or "one of the best soldiers in the country". At school he studied in a technical field and he believed that he could realise his dreams one day by "making a plan himself", he said. This was, however, shattered by his "criminal record". "Throughout my life no personnel agency assisted me in finding a decent job. I always had to make do with a non-sustainable job. "As my father, who worked himself up from being a cashier to a top manager at Absa, I also had a dream to work myself up from nothing to something at a stable company." Lotz said before he learned about his "criminal record", he had for 15 years prior to that no idea why he could not get a decent job. He is now pinning his hopes, "armed with his clean record", on finding a decent job. This is so he can afford a house, obtain a pension and build a life for himself, as "most people of his age group have already done". "Due to someone else's negligence, I now have a backlog in life. The knowledge that I had "a criminal record" broke down my self-esteem. It also caused me not to want to go for interviews, as I knew I would not get the job." Lotz said he wanted to "become someone" in life and take care of his daughter, so she would have a better life. The court ordered that his name must be removed from the criminal records system, but his claim for damages was postponed indefinitely.

Reality Show Helps Close Murder Case

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0500

A casual remark made by a teenager during a reality show on television led to the detection of a gruesome triple murder, committed in 2008 in Villuppuram district, police sources. M. Bhargavi, 17, who was speaking on a Tamil television programme about how parents objected to love marriages, said that her father was opposed to such relationships and had murdered a man, his daughter and her boyfriend. He buried the bodies near her house in M. Kuchipalayam village. After the programme was telecast on May 20, a woman lodged a complaint with the Villuppuram police stating that her husband and daughter were missing since 2008.

Dennis Brownstein's Extreme Court News

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Police Gone Wild A South Carolina woman said police escorted her out of her daughter's graduation for cheering and charged her with disorderly conduct. Shannon Cooper said she was escorted out of the South Florence High School graduation at Florence Civic Center for cheering when her daughter, Iesha Cooper, 18, received her diploma. "Humiliation. I don't even think humiliation could describe how I felt. You know, because I feel from just my feelings and then looking at my daughter how she felt, I could take you know you know if I did something ,but like I said, yes they said you'll be escorted out no problem. I'll be escorted out. I'll go nicely because I'm gonna cheer. It was hard work. I went through so much to get her to this point you know," Cooper said. Police refused to comment on individual cases but said the crowd was warned anyone who cheered or screamed would be escorted out of the building. They said people who exhibited disorderly behavior while being escorted out were charged with disorderly conduct. "Disorderly conduct? What's the disorderly conduct? How was I so disorderly you know any different from just a happy parent? I didn't resist arrest, nothing," said Cooper, who was released a few hours after her arrest on $225 bond

Security Officers Gone Wild Jose Marcos Picazo called his father on and told him he was going shopping at Walmart and made plans to meet with him for lunch the next day. A few hours later, he was dead. According to officials, 41-year-old Picazo, of Azusa, California, died while trying to fight off security workers at the Covina Walmart after being accused of shoplifting from the store. The man's mother, Rosa Picazo, said she does not understand what happened since her son had money and did not need to steal anything. "It doesn't make any sense," she said. According to sheriff's investigators, Picazo tried to leave the Covina store without paying for clothes, body wash and other items in his shopping cart. As two loss prevention workers detained Picazo for petty theft, he began to fight with them, said Lieutenant Holly Francisco, of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. When Covina police arrived on the scene, Picazo was being restrained by security officers and appeared to be in medical distress. Police called paramedics who transported him to the hospital, where he later passed away. It was not clear why store security did not call for medics. An autopsy will be performed on Picazo to determine the cause of death, but in the meantime, his family said they have yet to see his body. The family was told by the hospital that Picazo had bumps and scrapes on his face as well as some bruising, according to Picazo's brother, Frank. Two unnamed Walmart security officers were suspended with pay pending the sheriff's investigation. Members of the Covina store's loss prevention team are not carrying weapons, and Walmart has an outside security company to provide assistance at some locations, according to a spokesperson. Lieutenant Francisco said there were witnesses who saw the altercation, and investigators plan to look at any surveillance video taken from inside or outside the store. Rosa Picazo said while her son has had problems with alcohol and drugs, he was not violent or aggressive, and before his death he was clean and sober. "He was a very helpful person and always asked what he could do for others," she said. When Picazo called his father on to make lunch plans, the 41-year-old said he had just received his government assistance check, so there was no reason for him to shoplift, according to his mother. Mrs Picaso added that her husband had seen their son a day before his death, and he seemed fine. However, the 41-year-old man was admitted to a hospital that same day for an unspecified medical condition. He was released later with a clean bill of health, she said. "My concern is that he didn't have the help he needed to save his life," Mrs Picazo said. This is not the first time that a person accused of shoplifting from a Walmart store has died. In 2005, Stacy Clay Driver, aged 29, of Cleveland, Ohio, was accused of exchanging stolen items to get $94 worth of store credit on a gift certificate in a Walmart store in Houston, Texas, the Houston Chronicle has reported. Witnesses said Walmart loss prevention workers chased Driver to the parking lot and wrestled him to the ground before pinning and handcuffing the shirtless man face down with hands behind his back. During a struggle that lasted up to 30 minutes, according to some witnesses, Driver begged employees to release him and call an ambulance. The father of a two-month-old son eventually stopped breathing and later died In 2007, Walmart agreed to a $750,000 settlement with Driver's family. None of the security officers, however, were indicted in the case.

CRB (Engalnd) Gets Raves From Public In New Survey

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Earlier this year, the CRB commissioned Ipsos Mori (a market research company) to conduct two strands of customer research to find out what registered bodies and applicants thought of our service. The results of the research are extremely positive, some of the key findings include: applicant satisfaction with the overall experience of the CRB is at an all time high of 92% (62% very satisfied) registered body satisfaction remains extremely high at 93% (with 45% being very satisfied) almost 9 in 10 applicants (89%) say the CRB is making a positive difference in protecting children and vulnerable adults in this country more than 9 out of 10 organisations say CRB checks improves their ability to protect children and vulnerable adults there is overwhelming support from registered bodies and applicants for CRB checks on those working with children or vulnerable adults in a voluntary or paid capacity

What Is A Registered Body At CRB (England)?

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0500

A registered body is an organisation that is registered to access the CRB checking service. Registered bodies are entitled to ask exempted questions under the Exceptions Order to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (ROA) 1974 Exceptions Order 1975 and access the CRB's services to check the staff that they recruit directly to eligible posts. Some registered bodies may also undertake checks for other organisations that provide eligible positions but which are not themselves directly registered with the CRB. This is referred to as offering an umbrella service. Organisations who offer an umbrella service are entitled to countersign applications on behalf of people or organisations that are entitled to ask exempted questions.

The registered body's role is to: check and validate the information provided by the applicant on the application form establish the true identity of the applicant, through the examination of a range of documents using guidance provided by the CRB ensure the application form is fully completed and the information it contains is accurate countersign applications to confirm that the organisation has an entitlement to access criminal record information comply with the CRB's code of practice

Checking English Driving Licences

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0500

English, Welsh and Scottish driving licence numbers contain information about the applicant's name, sex and date of birth. This information is written in a special format but can be gleaned and matched against the information provided by the applicant in Section A. Please note that the date of birth on English, Welsh and Scottish driving licences, issued before1977, is not recorded as a separate entry on the licence. The date of birth can be deciphered from the driving licence number and checked against the date of birth field on the application form. For example the format of the number for Christine Josephine Robinson, born 2 July 1975
R O B I N 7 5 7 0 2 5 C J 9 9 9 0 1
N N N N N Y M M D D Y I I C C C C C * N = 1st five letters of the surname (if the surname begins MAC or MC it is treated as MC for all). * Y = YEAR of birth. * M = MONTH of birth (In the case of a female, the number represented by the first M will have the value 5 added to the first digit e.g. a female born in November (i.e. 11) would display '61' in the MM boxes or if born in February (i.e. 02) would display "52").

* D = DAY of month of birth. * I = Initial letter of the first two forenames - if only one, then 9 will replace the second letter. If the licence indicates that the applicant has a middle name, ensure that one has been provided in Section A. * C = Computer generated. Please note, for Northern Ireland; Isle of Man and Jersey driving licences the licence number is in a different format. The licence number is unique to the driver and the "name" or "date of birth" validation, as shown above, cannot be used.

UK: 5.4 Million Drivers Have Driving License Points

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The UK insurance industry makes millions from speed cameras, while the Transport Minister uses a detector to avoid his own ticket cameras.
Nearly five and a half million UK drivers have demerit points on their license according to a poll released today. If accurate, the British insurance industry would collect an estimated £375 million (US $650 million) from the increased insurance premiums charged to those with traffic tickets. Motorists pay this amount on top of the £135 million (US $230 million) they pay to government agencies for the tickets themselves. Direct Line commissioned the YouGov survey of 2430 adults. Just eight percent of license points came from tickets issued by a police officer. The rest coming from automated speed cameras. Sixteen percent or 5.4 million motorists reported receiving at least one ticket. Another 750,000 drivers had six points and 160,000 had nine points putting them on the verge of losing their license. A majority of motorists, 61 percent, believe the speed cameras are simply "revenue raisers." Some safety advocates go further and say the points system is making driving more dangerous. "Drivers frequently write to me complaining about the dangers of driving with 9 license points," said Paul Smith, founder of Safe Speed. "They tell me that every van at the road side becomes a threat and the speedometer becomes an obsession. They live in dread of missing a speed limit sign. This means that they feel forced to concentrate on speed limit compliance at the expense of concentrating on the road ahead. It simply isn't safe." Even the minister responsible for the speed camera network, Stephen Ladyman, takes measures to avoid them. He admitted to using a GPS-based speed camera detector in an exchange with the Conservative's shadow transport minister, Owen Paterson, in parliament yesterday. Patterson asked, "Could you clarify that those devices, which just say where these cameras are positioned, will continue to be allowed." "Such devices will continue to be legal and I have got one myself," Ladyman replied. The minister admitted last year that, at one point, he had nine points on his license.

New Jersey: Camera Company Uses Deceptive Crash Footage

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Red light camera company promotional video uses misleading incident to sell its product. Just two days before Christmas, American Traffic Solutions (ATS) released a video showcasing ten accidents that happened under the watchful eye of a red light camera. Dozens of media outlets seized on the dramatic scenes, some taking it as an opportunity to editorialize in favor of photo enforcement. "Each year more than 100,000 people are injured and hundreds are killed in red light running related collisions," ATS wrote in the introduction to its video. "The following videos are just a few examples of red light running collisions and near misses from New Jersey intersections in 2011." The 90-second video shows low-quality footage of incidents from Deptford Township, East Brunswick, Jersey City, Linden, Pohatcong, Monroe Township, Rahway and Union Township. Each clip was meant to demonstrate the extreme danger involved in running red lights with the implied message that such incidents would happen less frequently with red light cameras installed -- even though all of the incidents happened at intersections where automated ticketing machines were operational. The scene from a January 4, 2011 accident in Linden at 1:00 into the video stands out from the rest. It shows a white 1997 Honda CRV hurtling through an intersection into a gray 2010 Volvo S80 that attempted to make a left-hand turn. The incident happened at 12:18pm at West St. Georges Avenue and North Stiles Street, and we are supposed to assume from the video's context that the Honda was running a red light, as clearly happened in eight of the other clips. Close inspection of the video footage shows, however, that the light was not red and the Honda driver had the right-of-way. The signal remained yellow as the Honda made its way more than halfway through the intersection. Linden's city clerk confirmed that no red light running citation was issued to either driver. The Linden Police Department's accident report cleared the Honda driver of wrongdoing. "After reviewing the video taken of accident 11000393 this officer has come to the conclusion that vehicle number one [the gray Volvo] was at fault, the video of the accident was placed as evidence and submitted to the records bureau," Officer Robert Bunk wrote.

People Seeking Background Checks At San Luis Obispo Court May Have To Wait

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0500

San Luis Obispo Superior Court officials have stopped immediate window service for those seeking bulk criminal background information. Citing budget and time constraints on staff, the court issued a notice saying those seeking the criminal records of lists of people must submit their requests in writing either at the counter or by mail. The court will process the requests on a first-come, first-serve basis and notify people when their request is ready for pickup. Background checkers "who typically sell the information they collect to companies that screen job applicants" vocally opposed the court's decision in March to shut down a public computer terminal that contained criminal record information, saying that hindered their work. But court officials said they removed the terminal because of privacy concerns with the outdated system that was revealing privileged information, and they had concerns with how that information might be used. The decision to close the terminal led background contractors to seek the data from clerks at service windows, where clerks reviewed and redacted certain information released to background checkers. They were limited to five names per day, but the checkers were hiring people to help them stand in line. Research that takes more than 10 minutes now will carry a charge of $15 and copies from court files or dockets will cost 50 cents per page. The court is looking into a long-term solution with a case management computer system that would provide remote access to permitted criminal information, but that won't come to fruition for some time, officials say.

Grim Times For Background Checkers

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0500

By Steven Brownstein Hardly a day goes by we don't hear something about the new EEOC ruling. We get news alerts, E-Mails, phone calls, each one forecasting the doom and gloom for the background check. Hardly a day goes by that we don't hear about a court somewhere removing identifiers from their computerized records. We get news alerts, E-Mails, phone calls, and messages telling us how difficult it is going to get to obtain confirmed "hits" from the courts. Recently, a company was sued for selling the new "social media" search. Soon, hardly a day will go by where we won't hear about that. Hardly a day went by when we heard about credit reference checks being discriminatory. Hardly a day went by when we thought we lost driving record checks. We got news alerts, E-Mails, phone calls, and messages. Hardly a day went by.

Suit Over Background Check Goof to Advance

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0500

A company that lost $10 million to an embezzling accountant can sue the contractor that said he cleared a background check, a federal judge ruled. Verso Paper Company says it hired Thom Williams to work in its accounting department in 2007, unaware that Williams had been convicted of embezzlement in Lee County, Miss., six years earlier. In 2001, Willaims pleaded guilty to having stolen nearly $216,000 from his employer. Verso says this detail should not have escaped the attention of the companies it hired to perform Williams' background check, HireRight and its subcontractor DDI. HireRight's contract with DDI stipulated that DDI "shall be required to physically visit the relevant county courthouses and personally examine the physical records pertaining to each search," according to Verso's complaint. The paper company alleges that DDI falsely claimed that Williams did not have a criminal record in Lee County, though the comments section of its report indicated that further research was required. Verso says Williams eventually pleaded guilty to embezzling $10.2 million from it. U.S. District Judge David Carter refused to dismiss Verso's negligence and misrepresentation claims. "Defendant DDI knew that the information being supplied to HireRight would be used by plaintiff to assess the risk of hiring prospective employees like Williams," Carter wrote. "Therefore ... the subcontract reflected intent to induce reliance and action from plaintiff." "The harm to plaintiff was foreseeable because defendant DDI knew that any mismanagement or inaccurate reporting had the potential to cause plaintiff's economic loss," he added. "Likewise, HireRight and defendant DDI understood that plaintiff would directly rely on the accuracy and thoroughness of defendant DDI's search," the decision also states. "Thus, in both cases the plaintiff's harms were foreseeable." Verso can claim that DDI harmed it by breaching the subcontract, according to the court. Carter also upheld Verso's damages claim stemming from DDI's alleged negligence. While Verso isn't required to meet the heightened standard of alleging the "who, what, when, where and how" of negligent misrepresentation, its complaint does so anyway, the court found." Plaintiff has pled 'who' made the misrepresentation, 'what' it was, 'when' it occurred, 'where' it occurred, and 'how' it was made," the decision states. "Plaintiff specifically alleges that Defendant DDI (who) misrepresented the criminal history of Thom Williams (what) to Plaintiff by embedding the information (how) in an inaccurately written report (how and where) and transmitted by HireRight, on April 10, 2007 (when)." (Parentheses in original.)

Report Says Errors Are Common On Background Checks

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0500

by Paul Muschick | The Watchdog With jobs still scarce, employers can be choosier than ever before when deciding whom to hire. Many use background checks to help them make wise choices. But who's checking on the background check companies to make sure they are doing a good job? Several job seekers have sued background check companies, alleging that outdated or inaccurate information on their reports cost them precious jobs. A consumer rights agency, the National Consumer Law Center, said in a recent report that erroneous background reports are routine. The industry's trade association, the National Association of Professional Background Screeners, told me it will issue its own report soon that shows a low error rate. Such competing contentions are hard to reconcile and the reason why I don't always buy into reports like these. But I know for sure that background check companies make mistakes because an error nearly cost a Weisenberg Township woman a job a few years ago, until the Watchdog straightened things out. Considering how precious jobs are these days, any bad report is unacceptable, and I want to make sure you know what your rights are in case you encounter a problem. In a study released in April, the National Consumer Law Center said criminal background screening companies routinely mix up people's records; omit critical information; reveal sealed or expunged information; provide misleading information; and misclassify offenses. "Background screening companies routinely cut corners to improve their profits and then they wipe their hands of any responsibility for producing an inaccurate or misleading report that can cost a worker his or her job," one of the authors, attorney Persis Yu, said in a statement. The report cited several examples, including a man who allegedly was denied a job after a background check mixed him up with a man by the same name "though a different middle initial" who had been convicted of rape in 1987. The job applicant was 4 years old in 1987.

However, the report doesn't cite any statistics about just how common errors are, pointed out Judy Gootkind, an executive with a Massachusetts background check firm and chairwoman-elect of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners. "We find that they make broad assumptions," she said. Gootkind said the association's pending report will note a "very, very high rate of accuracy." She declined to cite specifics until the study is released, but said the data for her company, Creative Services Inc., showed that .079 percent of its background reports were challenged in 2011, with an even lower percentage needing to be corrected. She said the industry already is heavily regulated by the federal agencies that oversee the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The National Consumer Law Center called for federal and state authorities to get more involved. Three agencies "the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission" have intervened in a Pennsylvania case. In May, two of those agencies filed a legal brief in support of a Philadelphia woman, Shamara King. She alleges in a lawsuit that General Information Services improperly included outdated information on her background report when she applied for a post office job. The agencies have asked a federal judge in Philadelphia to uphold a provision of the Fair Credit Reporting Act that in many instances prohibits arrests, judgments and other "adverse" items that are more than 7 years old from being included on background reports. King alleged General Information Services improperly included in a 2010 background check several criminal charges against her that had been dropped in 2000. In court papers, lawyers for the company denied violating the law and said the information it reported about King was accurate. It argued the information it provided to the post office is protected free speech under the First Amendment, per a recent Supreme Court decision. In the local case that I wrote about two years ago, a woman had been offered a job on the condition that she pass a background check. The offer was rescinded after a screening report by Sterling Infosystems of New York reported she had pleaded guilty to attempted forgery in another state, a state the woman told me she'd never even visited. Using readily available public records, it didn't take me long to determine Sterling Infosystems had mixed her up with another woman with the same name and same birth date. After my inquiries, Sterling cleared her name and she got the job. There's also other evidence that this could be a broad problem. Late last year, a federal judge in Virginia approved the $28 million settlement of three class-action lawsuits against HireRight Solutions, formerly known as USIS Commercial Services, and several of its affiliates.

FTC Fines Spokeo $800K for Peddling False Employee Background Check Info

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Spokeo, an online data broker, has agreed to pay an $800,000 fine to the Federal Communications Commission to settle charges it peddled inaccurate information about job applicants and violated consumer protection laws. The FTC, which announced the agreement, charged the broker with marketing profile information to human resource departments for background screenings on prospective employees. According to the complaint, Spokeo provided the information without first taking steps to ensure the information was accurate and without adhering to consumer protections provided by the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The FTC also alleged that Spokeo published bogus customer endorsements on news and technology websites and blogs, portraying the endorsements as independent, when in fact Spokeo employees created them. Spokeo, as is common with FTC complaints, agreed to pay the fine without admitting guilt or liability. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, entities that broker certain information about consumers, such as credit reporting agencies, must make an effort to provide fair and accurate information and give people an opportunity to correct inaccurate information about themselves. The data brokers must also put limits on who can access the data. The case stems from a complaint filed in 2010 by the Center for Democracy and Technology, which accused the company of providing information about individuals' credit ratings and other financial data without disclosing the source of the data or allowing individuals an opportunity to dispute and correct false information. The site also did not let individuals know who had sought access to their information or inform employers that federal law required them to notify a job applicant if they didn't get a job based on information Spokeo provided. The CDT noted in its complaint that much of the information Spokeo provided about people was inaccurate, a fact that Threat Level verified in searches conducted on various individuals in the Spokeo database at the time that CDT filed its complaint. Spokeo President and co-founder Harrison Tang has admitted in previous media interviews that the information his site provided contained inaccuracies, which he blamed on errors in original source materials and in the way his company's algorithm assessed aggregated information. The company included a disclaimer on its site that data provided through its service "may not be used as a factor" in establishing an individual's eligibility for credit, insurance, or employment and also asserted in its terms of use that it was not a consumer reporting agency. But at the same time the company marketed itself to human resource professionals as a service for conducting background checks on job applicants, as well as to law enforcement agencies. Some of the information it marketed included "credit estimates" on individuals, as well as information on their income, investments and mortgage. Spokeo's business model revolved around collecting personal information about individuals from various sources, including social networks, and merging the data to build dossiers that included a name, address, age range, email address, hobbies, ethnicity, religion, participation on social networking sites and photos. The company marketed the profiles on a subscription basis to human resources professionals and job recruiters as an employee screening tool. The FTC found that Spokeo was indeed operating as a consumer reporting agency, without following any of the legal obligations imposed on such agencies. After the CDT filed its complaint with the FTC in 2010, Spokeo changed its marketing tactics, and now markets itself simply as an online people search engine.

National Association of Professional Background Screeners Study Affirms Accuracy of Background Check

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0500

by Tom Ahearn The National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS) has announced that a recent study of background screening companies affirms the accuracy of background checks and refutes a report recently issued by the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) that accused background screeners of routinely making mistakes. The NAPBS report, scheduled to be released later this summer, found that 98 percent of background screening providers surveyed encountered consumer disputes less than 5 percent of the time out of millions of background checks performed annually, and more than 95 percent of those disputed background check reports were ultimately found to be accurate. The NAPBS study, validated by market research agency Mathew Greenwald & Associates in Washington D.C., is a response to a report from the NCLC released in April 2012, "Broken Records: How Errors by Criminal Background Checking Companies Harm Workers and Businesses," that examined the accuracy of background checks. The NCLC report claimed that 65 million Americans with criminal records were "forever tarnished and unemployable as a result of background checks."

While the NCLC report portrayed the background screening industry as indifferent to the accuracy of data by stating "evidence indicates that professional background screening companies routinely make mistakes with grave consequences for job seekers" the report also noted that "actual accuracy rates are not possible to obtain." Meanwhile, the NAPBS states that the report included "several inaccurate points" and that the NCLC fails "to offer critical empirical data to back up its findings." According to NAPBS, the NCLC allegation that criminal background checks make it more difficult for workers to obtain employment is not supported by the facts since the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) "has stepped up enforcement against employers who discriminate based on criminal history." Furthermore, the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) mandates that a Consumer Reporting Agency (CRA) another name for a background screening company that prepares "consumer reports" must follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of the information in a background check report. While the NCLC report contends that the FCRA "fails to adequately protect consumers when it comes to employment screening," the NAPBS believes the report "ignores existing law that requires background screening organizations to provide the consumer with a free copy of their consumer report" and also mandates that consumer disputed reports "must be re-investigated within 30 days." In addition, employers using background screening firms "must follow specific adverse action procedures spelled out in the FCRA" that give job applicants a fair chance to dispute the finding in the report and protect them from being denied employment based on inaccurate or incomplete background check information. "Given the complexities of background checks, the NAPBS study reveals an astoundingly high accuracy rate that shows how incredibly inaccurate the NCLC report was," commented Attorney Lester Rosen, Founder and CEO of Employment Screening Resources (ESR) and author of "The Safe Hiring Manual." Also, even the few inaccurate reports could be beyond the control of background screening firms due to courts not updating records or identity theft.

Homeschooling Diploma Not Accepted - Background Screener Almost Sued

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Many employers conduct background investigations on prospective employees. Usually these are transparent to the prospective employee who simply fills out an employment application with references. However, in the case of a homeschooled student who didn't have a traditional high school diploma, this investigation became a hassle especially because the investigators didn't understand the homeschool law. When Anna Blaski (name changed to protect privacy) submitted her job application she was told that there would be a background check. The investigators refused to accept Anna's high school diploma as evidence of high school completion because her diploma was signed "only" by her parents. Anna's parents contacted HSLDA (Home School Legal Defense Association) for help when they were unable to convince the investigators that Anna's diploma was legitimate evidence of high school completion. HSLDA Staff Attorney Michael Donnelly sent a letter to the employer explaining the family's fundamental right to homeschool and their legal authority under Ohio law to issue a valid diploma. The results were immediate. Mrs. Blaski sent HSLDA an email saying that "less than 24 hours after you sent the letters" [Anna] received the phone call with the official job offer to work for them. She has accepted the job and wanted us to send you all her thanks. HSLDA's mission is to advocate for homeschoolers. This includes helping our members and their children to educate colleges, employers, and background investigators on the rights of homeschool families and the legitimacy of homeschooling.

Nigerian Legal Sector Scores Access Breakthrough

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The Nigerian legal community marked yet another break in technological development, as the LawPavilion, one of Nigeria's foremost online resource providers for the legal sector unveiled its latest software (5.0 Version) in Abuja. With this new software, all users of the LawPavilion Eletronic law reporting software will now get updates of new judgments, including the Laws of the Federation and Rules of Courts, within 48 hours of release, a speed that presently cannot be rivaled by any other.

Many People Know About Workplace Misconduct And Are Willing to Report It -- For Money

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0500

According to a recent survey the majority of U.S. employees would report wrongdoing in the workplace if they knew they would be protected from retaliation and could obtain a monetary reward. The survey asked 1,000 Americans of their knowledge of wrongdoing in the workplace. The report found that 34 percent of participants said they knew of unethical behavior at their place of employment. Seventy-eight percent of participants said they would report such actions if they could do it anonymously and it would result in a monetary award. The survey also found that 79 percent of respondents would push a loved one to report if those conditions applied. The report found fluctuations based on income, race and age.

Workplace Fraud In Canada Cost $3.2B

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0500

A report has found that workplace fraud cost small businesses in Canada $3.2 billion last year. In addition, the report noted that roughly 290,000 small- to mid-size Canadian businesses were victims of some type of workplace fraud in 2010. Among businesses with 500 employees or fewer, 26 percent reported being defrauded by an employee, most often through the misappropriation of company assets, inventory, or cash. The report did not look at more sophisticated cases of white-collar crime. The report also found that 20 percent of companies that had been victims of fraud experienced at least four cases of employee fraud during 2010. However, the report suggested that many cases of workplace fraud go unreported. Finally, the report found that 80 percent of small businesses are not prepared to deal with workplace fraud, while an additional 60 percent do not perform assessments on a regular basis to determine their risk levels.

The Public Record Update A Service of BRB Publications

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0500

New Rules at San Luis Obispo County, CA - Superior Court Effective June 1, 2012 the San Luis Obispo Superior Court will no longer conduct public record searches of the criminal record docket at the public counter and will only accept written requests. The requests can be submitted by mail or placed in a drop box. There is no charge for the research if the research takes less than 10 minutes. There is a $.50 fee per page for record copies. Interestingly, on the announcement document the court stated it made this decision pursuant to CRC Rule 2.507 which governs electronic access and not the manual access process which this affects. Yet earlier this year court the court did alter the electronic access by the public. The court removed the public's ability to view the record index electronically on the public access terminal UNLESS the requester is an attorney. Hence, the court blocked the biggest user group of the criminal record docket from viewing it electronically. And now they have removed immediate counter service to employers and their representatives as well.

If you would like to express your opinion to the court, the court's CEA is susan.matherly@slo.counts.ca.gov and the presiding judge is barry.labarbera@slo.courts.ca.gov. Pending New Jersey Bill Will Increase Many Court Fees NJ Bill A763 was passed by the NJ State Assembly and now is making its way to the State Senate. In general, the bill contains fee increases that include (but are not limited to) the fee to file motions (papers) in the courts; the recording of judgments or orders in the Special Civil Part; the fee to affix a seal, or certify a copy or for an exemplification; and the fee to file a lien. The bill also authorizes the Judiciary to fund a statewide digital e-court information system which would include public access to digital court records. Indication from the bill's primary sponsor is the Senate and the Governor both favor the bill's current language. If and when signed, the new law would take affect July 1, 2012. For more information, visit the state's legislative site at www.njleg.state.nj.us/ and search for bill number A763.

Les Rosen's Corner

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Vermont to Limit Employers From Using Credit Reports for Employment Decisions Starting July 1 Continuing the trend of states stopping employers from routinely obtaining credit reports on applicants and employees to use in making employment decisions, Vermont Act No. 154 (S. 95) prohibits employers in the state, subject to various exceptions, from using or inquiring into credit reports or credit histories of job applicants and employees in the employment context and further prohibits discriminating against individuals based on their credit information. Vermont is the eighth state to restrict the use of credit reports by employers, joining California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Oregon, and Washington. The text of the new law, which goes into effect July 1, 2012, is available at: http://www.leg.state.vt.us/docs/2012/bills/Passed/S-095.pdf. Enacted into law by Governor Peter Shumlin on May 17, 2012, Vermont Act No. 154 (S. 95) pertains to "credit history" that includes any credit information obtained from any third party, not only information contained in a credit report. The Act sets forth exemptions based on the type of employers at issue and the position or responsibilities of applicants or employees. Employers are exempt and may obtain and use credit information if they meet one or more of these conditions: The information is required by state or federal law or regulation. The position of employment involves access to confidential financial information. The employer is a financial institution or credit union as defined by state law. The position of employment is that of a law enforcement officer, emergency medical personnel, or a firefighter as defined by state law. The position of employment requires a financial fiduciary responsibility to the employer or a client of the employer, including the authority to issue payments, collect debts, transfer money, or enter into contracts. The employer can demonstrate that the information is a valid and reliable predictor of employee performance in the specific position of employment. The position of employment involves access to an employer's payroll information. However, even exempted employers that seek to obtain or act upon the credit information of an applicant or employee are prohibited by the Act from using credit report or credit history as the sole factor in making any employment decision. In addition, the Act requires employers to first obtain the written consent of the employee or applicant to the disclosure of the credit information and must also disclose in writing its reasons for accessing the report. If an employer intends to take an adverse employment action based on any contents of the credit report, the employer must notify the applicant or employee in writing of its reasons for doing so and also offer the subject an opportunity to contest the accuracy of the credit report or credit history.

Indiana Gets Tough On Criminal Records

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0500

by Rod Fliegel, Jennifer Mora, and William Simmons The EEOC's April 25, 2012 updated enforcement guidance on the use of arrest and conviction records by employers has generated renewed and substantial interest in the controversial subject of criminal background checks in the context of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Although it is important for employers to review the EEOC's updated guidance, employers also need to be mindful of the increasing number of related state laws. The latest of these laws is Indiana House Bill 1033, which, starting July 1, 2012, will, in part: (1) prohibit certain pre-employment inquiries; (2) restrict the types of criminal history information that employers and background report providers (known as "consumer reporting agencies" or CRAs) can obtain from Indiana state court clerks; and (3) restrict the types of criminal history information that CRAs can report to employers in background reports.

Changes to Criminal History Information that Employers May Obtain from Prospective and Current Employees

The law provides that, effective July 1, 2012, residents of Indiana with restricted or sealed criminal records may legally state on an "application for employment or any other document" that they have not been adjudicated, arrested or convicted of the offense recorded in the restricted records. In addition, covered employers will be prohibited from asking an "employee, contract employee, or applicant" about sealed and restricted criminal records. The law does not define the term "employer," and does not specifically address what it means for applicants and employees to be able to "legally" state on documents that they do not have certain previous criminal records.

Changes to Criminal History Information that CRAs and Employers Can Obtain from the State of Indiana

Also effective July 1, 2012, the law will restrict information that individuals and businesses such as employers and CRAs can obtain from Indiana state court clerks. This affects the scope of information that employers can expect in background reports. Specifically, the law prohibits courts from disclosing information pertaining to alleged infractions where the individual:
• is not prosecuted or if the action against the person is dismissed;
• is adjudged not to have committed the infraction;
• is adjudged to have committed the infraction and the adjudication is subsequently vacated; or
• was convicted of the infraction and satisfied any judgment attendant to the infraction conviction more than five years ago.

Changes to Criminal History Information that May Be Reported to Employers

Effective July 1, 2013, the law also will restrict information that "criminal history providers" can report to others. The law defines a "criminal history provider" to be a "person or an organization that assembles criminal history reports and either uses the report or provides the report to a person or an organization other than a criminal justice agency or law enforcement agency," such as CRAs that typically provide background checks to employers.

Under the law, criminal history providers that obtain criminal history information from the state may only provide information pertaining to criminal convictions. Moreover, the law explicitly states that criminal history providers such as CRAs will no longer be permitted to provide the following information in background reports:
• an infraction, an arrest or a charge that did not result in a conviction;
• a record that has been expunged;
• a record indicating a conviction of a Class D felony if the Class D felony conviction has been entered as or converted to a Class A misdemeanor conviction; and
• a record that the criminal history provider knows is inaccurate.

Moreover, CRAs that obtain criminal history information from the state may not include any Indiana criminal record information in an assembled report unless the CRA updates the information to reflect changes to the official record occurring 60 days or more before the date the criminal history report is delivered.

Remedies

Employers who violate the law by asking employees, contract employees or applicants about sealed and restricted criminal records are deemed to have committed a Class B infraction, which may result in a fine, currently up to $1,000. There is no explicit provision for a private right of action against employers who ask individuals about their sealed and restricted criminal records or take adverse employment actions against employees who exercise their right under the law to withhold information about sealed or restricted criminal information in response to employer inquiries. It remains to be seen whether employees will nonetheless argue that they should be permitted to sue employers under the law.

In contrast, the law does establish a private right of action for violations of its provisions regarding reports by criminal history providers and allows aggrieved individuals to recover their attorneys' fees and costs and the greater of actual damages or liquidated damages of $500. The law also permits the Indiana Attorney General to bring an action to enforce those provisions and seek civil penalties of $1,000 for a first violation and $5,000 for subsequent violations.

A Million Brits Go To Work High Every Day

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The use of narcotics has shot up by 43 per cent in just five years, according to analysis of almost 1.7million random tests in 856 British workplaces. Cannabis, cocaine and opiates were found to be the most popular drugs.

People working in haulage, the police, manufacturing, construction, retail, commerce, healthcare, professional bodies, sport and government agencies were checked by drug-testing firm Concateno. Workers aged 25 to 34 were most likely to test positive for Class A drugs such as cocaine, heroin, amphetamines and methadone. Men were three times more likely to test positive than women. Drug use among employees now stands at 3.23 per cent – or one in every 30 staff – compared to 2.26 per cent in 2007. Dr Claire George, Concateno’s laboratory director, said: ‘These are conservative figures when you consider how many companies do not have a screening programme in place.’ The tests were carried out as part of random or pre-employment programmes, rather than following a suspicion of drug use. All were conducted in organisations that had an established drugs policy, meaning workers know they could be tested. Testing positive for drugs can be grounds for disciplinary action or even dismissal for gross misconduct in safety-critical industries. Niamh Eastwood, of Release, which campaigns for changes in drugs laws, said: ‘Testing should not be used outside of safety-critical jobs. Unless it begins to affect performance, then what people do in their private lives is up to them. If someone takes drugs on a Saturday night, by Monday they will be sober of the drug but still test positive. ‘If someone’s drug use is becoming a problem it should treated as a medical issue.’

Pennsylvania Deleting Online Court Records

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Pennsylvania has removed millions of public records from a state court system website, and while a statewide newspaper group says that’s a troubling policy shift, an online privacy expert says it’s reasonable. State officials say they are treating the electronic copies like paper ones, which are destroyed after a certain period of time. The Patriot-News of Harrisburg first reported that the records which were removed involve minor crimes, traffic offenses, landlord-tenant disputes and small lawsuits. Records of serious crimes are still kept for decades. Edward Spreha, a Harrisburg-based defense attorney who frequently deals with traffic cases, said the change will make it harder to find the criminal and civil court records of his clients, potential clients and witnesses. He said searches that once took moments could potentially take weeks. Steve Schell, a spokesman for the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts, said the core issues are consistency and privacy. Schell said the paper record in such cases is the official copy. He said removing the electronic copies after paper originals have been destroyed is consistent with state Supreme Court guidelines, adding that the key issue is protecting the privacy of people whose old records have been officially destroyed. The policy shift wasn’t about saving money or generating revenue, he said. Melissa Melewsky, a lawyer for the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, said the change “makes finding public information a lot more difficult, and in some circumstances impossible.” Melewsky said she had a problem with the timing of the change. The AOPC announced the change with a press release on its website on March 30, before removing the records on April 1. That left no time for public input, she said. Justin Brookman of the Center for Democracy & Technology, a nonprofit based in Washington, said the move makes sense. “If they delete the paper copy, they should probably delete the electronic copy as well,” he said. Brookman, director of the center’s Project on Consumer Privacy, added that some believe that publicizing every little thing about a person “is not necessarily a good thing.” But Melewsky questioned that logic. “These things happened. As a public access advocate, you can’t change history,” she said, adding that Pennsylvania courts have traditionally been very open. “This is a step in the opposite direction, because we’re getting less access.” Schell said that the AOPC was complying with its own policy and saw no need to seek public input on the change. The change removed more than five years of records from the public portal so far, more than 17 million records in total. Schell added the new policy will not affect the results of criminal background checks, which are conducted by State Police. Common Pleas or appellate courts records will be kept indefinitely.

Poor Land in Jail as Companies Add Huge Fees for Probation

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Three years ago, Gina Ray, who is now 31 and unemployed, was fined $179 for speeding. She failed to show up at court (she says the ticket bore the wrong date), so her license was revoked.
When she was next pulled over, she was, of course, driving without a license. By then her fees added up to more than $1,500. Unable to pay, she was handed over to a private probation company and jailed charged an additional fee for each day behind bars. For that driving offense, Ms. Ray has been locked up three times for a total of 40 days and owes $3,170, much of it to the probation company. Her story, in hardscrabble, rural Alabama, where Krispy Kreme promises that "two can dine for $5.99," is not about innocence.

It is, rather, about the mushrooming of fines and fees levied by money-starved towns across the country and the for-profit businesses that administer the system. The result is that growing numbers of poor people, like Ms. Ray, are ending up jailed and in debt for minor infractions. "With so many towns economically strapped, there is growing pressure on the courts to bring in money rather than mete out justice," said Lisa W. Borden, a partner in Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, a large law firm in Birmingham, Ala., who has spent a great deal of time on the issue. "The companies they hire are aggressive. Those arrested are not told about the right to counsel or asked whether they are indigent or offered an alternative to fines and jail. There are real constitutional issues at stake." Half a century ago in a landmark case, the Supreme Court ruled that those accused of crimes had to be provided a lawyer if they could not afford one. But in misdemeanors, the right to counsel is rarely brought up, even though defendants can run the risk of jail. The probation companies promise revenue to the towns, while saying they also help offenders, and the defendants often end up lost in a legal Twilight Zone. Here in Childersburg, where there is no public transportation, Ms. Ray has plenty of company in her plight. Richard Garrett has spent a total of 24 months in jail and owes $10,000, all for traffic and license violations that began a decade ago. A onetime employee of United States Steel, Mr. Garrett is suffering from health difficulties and is without work. William M. Dawson, a Birmingham lawyer and Democratic Party activist, has filed a lawsuit for Mr. Garrett and others against the local authorities and the probation company, Judicial Correction Services, which is based in Georgia. "The Supreme Court has made clear that it is unconstitutional to jail people just because they can't pay a fine," Mr. Dawson said in an interview. In Georgia, three dozen for-profit probation companies operate in hundreds of courts, and there have been similar lawsuits. In one, Randy Miller, 39, an Iraq war veteran who had lost his job, was jailed after failing to make child support payments of $860 a month. In another, Hills McGee, with a monthly income of $243 in veterans benefits, was charged with public drunkenness, assessed $270 by a court and put on probation through a private company. The company added a $15 enrollment fee and $39 in monthly fees. That put his total for a year above $700, which Mr. McGee, 53, struggled to meet before being jailed for failing to pay it all. "These companies are bill collectors, but they are given the authority to say to someone that if he doesn't pay, he is going to jail," said John B. Long, a lawyer in Augusta, Ga., who is taking the issue to a federal appeals court this fall. "There are things like garbage collection where private companies are O.K. No one's liberty is affected. The closer you get to locking someone up, the closer you get to a constitutional issue." The issue of using the courts to produce income has caught the attention of the country's legal establishment. A recent study by the nonpartisan Conference of State Court Administrators, "Courts Are Not Revenue Centers," said that in traffic violations, "court leaders face the greatest challenge in ensuring that fines, fees and surcharges are not simply an alternate form of taxation." J. Scott Vowell, the presiding judge of Alabama's 10th Judicial Circuit, said in an interview that his state's Legislature, like many across the country, was pressuring courts to produce revenue, and that some legislators even believed courts should be financially self-sufficient. In a 2010 study, the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law examined the fee structure in the 15 states " including California, Florida and Texas " with the largest prison populations. It asserted: "Many states are imposing new and often onerous 'user fees" on individuals with criminal convictions. Yet far from being easy money, these fees impose severe " and often hidden " costs on communities, taxpayers and indigent people convicted of crimes. They create new paths to prison for those unable to pay their debts and make it harder to find employment and housing as well as to meet child support obligations." Most of those fees are for felonies and do not involve private probation companies, which have so far been limited to chasing those guilty of misdemeanors. A decade or two ago, many states abandoned pursuing misdemeanor fees because it was time-consuming and costly. Companies like Judicial Correction Services saw an opportunity. They charge public authorities nothing and make their money by adding fees onto the bills of the defendants. Stephen B. Bright, president of the Southern Center for Human Rights, who teaches at Yale Law School, said courts were increasingly using fees "for such things as the retirement funds for various court officials, law enforcement functions such as police training and crime laboratories, victim assistance programs and even the court's computer system." He added, "In one county in Pennsylvania, 26 different fees totaling $2,500 are assessed in addition to the fine." Mr. Dawson's Alabama lawsuit alleges that Judicial Correction Services does not discuss alternatives to fines or jail and that its training manual "is devoid of any discussion of indigency or waiver of fees." In a joint telephone interview, two senior officials of Judicial Correction Services, Robert H. McMichael, its chief executive, and Kevin Egan, its chief marketing officer, rejected the lawsuit's accusations. They said that the company does try to help those in need, but that the authority to determine who is indigent rests with the court, not the company. "We hear a lot of "I can't pay the fee,"" Mr. Egan said. "It is not our job to figure that out. Only the judge can make that determination." Mr. Egan said his company had doubled the number of completed sentences where it is employed to more than two-thirds, from about one-third, and that this serves the company, the towns and the defendant. "Our job is to keep people out of jail," he said. "We have a financial interest in getting them to comply. If they don't pay, we don't get paid." Mr. Bright, of the Southern Center for Human Rights, said that with the private companies seeking a profit, with courts in need of income and with the most vulnerable caught up in the system, we end up balancing the budget on the backs of the poorest people in society.

Criminal Records Will Be Issued In Mall

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Abu Dhabi: You can now shop and also get a criminal record certificate at Marina Mall shopping centre. For the first time across the UAE, the criminal record document will be issued in both Arabic and English at the mall. "We wanted to simplify, speed up procedures and make them easier for the public. employees have already started offering the service. We intend to open more offices in shopping malls," said Colonel Abdul Rahman Al Hamadi, director of the Criminal Record Directorate at the Abu Dhabi Police, on Wednesday, at the inauguration of the new office in Marina Mall. The new office will be opened from 3pm to 10pm, Sunday to Wednesday.

A Revere, Massachusetts woman could end up with a couple of new charges on her criminal record after

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Suffolk county District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said 24-year-old Nicole Difazi walked into the courthouse and requested copies of the paperwork. Clerk's office staff told Difazi she could review her records, but that there would be a fee for copying them. Investigators say Difazi took the records and walked out. Boston police found her a short distance away from the courthouse carrying the court records

New Indiana Law Regarding Criminal Background Checks

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0500

by Beth Zoller As of July 1, 2012, Indiana employers are now prohibited from conducting certain preemployment inquiries and are restricted in the types of information they can obtain from consumer reporting agencies and Indiana state courts with respect to background checks and criminal history, respectively. +2012 Bill Tracking IN H.B. 1033; +2012 Bill Text IN H.B. 1033. Under the new law, individuals who were charged with crimes, but not ultimately convicted due to dismissal, acquittal or a vacated conviction or who were convicted of a misdemeanor and most Class D felony convictions that are old enough to qualify and did not result in injury to a person, are permitted to petition a court to restrict access to that individual's criminal record. If the court does so, the individual may legally represent in a preemployment inquiry or application that the individual has not been arrested or convicted of a felony or misdemeanor. Further, under the new statute, covered employers will be prohibited from asking a job applicant about sealed and restricted criminal records. The new law also restricts information that employers and consumer reporting agencies can obtain from Indiana state court clerks with respect to criminal history and background checks. The courts are now prohibited from disclosing information in cases in which an individual was: Not prosecuted or if the action was dismissed; Adjudged not to have committed the infraction; Adjudged to have committed the infraction and the adjudication is subsequently vacated; or Convicted of the infraction and satisfied any judgment attendant to the infraction conviction more than five years ago. As of July 1, 2013, the law will also restrict information that criminal history providers or those who assemble criminal history reports can provide in a background check to an employer. Employers who violate this new law by seeking access and information regarding sealed and restricted criminal records are subject to fines. The new law does not specifically contain a private right of action for employees against employers who violate this law.

China To Create National Database

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0500

China will establish an unified criminals record system to better hold criminals' information and promote social administration, an official from the Supreme People's Court (SPC) said Thursday. The unidentified official said that the decision was made in a statement jointly made by the SPC, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), the Ministry of State Security (MSS) and the Ministry of Justice. The information to be recorded in the system includes criminals' basic information, the names of the procuratorates and judicial organs, the number and date of verdicts, the crimes, the punishment and the enforcement of the punishment. According to the statement, information of those that commit crimes under the age of 18 and are sentenced to less than five years in prison, will be protected so not to destroy their future lives.

Mounties Admit CPIC Records Back A Mess

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0500

A whopping backlog in the RCMP?s national crime records database shows no sign of getting better soon, the force has admitted. A spokesman for the national police agency told QMI Agency there are 430,000 criminal records waiting to be filed into the Canadian Police Information Centre database, with more piling in every day. The backlog accounts for about 10% of the RCMP?s complete criminal record file of 4.3 million records. It's become and increasingly thorny issue for judges, who use the database to hand down appropriate sentences. Last week, Justice Stephen Hunter in Belleville, Ont., found an eight-year gap in one offender?s criminal history file during a manslaughter sentencing hearing. Carole Gaudes, acting officer of criminal records management services for the RCMP at the Ottawa-based RCMP headquarters, said there are several problems the force is dealing with. Many records have accumulated from French-speaking jurisdictions as the RCMP struggles to find bilingual staff to manage them, for instance. As well, courts across the country are not on the same computer systems, so the inconsistency is also causing headaches, Gaudes said. Worse, many convictions filed by the courts are still done on paper, creating logistical headaches for RCMP staff, who have to manually input about 365,000 new convictions every year. "That is something that we?ve been dealing with for a while here," Gaudes said. With a dwindling staff of about 60 record analysts overseeing the overburdened system, Gaudes is hoping a singular automated system - much like law enforcement agencies use to register criminal charges to the system - will be created for courtrooms soon.

Truckers'Database Under Fire

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association is suing the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration alleging that the federal regulator's database of driver information lacks assurance of accuracy and a functioning process for dispute resolution. In a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, OOIDA says that the FMCSA refused to remove from the database information about citations issued to three association members that were eventually challenged in court and dismissed. The case of a fourth OOIDA member included in the suit is pending. As a result of the refusal to remove the citations from the database, the suit claims the agency fails to comply with the Fair Credit Repoting Act, with the Privacy Act and with mandates governing agency action contained in the previous highway bill known as SAFETEA-LU. Data the agency collects from roadside inspections and from crash reports are stored in the Motor Carrier Management Information System (MCMIS), and is used to populate reports such as those obtained through the Pre-Employment Screening Program. "Inspection reports submitted by state law enforcement officers to the MCMIS system contain data labeled and reported by MCMIS as "violations" of safety statutes and/or regulations even when: (a) the driver has not been given a citation alleging violation of state law; (b) there has been no judicial determination of guilt or non-guilt where a citation has been issued; or (c) there has been a judicial determination in favor of the driver resulting in the dismissal of charges or a verdict or determination of not guilty," the lawsuit reads. When FMCSA receives a DataQ challenge, it routes the challenge containing the alleged violations back to the state where the inspection report originated. According to the lawsuit, this is the agency's way of delegating the responsibility of accurate and complete data to the states. The lawsuit asks the court to order FMCSA to purge all data for which there has not been a judicial determination of guilt; purge all reports where a court has dismissed or ruled the driver not guilty; purge all reports that are not "serious driver-related violation(s)"; enjoin the agency from distributing information without any reference to a dispute and a summary of the dispute; and enjoin the agency from distributing false, inaccurate, incomplete or misleading inspection reports. The suit also notes facts about the case of each driver. It says that member Brian E. Kelley was stopped on or about Dec. 7, 2010, in Texas and issued a citation alleging that he had violated a Texas criminal statute by "driving a commercial motor vehicle with a detectable amount of alcohol." Kelley contested the citation in the Walker County, Texas, Justice Court and in response to a motion by the district attorney, the court dismissed all charges against Kelley. The suit says that on or about May 19, 2010, OOIDA member Robert Lohmeier was issued a citation in Arizona for allegedly failing to wear a seatbelt and for violations of the Hours of Service regulations. On Oct. 14, 2010, Lohmeier appeared before the Winslow, Ariz., Justice City Court in Navajo County, Ariz., to contest the May 19, 2010, citations and the court dismissed all of the charges against him The suit also says that on or about March 22, 1020, OOIDA member Klint L. Mowrer was issued a citation for violation of the Maryland Criminal Code for "fail[ing] to comply with local law; rear drag link has more than 1/8-inch play by hand pressure." Mowrer contested the citation in the District Court of Maryland for Garrett County where the court entered a verdict of ?not guilty? and dismissed the charge against Mowrer. In each case, the suit says the driver filed a DataQ challenge following the ruling and in each case the challenge was denied. The case of the fourth OOIDA member, J. Mark Moody, is still contested. The suit says that Moody was the subject of an inspection in Iowa where he told the inspecting officer that he was not feeling well. Moody was issued two citations, one for his record-of-duty status not being current and a second for driving while ill or fatigued. He was given citations. Moody is currently contesting the allegations and a criminal proceeding is currently pending against him at the Jasper County Courthouse in Newton, Iowa. The suit also notes correspondence between OOIDA President Jim Johnston and FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro concerning the DataQ challenges. It says that on or about July 8, 2011, Johnston wrote to Ferro to specifically requested that the inspection reports challenged by Kelley, Lohmeier and Mowrer "be removed from all FMCSA databases." After receiving no response from FMCSA, Johnston wrote again to Ferro on Nov. 18, 2011, saying that "for these drivers, the damage that this system has done is immediate and continuing. These drivers, and others like them, deserve immediate relief from being tagged by FMCSA with legally unsubstantiated and unproven violations of the safety rules." Ferro replied by letter dated Feb. 17 of this year refusing to remove the reports of violations of law challenged by Kelley, Lohmeier and Mowrer, saying that she forwarded the DataQ challenges "to the FMCSA division administrators in the respective states for review." In a letter dated May 29, 2012, Ferro wrote a second letter to Johnston reporting back the "findings" of the FMCSA division administrators regarding the DataQ challenges. The suit says that according Ferro, the FMCSA division administrators from Maryland, Arizona and Texas reviewed the respective challenges and, in each case, the division administrator refused to remove the reported "violation" of law from the MCMIS database.

Industry News

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Corporate Screening Services Partners with ERC Corporate Screening, a provider of pre-employment background screening services, is pleased to announce that it has partnered with ERC, one of Ohio's leading organizations dedicated to Human Resources. Through this collaboration, ERC members receive a free Screening Program Assessment (SPA) and discounted pricing on background screening services. "Corporate Screening is delighted to partner with ERC and offer our background screening services to their member organizations. We share many of the same values as ERC, and believe this to be a natural fit," said Greg Dubecky, President of Corporate Screening. "As a trusted partner for many top employers in Northeast Ohio and throughout the nation, we look forward to serving these members and assisting them in implementing the strategic solutions that they are looking for." ERC is one of Ohio's leading organizations dedicated to HR, workplace programs and practices, training, health insurance and consulting. ERC membership provides employers access to HR information, expertise and cost savings that supports the attraction, retention, and development of great employees. It also hosts the nationally recognized NorthCoast 99 program and sponsors the ERC Health insurance program. "We're thrilled to be partnering with Corporate Screening as we believe their products and processes are tops in the industry," said Pat Perry, President of ERC. "Background screening is a popular outsourced solution for our members and we think they will be very happy with the service and quality at Corporate Screening." Castle Branch Adding Jobs, Extending Reach To Calif. Wilmington-based national employment screening company, Castle Branch, plans to add 50 new jobs over the next year, officials recently announced. It is the 10th largest privately owned employment screening company in the country. Castle Branch currently employs about 250 people. "Castle Branch has been fortunate to find continued growth in this economy," Brett Martin, chief executive officer and founder of Castle Branch, said in a press release. Pre-employment screening for health science programs at colleges and universities has been the company's main focus. "As these programs continue to grow in terms of enrollment and as the healthcare industry continues to grow within the United States, we plan to grow to continue to serve this growing industry," said Brittany Shropshire, marketing manager for Castle Branch. The 50 new positions will be in sales, operations, information technology and business development, she said. The company is headquartered in a 32,000-square-foot building adjacent to Mayfaire Town Center. The company recently opened a satellite office in Petaluma, Calif. to grow its West Coast sales. It plans to add 15 sales staff to the California office within the next 18 months.

Lies Will Come With New Risks

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0500

An unpopular decision by the United States Supreme Court appears to have inspired the Pentagon to do something it should have done long ago, create a database to verify military honors.
The need for such fact-checking became evident when the court ruled that lying is a form of protected speech, that those people who falsely claim to have served and won medals have a right to tell their stories no matter how distasteful.

The database being considered by the Pentagon is a high-tech way of pursuing a very old-fashioned idea, fighting lies with the truth. Once it is finished, it should be able to allow anyone to check the claims that people make about Purple Hearts and other military honors. Because these phony claims often crop up in political campaigns, just the presence of the accessible lists should deter anybody from crafting a phony resume in a run for office.

SHRM Background Check Survey Finds Nearly 70 Percent of Organizations Conduct Criminal Checks on All

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0500

by Tom Ahearn
Nearly seven out of ten organizations "69 percent " conduct criminal background checks on all of their job candidates while 18 percent conduct criminal checks on select job candidates and 14 percent do not conduct criminal checks on any job candidates, according to a new survey titled "Background Checking" "The Use of Criminal Background Checks in Hiring Decisions" from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). The survey from SHRM, the world's largest association devoted to human resource management representing more than 250,000 members in over 140 countries, is available at: http://www.shrm.org/Research/SurveyFindings/Articles/Pages/CriminalBackgroundCheck.aspx. Other key findings of the survey, which was conducted between December 2011 and February 2012 and consisted of a sample composed of 544 randomly selected HR professionals from SHRM's membership, include: When do organizations initiate criminal background checks? Among organizations that conduct criminal background checks, 62 percent initiate criminal background checks after a contingent job offer and 32 percent initiate them after the a job interview. Only 4 percent of organizations initiate criminal background checks before a job interview. Why do organizations conduct criminal background checks? 52 percent of organizations conduct criminal checks on job candidates to reduce legal liability for negligent hiring while 49 percent conducted them to ensure a safe work environment for employees. What type of criminal activity could influence the decision not to hire a particular job candidate? 96 percent of organizations say that they are influenced not to hire convicted violent felons while 74 percent say they are influenced by non-violent felony convictions. Which category of job candidates did organizations conduct criminal background checks on? 69 percent of organizations conduct criminal checks on job candidates for positions with fiduciary and financial responsibilities and 66 percent conduct them on job candidates who will have access to highly confidential employee information. Do organizations allow job candidates to explain the results of their criminal background checks? 58 percent of organizations allow job candidates to explain the results of their criminal checks before the decision to hire or not to hire is made while 27 percent allow job candidates to explain the results after the decision is made.
In addition, the SHRM survey found that larger organizations are more likely to conduct criminal background checks for all job candidates than smaller organizations: 83 percent of organizations with 2,500 to 24,999 employees conducted criminal background checks for all job candidates. 69 percent of organizations with 100 to 499 employees conducted criminal background checks for all job candidates. 48 percent of organizations with 1 to 99 employees conducted criminal background checks for all job candidates. The figures from this latest survey from SHRM differ slightly from an earlier survey. As previously reported,a 2010 SHRM survey found nearly three out of four organizations " 73 percent " conducted criminal background checks on all job candidates while 19 percent conducted them on select candidates and 7 percent did not conduct any.

Les Rosen's Corner Vermont to Limit Employers From Using Credit Reports for Employment Decisions

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Continuing the trend of states stopping employers from routinely obtaining credit reports on applicants and employees to use in making employment decisions, Vermont Act No. 154 (S. 95) prohibits employers in the state, subject to various exceptions, from using or inquiring into credit reports or credit histories of job applicants and employees in the employment context and further prohibits discriminating against individuals based on their credit information. Vermont is the eighth state to restrict the use of credit reports by employers, joining California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Oregon, and Washington. The text of the new law is available at: http://www.leg.state.vt.us/docs/2012/bills/Passed/S-095.pdf. Enacted into law by Governor Peter Shumlin on May 17, 2012, Vermont Act No. 154 (S. 95) pertains to "credit history" that includes any credit information obtained from any third party, not only information contained in a credit report. The Act sets forth exemptions based on the type of employers at issue and the position or responsibilities of applicants or employees. Employers are exempt and may obtain and use credit information if they meet one or more of these conditions: The information is required by state or federal law or regulation. The position of employment involves access to confidential financial information. The employer is a financial institution or credit union as defined by state law. The position of employment is that of a law enforcement officer, emergency medical personnel, or a firefighter as defined by state law. The position of employment requires a financial fiduciary responsibility to the employer or a client of the employer, including the authority to issue payments, collect debts, transfer money, or enter into contracts. The employer can demonstrate that the information is a valid and reliable predictor of employee performance in the specific position of employment. The position of employment involves access to an employer's payroll information. However, even exempted employers that seek to obtain or act upon the credit information of an applicant or employee are prohibited by the Act from using credit report or credit history as the sole factor in making any employment decision. In addition, the Act requires employers to first obtain the written consent of the employee or applicant to the disclosure of the credit information and must also disclose in writing its reasons for accessing the report. If an employer intends to take an adverse employment action based on any contents of the credit report, the employer must notify the applicant or employee in writing of its reasons for doing so and also offer the subject an opportunity to contest the accuracy of the credit report or credit history.

Another USA Missed Record TV News Report

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0500

B.C. Privacy Commisioner Elizabeth Denham is warning both the provincial government and private sector employers are making too much use of criminal record checks. She issued an investigation report recommending the province limit its use of checks, which are used to vet prospective employees and re-screen some existing staff. "I'm concerned about the societal trend towards increased employment-related records checks without clear evidence as to their benefit in safeguarding the workplace," Denham said. Record checks are important tools in hiring staff who will work with vulnerable adults or children or wield great spending or data-access powers, she said. But in some cases, she said, government conducts ongoing or multiple criminal record checks on the same employee, adding that shouldn't happen without a justifiable reason. Denham also wants the province to report publicly on its use of record checks. B.C. Civil Liberties Association executive director David Eby said the problem is not just criminal record checks but broader police information checks that also pull in data recorded in the PRIME-BC police database. Most of the B.C. population is in PRIME ? often as witnesses, 911 callers or other contacts in a police investigation and some are recorded as having had "adverse contact" with police. That designation can spell rejection for a job applicant or prospective tenant who agrees to a request for a police information search, Eby said. Imagine starting a brand new job only to be sent home the very first day for lying about your criminal record. That's what happened to a Milwaukee woman, hired by a local department store. Only, she didn't lie. The company that checked her background got it wrong. Modern technology makes it possible to instantly search billions of public records stored all over the world. That has spawned an entire industry dedicated to screening job applicants for employers. When they make a mistake, the consequences can be devastating. For Donnie Ward, one job wasn't enough to support the family. "I?m a mom, so I was thinking about trying to make extra money just to pay bills and have a decent life," Ward said. She looked online for a part time job to supplement her income and she found one at Boston Store at Mayfair Mall doing early morning stock. "So I was excited. Went in for an interview, got the job," Ward said. Ward was barely five hours into her first shift when the human resources manager called her into the office and blindsided her. "She told me I had lied on the application that I had not been honest," Ward said. A criminal background check had uncovered a 2006 conviction in Milwaukee County for battery, a conviction she had not disclosed on her application. I immediately started to cry and said, "That's not true. This isn't me,"Ward said. Ward has never been arrested, much less convicted of a crime, but she had a hunch what was causing the confusion. You see, Donnie Ward has a twin brother, Don Ward, and, as tends to happen with twins, they were born on the same day, December 7, 1967. Of course, there's one fairly obvious difference between them. "I'm female and he's male, that's the biggest difference," Ward laughs. Online court records available to anyone " for free " show that the ?"Don Ward "convicted of battery in 2006" is indeed male. Donnie tried telling that to the human resources manager at Boston Store, but she wasn't having any of it. "She said, "You need to leave now. You need to leave Boston Store now,"" Ward said.

Ward vividly remembers struggling to find an exit as she sobbed all the way to her car. "It was very traumatic. I was embarrassed, humiliated," Ward said. You don't have to go far to find a man who understands. Just across the parking lot from Boston Store is the law office of Jeffery Hynes. He's been helping workers all over the state fight employment discrimination for more than 20 years. "When the system breaks down it can have devastating consequences on a person's career," Hynes says. In just the past five years, Hynes has seen a steep rise in complaints about mistakes in criminal background checks. "It's not only a growing problem, but it is a gross injustice being visited upon highly qualified employees who often have spotless work records who step into my office and say, "Wait a minute, I have a clean record, why didn't I get the job"" or "Wait a minute, I have a clean record, why did they walk me out the door?" Hynes said. Hynes says many employers pay a third party to screen their applicants for them. Boston Store uses a California-based company called "HireRight." "Perfection is not possible. You're literally dealing with thousands of different data sources," HireRight's Senior VP Rob Pickell said. Ward wonders how a background check could mix her up with her brother, since she gave Boston Store her social security number. Pickell says that's a common misconception about criminal background checks, because most court records don't contain a social security number. In fact, most employers don't even provide HireRight with the race and sex of an applicant, either. Pickell says that's because they worry about discrimination complaints. He admits, however, that relying on name and date of birth alone increases the chance of an error. When an error takes place, it's the applicant who's left with the burden of proving he or she is not a criminal. "That`s the crime of it all here is that good employees are being excluded and they have minimal recourse when this occurs," Hynes says. After Boston Store sent her home, Ward paid to get her own criminal background reports from Milwaukee County and the state Department of Justice. Both show no record found. She also filed a dispute with HireRight. "Obviously when there's situations where there's potentially misinformation, we want to resolve it as soon as possible," Pickell said. HireRight eventually verified Donnie's claim and " 13 days after it all began " Boston Store sent her an email that reads, in part, "Your record is clear. Hope to see you soon." "No apology from anyone," Ward complains. "No offer to reimburse me for the background checks I had to pay for, not even an apology from anyone involved in this." A spokeswoman for Bon-Ton " Boston Store's parent company " begins an email to Fox 6 by saying, "We are very sorry" about what happened. It also points out that they offered to have her "return to work." "I told them, "No, thank you." I would have been very nervous and uncomfortable working there. I would have been afraid of retribution. It just made me very uncomfortable to go back to that situation," Ward said. Ward has a new job now, anyway and a message. "Don't let somebody say that you are a criminal or you've done all these bad things when you know you haven't. Don't give up" Ward said. In that email to FOX6 from Bon-Ton, a spokeswoman claims they did apologize to Ward as soon as the background report came back corrected. Ward says that's not true. Bon-Ton also says the store never fired Ward and that she was the one who asked to go home for the day, because she was upset. Ward strongly objects to that characterization, insisting she was ordered to leave and given 14 days to prove their background check was wrong. Attorney Jeff Hynes encourages job applicants to do their own criminal background check in advance. He suggests telling a potential employer about anything they may find that could be a problem. Ward says she warned her next employer in advance about the conviction on her twin brother's record, and got the job.

New York Times Calls For Regulating/Registering Us

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0500

...The federal government clearly needs to step in (on background screening companies). It should require companies to be federally registered, outline standards for accuracy, make sure that job applicants have a reasonable time to respond to erroneous reports and seek monetary and other penalties from companies that flout the law. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/25/opinion/faulty-criminal-background-checks.html

South Korean Sex Offenders Poorly Monitored

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The government has come under criticism for poorly managing a sex offender registry following the murder of a 10-year-old girl by a repeat sex criminal who turned out to be her neighbor in Tongyeong, South Gyeonsang Province. There are ywo separate registry systems. They have different rules on the disclosure of the list of sex offenders. The case proved that the disclosure system of the two ministries has not worked in preventing crimes. The suspect, surnamed Kim, was not on either of the lists although he was convicted of raping a woman in her 60s in 2005. "A repeat sex criminal can target children and women regardless of their age,"a Constitutional Court official said. "And the government should change its policies on the disclosure of information on those sex offenders." Kim, 45, kidnapped and killed the girl who asked him for a ride to her elementary school on July 16 in Tongyeong. None of his neighbors, including the victim's father, knew that Kim had served a jail term for raping a 62-year-old woman. Citizens across the country have visited online sex offender registries operated by the two ministries since Kim was arrested on Sunday. They show personal information on sex criminals including photos, ages, and addresses. People who tried to find to sex offenders in their neighborhoods, however, face a similar problem as Kim's neighbors, because a number of criminals are excluded from the websites. One discloses information on those offenders convicted for sex crime against adults since April 2011. The other shows records on child molesters whose crimes occurred since January 2010. "We're fully aware that our current sex offender registry has a number of problems in terms of efficiency," said a gender equality ministry official. A justice ministry official echoed this view, saying consistent criteria should be adopted. "The dual system is definitely problematic and we're considering setting a unified registry and disclosure system as quickly as possible." Experts criticized the government and called for immediate action for improvement. "No other countries have such complicated criteria in running the sex offender registry," said Kim Ji-sun, a research at the Korean Institute of Criminology. She also suggested possible measures for improvement. "One Ministry can run the registry and set other related policies to protect women and children,? she said. "Meanwhile, the other Ministry can provide support with the introduction of therapy for the victims and their families."

Many Sex Offenders Nationally Manipulate Identities

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0500

A frightening number of the nation's registered sex offenders hide, change or attempt to alter their identities to avoid parole conditions aimed at keeping them from striking again, according to preliminary findings of a new study. Roughly 92,000 of the 569,325 registered sex offenders " approximately 16 percent " are digital absconders who use techniques developed by identity thieves to alter their names, birthdays, Social Security numbers and other personal information, according to the study conducted by Utica College's Center for Identity Management and Information Protection. This allows them to evade authorities while seemingly meeting court-imposed requirements or other restrictions. The tweaked identities allow them to apply for jobs, tap social benefits, hide their past from neighbors and possibly prey on more victims , all while appearing to be on the radar of those charged with tracking them. "We have to dig deeper to find out why this is happening," said Don Rebovich, the criminal justice professor at Utica College who directed the study. ?It's not to be critical of any of the tracking agencies in the states because they are doing great jobs, but there will be some offenders who slip through the cracks if they change their identities " and it's not that hard." In general, Rebovich said identities are most often changed with an altered spelling of an offender's name or by changing Social Security numbers. In some states, including Louisiana, Nevada and Tennessee, the number of registered offenders using altered identities exceeds 25 percent. In Louisiana, the figure was 64.5 percent, according to the preliminary study, compared to the national low of 7.1 percent in Wisconsin. The altered identities don't mean the offenders aren't checking in regularly with their parole officers. Actual absconder rates " the percentage of sex offenders who get released and disappear" are extremely low. Kristin Helm, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, said the state has 18,627 registered sex offenders and only about 1 percent are unaccounted for. But while offenders can't change their fingerprints for parole officers, they can easily pass themselves off as someone else to the general public.

Maryland Sex Offender Surprises Mother Of One-Year Old

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0500

When Stephanie Rudisill used a contractor for her home, she was surprised to find out upon later research the man she let into her home was a registered sex offender. He did not offend Rudisill in any way personally, and her one-year-old son was not harmed in any way, but it was shocking that she did not know about the contractor's past, and she was surprised employers were not required to tell their clients. Sex offenders listed on the Maryland sex offender registry are able to perform any job that is not full-time employment in a school or daycare, according to Sgt. Brad Brown at the Carroll County Sheriff's Office The Carroll County Sheriff's Office has been handling casework for sex offenders since July 2011. Brown said he sees a mixture of white collar and blue collar workers who are previous sex offenders. He said he has those on the sex offender registry work in places ranging from fast food to computer IT. Following contracting, the food services are most likely to employ sex offenders in Carroll County. The auto industry also has a fair amount, from mechanics, to parts and car sales clerks. Sex offenders must disclose their employment address, which is listed on the registry. Those whose employments had an address in a shopping mall with many stores were listed as"Unable to Identify." "It is a bit of hurdle for some employers to get over that conviction of hiring a sex offender,
Brown said. "However, the thing is, if they can do the job and are not a danger to anyone at the business and the public in general, then why not."

There are 203 registered sex offenders in Carroll County, with the most sexual offenders residing in Westminster zip codes. Westminster has 58 sex offenders, while 35 live in the 21136 zip code, which overlaps between Baltimore and Carroll counties in Reisterstown. Taneytown has 23, and Sykesville has 20 sex offenders who live in the area. Most sex offenders listed on the sex offender registry are unemployed, according to data collected from the Maryland Sex Offender Registry. The second most popular profession is contracting, whether that be constructing, landscaping, welding or the like. If a person is convicted of a crime that involves a sex offense, they are added to the registry. Prior to 2010, fourth-degree sex offenses and possession of child pornography did not necessarily mean a person would get onto the sex offender list, said Amy Ocampo, child abuse prosecutor with the Carroll County State?s Attorney's Office. The judge had discretion prior to a 2010 law. Now, any sex offense will get a person onto the sex offender registry if convicted, Ocampo said. "A lot of people think that the registry acts the same as probation; that it's really meant to restrict what they can and can?t do," she said. "It's really more so with public notification." Sex offenders, regardless of the age of the victim, may not enter any school for elementary or secondary education, or any daycare facility. However, there are no residency restrictions for sex offenders; they may live near a school or day care facility if they choose, according to the Maryland Department of Public Safety. Sex offenders are also able to work in a place of higher education, according to Brown. "This prompts me to call that school to make them aware of that status," Brown said. "I go ahead and let them know where they can and cannot be." Brown gave the example of Carroll County Community College, which has a daycare center in their college. Because of this, it has a blanket policy that does not allow sex offenders on the premise, whether they are going to college or attempting to become employed by the Carroll County Community College. A sex offender would have to go elsewhere in Carroll to receive or be employed by higher education, such as McDaniel College. According to the sex offender registry, there are no sex offenders currently employed at McDaniel College. "They have to completely disclose what employers they have, and if that employment takes them to another location," Ocampo said. She gave the example of a construction company based in Carroll County but has a lot of jobs in Montgomery County. It's possible they would have to inform Montgomery County's police department of their status as well, Ocampo said. Sex offenders are not required to tell their employers they are sex offenders. The exception to the rule, Ocampo said, is when a worker is contracted to do work in a school or daycare. A sex offender is then required to tell their employer, so the employer is liable. "They can't just use the excuse of "Oh my boss told me I have to do this job here,"" Ocampo said. Brown said he calls the employers after a change of employment in order to confirm their hire date, and make sure the employer knows they are employing a sex offender. Those on the registry must let Brown know within three days of their hire date. "Sometimes I find our registrants are somewhat lackadaisical and could be working there several weeks and then call to let me know," Brown said. If a registrant disobeys the sex offender registry requirements, they are guilty of a misdemeanor on first offense, and guilty of a felony on a second offense, according to Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. If an employer were to run a background check on a sex offender, they would see a criminal history and the conviction, but would not specifically list if they are on the sex offender list. Employers will hear from Brown a few days after the hire date to let the employer know anyway. "I find the majority of people on the registry don't want to violate any of the registry requirements, and don't want to violate the law period" Brown said. "Most of them are compliant just like in society. Most people in society obey most laws."

BRB Public Record Update

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Fee to Purchase Kentucky Criminal Record to Increase Soon The fee for a criminal record search in Kentucky will increase from $15.00 to $20.00 effective July 1, 2012. The fee increase is part of a plan to stay within the court system's budget, which received deep cuts with the passage of House Bill 269 (see www.lrc.ky.gov/record/12RS/HB269.htm). About Criminal Record Searches: Very few Circuit or District courts will perform a name search for the public. Most courts send criminal record requesters to a statewide service provided by the Administrative Office of the Courts. Records may be requested via fax, standard mail, walk-in, online, and even a drive-thru service. The CourtNet Criminal History database contains records from all 120 counties for at least the last five years for all misdemeanor and traffic cases and for felonies dating back to 1978. The criminal record online ordering system is called AOCFastCheck. For details on ordered and how to set-up an account, visit http://courts.ky.gov/aoc/AOCFastCheck.htm. Note as part of this plan that courthouses will be closed statewide on August 6, September 4, and October 15, 2012; employees will be furloughed. Also, since 2008 the Judicial Branch has cut 282 employees statewide and eliminated court programs in an effort to stay within their budget. Vermont Increases Fee for Manual Driving Records Effective July 1, 2012, the fee for a copy of a Vermont three-year driver operating record obtained in person or by mail increased from $11.00 to $13.00. The fee for a three-year record accessed online will remain at $15.00 per record. The fee increase is part of recent legislation (Act 128). A number of other fee increases will affect VT services driver license issuance, exams, certain CDL fees, vehicle registration, and vehicle titles. A complete list is available at http://dmv.vermont.gov/sites/dmv/files/DMV-Legislation-2012-FeeBill.pdf.

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Wed, 01 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0500

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Colo. Government Trying To Find Jobs For Workers Who Failed Checks

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The state of Colorado is scrambling to find permanent jobs for 19 employees who can't work for the Department of Public Safety as planned because they didn't pass its background check. The employees were originally hired to work for other state agencies, but those agencies were recently folded into Public Safety. That department requires its workers pass a criminal check and a polygraph test, which wasn't the threshold at the other state agencies where the workers were first hired. The employees were told beforehand what kind of questions would be asked on the polygraph test, said Public Safety spokesman Lance Clem. Some refused to take the test. Some who did take it provided answers that were deemed "deceptive." "What they are looking for is anything that indicates illegal behavior," he said. "It's up to the hiring authority to decide whether that illegal behavior knocks somebody out of the process." He said there is a time frame on the behavior, so the questions start, "In the past 10 years ... ." Workers were asked about drug use, theft and such, he said. Clem said some workers have yet to be checked, so the number could end up being higher than 19. Jennifer Okes, deputy director of the Colorado Department of Personnel and Administration, said most of the workers now have temporary jobs in other areas of state government. But she said she doesn't know how long each worker sat at home collecting a state paycheck before the temporary job became available. State House Speaker Frank McNulty, R-Highlands Ranch, said "nobody else in Colorado is sitting home collecting a paycheck." "This is exactly why people are so frustrated with government," he said. Okes said when the state first discovered that some workers were not eligible to join Public Safety, it alerted human resource directors in other agencies. Those directors were told that if they had job openings to first look at the backgrounds of the rejected Public Safety employees to see whether they could fill the slots. The salaries for the employees who aren't eligible to join Public Safety range from a manager making $104,445 annually to five workers making $35,856 annually. Most of the salaries are in the range of $35,000 to $50,000, Okes said. Effective July 1, the following agencies were merged into Public Safety: the firefighting component of the State Forest Service, which had been at Colorado State University; and the Division of Emergency Management, which had been under the state Department of Local Affairs. This spring, two other agencies were merged: Port of Entry, which used to be under the state Department of Revenue; and Homeland Security, which used to be part of the governor's office. Clem said Homeland Security involves only a handful of employees and none on the list of workers needing permanent jobs. In the other three agencies, 194 state workers were affected by the merger into Public Safety, Clem said. Eleven resigned or retired before the background checks began. He said he does not have an exact breakdown of what happened with the 19 employees who were not eligible to join Public Safety, such as how many failed the criminal check or whether they refused to take a polygraph or provided answers deemed deceptive.

Prior Convictions Missed By Three Criminal Background Checks

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0500

A Colorado school bus driver accused of sexual assault on a child had prior convictions that should have prevented him from getting a job. Robert Gordon, 48, was arrested on three counts of Sexual Assault on a Child stemming from an alleged sexual relationship he carried out with a 12 year old boy in 2002. In the arrest warrant, Gordon admitted to detectives with the El Paso County Sheriff's Office to having sex with the victim and another underage boy at his home on multiple occasions. Both Gordon and the victim described the sex to investigators as being consensual. A local televison station searched court records and found Gordon was acquitted in a case of Sexual Assault on a Child in 2001. He also had prior misdemeanor convictions of Harboring a Runaway Child in 1998 and driving under a suspended license in 1996. Widefield Human Resources Director Kirk Vsetecka said Gordon is on unpaid leave pending the outcome of the current trial. He says either of the misdemeanors would have disqualified any job applicant. However, neither conviction turned up in separate criminal background searches with the Colorado Bureau of Investigations, the Colorado Springs Police and the FBI. "It is concerning to us that we would receive information that wasn't fully inclusive of all the information necessary,"Vsetecka said.

Misuse of Data Banks Could Put Police in Jail

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Systems that law enforcement agencies use to run background checks on suspects are strictly for investigative purposes, and inappropriate use could land officers in jail. The most recent example is the indictment and arrest of former Lawrence County Chief Deputy Harold Knighten on Friday. Knighten, 41, is accused in a four-count indictment of using the Law Enforcement Tactical System, which belongs to the state, under false pretenses to check the background of an individual. Two charges are felonies and two are misdemeanors. The indictment lists the victim in Knighten's case as Christopher Lanard Hood of Town Creek. LETS is a state database, while the National Crime Information Center is a federal database. The charges are serious because the information is not public, and officials are limited in how much they can legally search. Sheriff Gene Mitchell said he's dismissed staff in the past, including one deputy two years ago for misusing the system. In that case, Mitchell said, "He was trying to find out information on a person for personal reasons. The system is to be used for any criminal investigation. It is an investigative tool." Mitchell said the officer he fired a couple of years ago was not charged with a crime. "It's up to Alabama Criminal Justice Information Services on whether or nor to bring charges," Mitchell said. The Alabama Attorney General's Office presented the case to the Lawrence grand jury. The sheriff said he could not comment on Knighten's case, which he said the Alabama Bureau of Investigation and ACJIS jointly investigated. Morgan County Sheriff Ana Franklin said her department uses LETS and NCIC, but there has been no misuse. "No one has been dismissed under my watch for that," said Franklin. "A state agency comes in every year, and we have to produce records as to why we ran someone's name through for a background check." Franklin said the department conducts checks for various reasons, including investigations and pistol permits. "It has different queries, and everybody has to go through classes to be able to access the system," Franklin said. "There's a limit on what can be looked up based on what it is. Like for a license check, you cannot run a full background check on someone." She said officers cannot use the system to do background checks for businesses or private citizens. District Attorney Scott Anderson's office has access to the two systems, also, but only three of his employees are authorized to use them. "We use it to look at people's background for habitual offender purposes," Anderson said. "We also use it to check out people we might be looking to extradite." Anderson said the usage of both systems is monitored. "We have to have a log of all the searches, and a gentleman will come by periodically to check to make sure it's used properly," Anderson said. "No one has violated the systems since I've been here, and I don't know of any past occurrences." Data in NCIC is provided by the FBI, federal, state, local and foreign criminal justice agencies, and authorized court systems. Knighten resigned as chief deputy after his arrest Friday. He remains free on $10,000 bail. He had been on paid leave since July 25 after allegations about the alleged misuse of the state database. The next step in Knighten's case is an arraignment hearing for him to face the charges, but it is unknown whether the proceeding has been scheduled. The felony charges carry a penalty up to five years in prison and a fine ranging from $5,000 to $10,000. Knighten has denied the allegations through his attorney.

Indiana Shield Law Has Critics

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Private companies that buy and sell court records used in background checks are threatening to challenge a state law that allows people with years-old, low-level arrests to shield their criminal histories from employers. They contend the law violates constitutional protections on free speech and may overstep federal rules on what states can regulate when it comes to collecting and disseminating information used to do employment screening and other background checks. Chris Lemens, general counsel for the private data collecting company, backgroundscheck.com, told members of legislature's Criminal Law and Sentencing Policy Study Committee that the state needs to rewrite the law or face a legal challenge in court. During a committee hearing Thursday, Lemens said he objected to a portion of the law, slated to go into effect next year, that would penalize private data collectors for selling criminal records that had been sealed off by a court order. The law would also penalize those data collectors for providing background information that was inaccurate or incomplete. Lemens was joined in his objections by Luke Rollins, a government affairs manager with Reed Elsevier, one of the world's biggest data collectors and the parent company of the information giant Lexis-Nexis Inc. Private data collectors buy and sell millions of criminal records, creating massive databases that they argue are not easy " or inexpensive " to keep current. Lemens described Indiana's law as "much broader" than the laws in other states that restrict access to criminal records that have been sealed or expunged by the court. The law to which they object was passed in 2011. Informally dubbed the "second chance" law, it allows Indiana residents with years-old, low-level arrests to get a court order to shield that information from public view, including potential employers. The records are still accessible to law enforcement. The law applies only to arrests and/or convictions for misdemeanors and class D felonies, the lowest felony level in Indiana. The criminal history can be cleared with a court order only after certain conditions are met, including a waiting period of five or more years, and no additional arrests or convictions. Since the state law was passed, more than 1,700 people have sought and obtained court orders sealing their criminal records.

Failed Background Check? State Pays Anyway

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The state of Colorado, under Gov. John Hickenlooper, has made the "Corruption Chronicles" assembled by government watchdog Judicial Watch with its latest government "reorganization" that shifted some state employees " some making up to six figures " from one department to another. The problem? The workers failed to pass the required criminal background checks for the state Department of Public Safety, into which a couple of previously independent programs were folded. "Here is an amusing story from Colorado: state officials are working hard to help relocate longtime employees who didn't pass background checks but got hired anyways, evidently by public agencies with low standards," said the Chronicles. "Some failed the criminal background checks and lie detector tests and others simply refused to take them," the Chronicles reported. "Sticking to its high standards of hiring only folks with clean records, the Department of Public Safety won't add them to the payroll but that doesn't mean the offenders will lose their cushy taxpayer-funded jobs." The report said the salaries for the individuals ranged from $35,000 a year up to $104,445. The report said a spokeswoman from the state Department of Personnel and Administration admitted some of the workers sat at home collecting paychecks because they couldn't report for their new responsibilities in the division run by James Davis, having failed the background checks. The situation was documented in the Denver Post. The report said the state now is trying to find permanent jobs for those employees, who originally were hired for various agencies such as the firefighting division of the state Forest Service, the Division of Emergency Management, the Port of Entry and Homeland Security. A spokesman for the Public Safety division, Lance Clem, told the Post the security screens aren't that unusual. "What they are looking for is anything that indicates illegal behavior. It's up to the hiring authority to decide whether that illegal behavior knocks somebody out of the process." It was Jennifer Okes of the Personnel and Administration office who said most of the workers are in temporary positions with the state now. This is what government is doing wrong and needs to correct, said the state House Speaker, Frank McNulty, in the Post report. "This is exactly why people are so frustrated with government," he said. "Nobody else in Colorado is sitting home collecting a paycheck."

New Bedford: We Didn't Have Right To Check Background

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Local and state officials gave two different stories Thursday about whether the city could have done a criminal background check on a city worker who was charged with armed robbery. Neil Mello, the mayor's chief of staff, said city officials did not know a Department of Public Facilities worker was on probation for a home invasion when he was hired last year. He also said the city never did a criminal history check because the state prohibits them. But Terrel Harris, a spokesman for the state Executive Office of Public Safety, said the city can either do a criminal history check or it can ask the prospective employee in an interview whether he or she has ever been convicted of a crime and then do a check if it is warranted. Mello said that New Bedford did not research any criminal history of Brandon Medeiros, 28, because his position (laborer) doesn't fall into the category that allows the city to make an inquiry. "We are prohibited by state law from doing criminal background checks except in instances where the employee interacts with children, the elderly or the job requires them to enter private residences," he said. Medeiros was arrested for the Aug. 18 robbery of the Boost Mobile Store at 93 Rockdale Ave. Mello said he had spoken on Thursday with Mayor Jon Mitchell, who is on vacation. "The bottom line for the mayor and this administration is that (Medeiros) would not have been hired had information about his criminal past been known at the time," Mello said.

Background Search Law Had Its Start Here

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Park districts in Illinois now have the ability to check young employees' backgrounds for serious crimes under a new law that got its start in Naperville. "We certainly don't want umpires and lifeguards and kids in a supervisory position to ... jeopardize anybody in the park district programs and that was our main concern, the safety of the children," said Naperville Park District Commissioner Ron Ory. The legislation, signed by Gov. Pat Quinn this summer, prohibits park districts from hiring young applicants with certain offenses on their juvenile record and gives the park district president access to such records. Background checks go back seven years. Naperville Park District Executive Director Ray McGury, a former police chief, said he is not aware of such hiring issues in Naperville, but said the ability to do background checks on young hires "made perfect sense." "People are going to do dumb things when they're young. ... We're not looking for that information," McGury said. "What we're looking for is heinous crimes that are violent, sexual in nature." Ory brought up the topic at a meeting in 2009, according to the Naperville Park District. He said he talked to former state Rep. Mary Lou Cowlishaw about the topic of background checks in schools and thought there should also be such checks in the park districts. The Naperville Park District took the idea to state lawmakers, but it took several tries to get the language and timing right for passage. This spring, it passed both the state House and Senate without opposition and Quinn signed it into law in June. "This is more common sense than anything else," said state Rep. Darlene Senger (R-Naperville) who sponsored the legislation. "There were a couple incidents throughout the state where park districts, not knowing they hired individuals (with juvenile records), that did create some problems down the road. ... You want to make sure the kids are safe."

DPS working through backlog of criminal background checks

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0500

As the new school year kicks off, thousands of new-hires haven't had their criminal background checks. The Department of Public Safety is working through its annual backlog as new teachers rush to get their clearances. DPS says up to 3,000 are waiting for the OK to head to the classroom. The agency is responsible for processing the fingerprint clearance cards not only for teachers, but also for real-estate agents, nurses, sex-offender registrations, and even prisoners. While there is an annual slowdown at back-to-school time, this year has been particularly bad thanks to a perfect storm of the summer, late applicants and a recovering economy. "The good news is the economy has gotten better. More districts are hiring more teachers, but DPS was hit by the economic slowdown so we have ramped up to deal with that," explained DPS spokesman Bart Graves. According to Graves, DPS processed 3,000 fingerprint clearance cards a week consistently for the last few years, but that jumped to 5,000 a week in March. And just a few weeks ago, 6,400 fingerprint cards were submitted. Teachers are being moved to the front of the line, but Graves assures safety is still the biggest priority. "We are going to be thorough and we're going to take our time because if we're not thorough and we just move through this process very quickly, then you face the possibility of a sex offender being hired by a school district," Graves said. The fingerprint technicians are working 24 hours a day and more staff has been hired to help, along with temporary workers. DPS says it takes between six to eight weeks to process the background check and wants to remind people to leave ample time before their start date.

Ask the D.A.: Can my criminal record be erased?

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Q: I have a record from 2005 of simple assault and endangering the welfare of a child. This is hindering my job search as I am being told that the latter is worse than murder in an employer's eyes. Is there any way to wipe this off my record? I have no other record besides this. Fail. You're out of luck. This is another very good reason to be a law abiding citizen, and should have been considered prior to committing the crime. As citizens, we agree to a social compact: we pay our taxes and abide by the law, and the government will preserve our life, liberty, and properties, and protect us from enemies, both foreign and domestic. The law is then designed to provide a disincentive for the citizenry to break the social compact. Depending upon the crime, a sentenced criminal may receive probation, fines, jail, prison, or even death. These are official disincentives, specifically designed by legislators to discourage breaking the social compact. There are also many other disincentives to breaking the law, but found nowhere in the law itself. One of those is stigma. Stigma also exists because of the social compact. The rest of us do not break the law, and are
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offended when others do so. It is frankly irritating at best. Most hard working Americans go to work, provide for their spouses, children, and loved ones, and try to treat people right. They care about their families, their neighbors, their communities, and their country, and generally want to leave the world a better place. They resist temptation, guard their impulses, and control their tempers. That's not always easy, but they do it. And they expect their fellow citizens to do the same thing. So when they don't, there naturally is stigma. Even after a criminal serves all of an official criminal sentence, and begins a fresh start (which I firmly believe in), it's not always easy due to the collateral issue of societal stigma. Depending upon the crime, there may be more or less stigma, due to how difficult society collectively believes it is to avoid that behavior. It's the "there but for the grace God go I" dynamic. The further a particular behavior wanders from "there but for the grace of God go I," the more stigma there is. There is less ability to relate or empathize, and therefore less tolerance. Basically, that is why you are hearing what you are hearing from prospective employers. And make no mistake, it's not their fault. It's yours. You should have considered this as well, before breaking the law. There is at least one other very good reason to be a law abiding citizen. Because you are happier, and your families are happier, and that's worth a lot. Don't be a disappointment or heartache to them, and avoid what we now we refer to as "drama." We all know someone, or at least someone who has a friend of a friend, who has been on the wrong end of the law. And we know how they feel about that. Embarrassment. Worry. Anger. You are not just hurting yourself when you are made to wear an orange jumpsuit and reside at Opportunity Avenue or worse, so don't be so stinking selfish. My suggestion? Altruism. Busy yourself with making this community and nation better. The more time you truly spend doing something positive, and not complaining about the unfairness you perceive to be occurring, the less time there is to consider mischief of any sort. In other words, don't just concentrate on NOT breaking the law; concentrate on proactively making this big dirt ball better. The rest will work itself out when your focus is right. Now to your specific question. Generally, the law allows for "wiping" of adult criminal records of convictions in certain specific circumstances, but it is very limited. Conviction records may be expunged when: (1) An individual who is the subject of the information reaches 70 years of age and has been free of arrest or prosecution for ten years following final release from confinement or supervision. (2) An individual who is the subject of the information has been dead for three years. (3) An individual who is the subject of the information petitions the court for the expungement of a summary offense and has been free of arrest or prosecution for five years following the conviction for that offense. For your case, the last two factors don't apply. Depending on your age, the first may I suppose. Your only remaining option left is to try to receive a pardon/clemency from the Governor. Oh, and to definitely think twice next time.

It's Time to Review Your Criminal History Screening Practices

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0500

In April, the EEOC issued a new Enforcement Guidance document on the use of criminal history information in making hiring and other employment decisions. The guidance makes it clear that the EEOC considers it unlawful to exclude candidates based on arrest records alone, and that blanket exclusions based on convictions violate the law. Conviction-based exclusions must be job-related and consistent with business necessity. In light of the guidance and the EEOC's increased focus on discrimination in hiring, employers should review and update their criminal history screening policies and practices.

Many Using Fake Degrees

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0500

With the employment market becoming increasingly competitive, many people are using bogus degrees, diplomas and certificates besides telling outright lies to secure jobs. A company specialising in pre-employment screening has detected an average of five applications with forged degrees or certificates every week while a fraud-investigation firm found that 10% to 15% of applications it scrutinised had fake paper qualifications, some of them from non-existent universities. Verity Intelligence Sdn Bhd managing director Mark Leow Boon Kuan, whose clients are mostly multinationals and finance companies, said many of the documents were cleverly forged and could fool anyone. He added: "Of about 2,000 applications we check each month, about 20 are found to have fake degrees or certificates. That's five a week. We have detected 130 forged documents so far this year."

Hells Angels

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The Hells Angels have filed suit over the government's bar on letting foreign members enter the United States, CNN reported Monday. The group claims the U.S. government has violated both immigration law and the Constitution by dubbing the Hells Angels a "known criminal organization." Despite its tough name, the Hells Angels claims it's just a group "of motorcycle enthusiasts who have joined to ride motorcycles together, organize social events, fundraisers, parties and motorcycle rallies," according to the CNN report. So, why does the government believe those motorcyclists are also criminals? We decided to take a look at the alleged criminal past of the notorious motorcycle group to find out. An "outlaw motorcycle gang" that operates around the world. The Hells Angels have just roughly 2,500 members. But the group has 230 chapters in the U.S., operates in 26 countries, and poses a threat on six continents, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The group is tied to drug trafficking, money laundering, and other criminal offenses. The Angels were formed in 1948, getting their name from bold World War II bomber pilots, according to the History Channel. They began getting a rough reputation after one of their members killed a spectator at a 1969 Rolling Stones concert just a few feet away from Mick Jagger, the History Channel noted. A two-year government sting led to the arrest of 19 Hells Angels in South Carolina. In June, the FBI announced that it had arrested 19 people tied to a South Carolina Hells Angels outfit called the Rock Hell City Nomad Chapter. They were accused of racketeering, money laundering, and other crimes. Authorities said they seized methamphetamine, cocaine, and 100 automatic weapons as part of the investigation. A former Hells Angels chapter president was convicted of massive mortgage fraud in January. Former Sonoma County, Calif. Hells Angels chapter leader Raymond Foakes was sentenced to nearly six years in prison in January for his role in a multi-million-dollar mortgage fraud.

Foakes got caught falsifying mortgage applications so he could buy land he never intended to live on, the FBI said. Instead, he wanted to use the property to grow marijuana, the feds claimed. The Drug Enforcement Administration apparently used the Hells Angels' less-than-stellar reputation to the agency's advantage. June 2008, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced that it had arrested a pair of Canadians after a three-year investigation into a cross-border cocaine and drug smuggling scheme involving the Angels. The motorcycle gang was allegedly behind a drug ring that snuck drugs in commercial lumber, cargo containers, and large pipes in a propane tanker. During the three-year probe, the government seized 1,300 pounds of cocaine, 7,000 pounds of marijuana, and $3.5 million. Thirty-eight people were charged in connection with the alleged Hells Angels drug ring. PICTURE:http://www.businessinsider.com/hells-angels-history-2012-8?op=1

Toyota Camry among the top 10 most stolen cars of 2011 in the US

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0500

National Insurance Crime Bureau has revealed a new list which reveals the names of most stolen cars in the year 2011. The list includes cars from Toyota, Ford, Honda, Dodge, Chevrolet, Nissan and Acura. According to NICB, 1991 Toyota Camry is the fourth name on the list. The latest model of Toyota Camry was launched in India earlier today at a price of Rs 23.8 lacs. 1994 Honda Accord is the car which seems to be of most value to car thieves across the United States. National Insurance Crime Bureau has also revealed that car thefts are at a 44 year low. Besides the 1994 Honda Accord, 1996 Honda Civic and 1994 Acura Integra were also categorized in top ten cars stolen by thieves. Civic stood at No.2 while Integra stood at No.6. These days, auto manufacturers are adding a host of safety features that stand in the way of vehicles being easily robbed. These include smart keys that make starting of the vehicle without the owner's key close to impossible. Tracking systems, are also being introduced which alert the police or monitoring station about a stolen vehicle and this has all gone a long way in reducing the incidents of car thefts by 43%. Thefts which stood at 1.26 million in 2003 are now down to 713,000 in 2011 thanks to these safety precautions. 1994 Honda Accord is the most attractive to thieves due to the fact that value of spare parts is higher while the sheer number of these vehicles on the road is temptation enough for passing thieves. Following is the list of top 10 stolen cars in 2011; 1994 Honda Accord
1998 Honda Civic
2006 Ford F-Series
1991 Toyota Camry
2000 Dodge Caravan
1994 Acura Integra
1999 Chevrolet Silverado
2004 Dodge Ram
2002 Ford Explorer
1994 Nissan Sentra

Family Can't Move Into Their Home After Squatters File for Bankruptcy

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Dayna Donovan and her family have been unable to occupy their home after two strangers squatting in her Littleton, Colo., home for eight months have filed for bankruptcy, preventing an eviction from the sheriff's department. On July 12, a judge in Arapahoe County ruled that Veronica Fernandez-Beleta and Jose Rafael Leyva-Caraveo, the two people who were living in the home, had to move out in 48 hours. Troy Donovan, 45, filed for a forced eviction with the Arapahoe County Sheriff's office on July 16. However, Fernandez-Beleta filed for bankruptcy on July 20, which the Donovans learned about just hours before the scheduled eviction was to take place last week. "The sheriff's office will not proceed with an eviction if there is a bankruptcy in question," Arapahoe County Undersheriff David Walcher told a local CBS television station. "It's frustrating. It's just one thing after another, after another," Donovan told ABC News. "We've lost two months' time. It has been an absolute living nightmare and an emotional roller coaster."

FBI Crime Stats Are Not Its Best Work

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The FBI's crime reporting program is considered the final word on crime trends in the United States, but the agency rarely audits police agencies providing the information and when it does its reviews are too cursory to identify deep flaws. In each of the past five years, FBI auditors have reviewed crime statistics at less than 1% of the roughly 17,000 departments that report data, a Journal Sentinel examination of FBI records has found. In all, they've audited as many as 652 police agencies during that time, or less than 4% of the total. And a survey of police departments in the 30 largest U.S. cities found that nearly two-thirds have not been audited in the past five years. Of those, six departments - including Oklahoma City, Philadelphia and Seattle - have never been reviewed by the FBI since the auditing program began 15 years ago. That lack of scrutiny allows cases of undercounting of crimes, such as violent assaults that were not included in the crime rate since 2006, to go unnoticed and gives the public a false sense of the true level of crime, criminal justice experts said. "It would be more candid to not do any (audits)," said Eli Silverman, professor emeritus at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. "This way, at least you're not offering any pretense of checking on the validity of the stats. If you are going to do that little, then why do it? You either do it systematically, or you don't do it at all." He called the audit process a "useful fig leaf."

Misuse of Data Banks Could Put Ala. Police in Jail

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0500

London Magistrate Court Update

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0500

A brand new state-of-the-art magistrates' court opened its doors in Marylebone on after a multi-million pound refurbishment. Built on the site of the old Marylebone Magistrates' Court, the new 10-courtroom Westminster Magistrates' Court took over responsibility for all cases in the borough. The move marks the culmination of five years of major upheaval for Westminster's criminal justice system. At the turn of the century there were three magistrates courts in the borough at Marylebone Road, Horseferry Road and Bow Street. But in a bid to centralise the work onto one site the courts service decided to construct a brand new "super" court on the Marylebone Road site. Dave Weston of Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service said: "This new centre demonstrates our commitment to ensuring that court users in London have access to a first class criminal justice system." "Our aim in opening Westminster Magistrates' Court is to provide a single, purpose-built courthouse that is properly equipped to deal with the high-volume, high profile Westminster workload." The construction of the new Marylebone court was a source of much controversy when the plans were announced in 2006. The old Marylebone Magistrates' Court had comprised a building dating from 1848, the former Marylebone Public Baths dating from 1896, and Pompeian Bath facade from 1874. During the planning stage, groups including the Victorian Society, Marylebone Association and St Marylebone Society all opposed the plans to demolish the old court claiming it would be a destruction of heritage. However, it was eventually determined on appeal that the baths could be demolished while some of the site was sold off for affordable housing. The opening of the new court also marks the end for the City of Westminster Magistrates' Court on Horseferry Road which closed its doors. The Horseferry Road site dealt with some of the most high-profile cases in recent times including those of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and late singer Amy Winehouse. Magistrates also sat through the night at the court during the riots last year. The Horseferry Road site " along with the Bow Street site " has now been sold to developers. The new Westminster Magistrates Court will deal with all cases originating in the borough as well as hearing national cases related to terrorism, extradition and other high-profile matters.

Worsening A Bad Law Fort Wayne Journal Gazette editorial

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Hoosier lawmakers made a troubling law even worse this year, voting to prohibit companies from distributing factual information about criminal convictions. Such a ban raises constitutional questions regarding free speech and must be repealed. The General Assembly created the problem when it adopted a well-intentioned but flawed law written to help people who had been convicted of a non-violent misdemeanor or low-level felony years earlier but have had no further convictions for at least eight years. The law allows such Hoosiers to ask the courts to seal the records of their conviction from the public , but not from the courts or law enforcement officers. Judges don't have an option; the law states they "shall" order the records sealed. The law makes clear that in filling out an employment application, Hoosiers who have had their records sealed may state they have never been convicted of a crime. And the law makes it an infraction for a prospective employer to ask applicants whether they have a criminal record that is sealed.

While the bill was intended to give convicted criminals a second chance, it has the effect of sealing public records from the public, which is bad enough. But legislators made the law even worse this year. While some employers might get information about convictions from the courts, others may use a private company that collects and distributes information about criminal convictions for a fee. Information about convictions would remain in their databases even if it's hidden in the courts. So the General Assembly voted to prohibit "criminal history providers" from distributing information about convictions that have been sealed in the courts.

Consider the ramifications of the government ordering a person or company not to distribute factual information. The law is almost certainly an unconstitutional limit on free speech. The problem with both the original and updated laws is that lawmakers are trying to have it both ways. For prospective employers and the public, the records are secret. For police and the courts, the records still exist. If lawmakers truly want to accomplish their goal of giving offenders a second chance, they should require the records to be expunged, essentially vacating or undoing a criminal's conviction. If lawmakers think police and courts must be able to know about a suspect's convictions, the records should be open to all. Right or wrong, the law has potential to create much more work for both court personnel and the companies that compile information about criminal histories. Judges and police are already busier; Indiana State Police have received court orders to seal 1,700 criminal records under the law. The portion of the law allowing the sealing of court records took effect last year. The portion of the law dealing with criminal history providers does not take effect until July 2013, meaning lawmakers can and should rescind the most noxious part before the law takes effect. The legislature would best serve Hoosiers by deciding to have all affected records either expunged or open.

Indiana In The News Again

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Indiana is stepping up efforts to catch people who are collecting unemployment illegally, resulting in 14 felony convictions so far this year. The Indiana Department of Workforce Development has caught more than 135 people falsely claiming jobless benefits since 2006. Sixty-two of those have been convicted of felonies.

How The Police Found Steve Jobs' Stolen I-Pads

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The digital breadcrumbs left behind when people use Internet-connected gadgets are what led California investigators to recover iMacs, iPads and other items stolen from the home of the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Based on the police report, obtained by one IDG News Service, here's how they did it. The burglary took place while the Jobs family home, in a leafy and quiet area of Palo Alto, was being renovated and was unoccupied. Sometime between the construction crew leaving the site at 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, July 17, and arriving just before 8:00 a.m. the next morning, someone entered the house and stole several personal effects and Apple gadgets. Within several days, the Palo Alto Police Department had enlisted the help of the Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team, a San Jose-based organization formed by local, state and federal law enforcement agencies that specializes in computer-related crimes. Local police wanted assistance tracking down the Apple computers and iPads that were reported stolen from the house. The REACT team reached out to Apple's own investigators, who had access to the company's computer systems, and supplied them with a list of serial numbers of stolen devices. Apple was quickly able to determine that one of the stolen iPads had connected with Apple's servers soon after the burglary. The iPad was trying to reinstall its operating system and was recorded connecting from an AT&T U-verse Internet IP address from 7:22 a.m. to 7:31 a.m. on July 18, the morning after the house was broken into and minutes before the returning construction workers would discover the break-in. Upon searching logs for the IP address, Apple investigators discovered a different iPad had connected from the same address at 8:10 a.m. on July 17, before the burglary took place, and again at 1:56 p.m. on July 20, after the break-in was reported to police. That iPad wasn't suspected stolen, but the iTunes account information gave investigators a lead. Tied with information from AT&T U-verse about the Internet connection, investigators were led to an address in Alameda, on the east side of San Francisco Bay. At that address Kariem McFarlin, the suspect in the case, was paying for AT&T Internet service, according to investigators. While police were building their case there was more activity on the stolen devices. Over a five day period, Apple investigators recorded activity on McFarlin's iTunes account linked to the iPad that originally connected to restore its operating system, a second iPad stolen from the Jobs' home and an iMac computer that was also missing, according to police. One of the iPads later connected from a Comcast Internet connection in Alameda using a different iTunes account. Investigators say they searched McFarlin's Facebook page and discovered their suspect and the owner of this new iTunes account were friends. Before investigators made their move there was one final check that had to be made. They traveled to the Alameda address where McFarlin lived and swept the immediate area for Wi-Fi signals. Police wanted to determine whether there was an open Wi-Fi network that perhaps was being used without the owners' permission. If the AT&T Internet address was tied to an unsecured connection, it could complicate the case because anyone could have used it. Finding only secured Wi-Fi signals, investigators could argue it was being used by the person paying the bill or those with permission. Police entered McFarlin's apartment and discovered one of the stolen iMac computers on his kitchen table, according to the police report. The other iPads were recovered from people associated with McFarlin, the police say.

Costco Shoppers Want "Americans Only" Hours

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0500

If you've ever shopped at Costco on a weekend, you know it's like an endurance sport, with tough parking, packed crowds and competitive lines for those mini-sausage samples. But Costco shoppers in Bellingham, Wash. have an additional challenge: Canadians. It seems that the store, 90 miles north of Seattle and near the border, attracts flocks of Canadians in search for cheaper American milk and gas. And that's making some locals grouchy. A Facebook page has emerged to vent the grumpiness, called "Bellingham Costco needs a special time just for Americans." With more than 4,200 likes so far, it features rants about crowds, parking and rude Canadians who buy up all the milk (by the double-gallon) and take forever in the gas line (with their extra gas cans). There's at least one photo of a bad British Columbian park job that committed the sin of hogging up two spaces. "Costco should make a special time during the day that is American members only," wrote the page's administrator, who described local Costco shoppers as "Founding customers." "They used to do it for Business members, why cant they do it for us." But not everyone is complaining about the "mob show" at the Bellingham Costco. One Facebook poster called the comments "discrimination" and wrote, "I say to Canadians boycott, and watch how fast your city begs for Canadians to return." Bellingham Mayor Kelli Linville also continued to welcome Canadians. "The unpleasant comments we've seen on social media regarding Canadians are offensive and inappropriate," Linville said Monday. The Facebook page creator wrote that the problem isn't Canadians personally, but the need for a larger store. That may not happen any time soon. An executive with Issaquah, Wash.-based Costco told CBC News the company wants to expand, but there's no room on the current property. Also, don't expect any special U.S.-only shopping hours. Costco said it's planning to continue its policy of letting Costco members shop in any Costco they choose.

Israel To Charge Parents For Child's Crimes

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0500

In the wake of a recent violent beating of an Arab teen by several Jewish youths in Jerusalem, an existing law that places responsibility for children's misdeeds on their parents is likely to be expanded. East Jerusalem resident Jamal Julani, 17, nearly died after he was brutally beaten in downtown Jerusalem last week. Eight suspects, seven of them minors, have been arrested so far in connection with the incident. Julani was released from the hospital on Thursday. MK Haim Katz (Likud), chairman of the Knesset Labor, Welfare and Health Committee, has initiated a bill which, if passed, would hold parents of minors criminally responsible for crimes in which their children are implicated, Yedioth Ahronoth reported on Thursday. A law currently in effect states that if a minor is caught in possession of a sharp object, such as a knife, the parents of that child can be fined as much as NIS 21,000 (approx $5,000) or serve up to a year in prison. Katz is essentially proposing a wider-reaching extension of that law that would also mandate criminal charges for parents of minors involved in cases of violence or other criminal activity. According to the terms of Katz's initiative, parents would be charged in cases where it could be established that they could have conceivably prevented the crime had they supervised their children more strictly. According to Yedioth, one aspect of the bill still under discussion in the Knesset is the age of the children for whom parents would bear criminal responsibility. Some MKs believe that the law should apply to all minors " that is, children up to the age of 18 " while others say that it should only apply to children up to the age of 16. Five of the seven minors currently in custody for last week's beating are under the age of 16. Should the bill be legislated, the more difficult legal challenge would be to determine specific guidelines for what constitutes parental negligence, as opposed to what is not reasonably within the parents' control. "We cannot abide a situation where the streets of Israel turn into a dangerous place just because parents are unaware of what their children are up to," Katz told Yedioth. "After the horrible incident in Jerusalem, we need a comprehensive, aggressive solution to eradicate violence."

Local Tokyo Prefectures Passing The Buck

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Local governments are demanding the central government take greater responsibility in managing lists of people with criminal records, saying the sensitive nature of such information has created too much of a burden. Although the central government frequently uses such rosters to weed out individuals considered for awards or government jobs, no law has been enacted that clarifies the legal basis of the lists. Currently, local governments assume all responsibility for compiling, managing and handling the criminal rosters. But the lack of legislation means that local governments differ in how they compile and manage these rosters. "There are strong doubts among many local governments over whether such work should be handled by local governments," an official of Tokyo's Adachi Ward said. A national organization of local governments plans to ask the justice and internal affairs ministries to pass legislation to clarify how criminal rosters should be compiled and managed. Organization officials said local governments were considering refusing to respond to inquiries about criminal rosters if the central government does nothing about the situation. The criminal rosters contain the names, birth dates, crimes and sentences of people whose sentences have been finalized. Accidental leaks of such information could ruin careers, split families and fly in the face of the justice system that emphasizes rehabilitation. Local governments use the criminal lists to determine who should be deleted from voter rolls. Other entities use the rosters for background checks of those applying to work.

Les Rosen's Corner EEOC Must Testify On Own Use Of Criminal Background Checks

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0500

A federal district Court in Maryland has ruled that an employer sued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for alleged discriminatory use of criminal background checks and credit histories in hiring may compel the EEOC the testify regarding the agency's own use of criminal records and credit information for employment screening. The ruling EEOC v. Freeman, D. Md., No. 09-2573, 8/14/12 is here: http://op.bna.com/dlrcases.nsf/id/kmgn-8x7jwz/$File/freemanprotect.pdf. In September 2009, the EEOC - the agency that enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination - sued the defendant, a corporate events planner, alleging it systematically engaged in a "pattern or practice" of unlawful discrimination against black, Hispanic, and male job applicants under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act by using criminal records and credit histories as hiring criteria. The EEOC opposed the deposition on the basis that the information was not relevant and that a deposition would be "unduly burdensome." According to the ruling by U.S. Magistrate Judge Charles B. Day on August 14, 2012, the deposition regarding the EEOC's hiring practices could produce information relevant to the defense that its consideration criminal backgrounds and credit histories is job-related and consistent with business necessity. Day wrote if the EEOC "uses hiring practices similar" to those used by the defendant, "this fact may show the appropriateness of those practices," since the EEOC is "the agency fighting unfair hiring practices." The court added the EEOC and the defendant "consider similar factors" in evaluating job applicants with criminal backgrounds, including the nature of the criminal offense, the seriousness of the conduct, and the particular job to be filled. These three factors are part of the updated EEOC Enforcement Guidance on the Consideration of Arrest and Conviction Records in Employment Decisions Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 available at: http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/arrest_conviction.cfm. USCIS Tells Employers to Use Current Employment Eligibility Verification Form I-9 Despite August 31 Expiration Date. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) - the government agency that oversees lawful immigration to the United States - has announced that, until further notice, employers in the United States should continue to use the current version the Employment Eligibility Verification Form I-9 (Rev. 08/07/09) even after its Office of Management and Budget (OMB) control number expiration date of August 31, 2012. The bulletin sent by the USCIS for the announcement is available here: http://content.govdelivery.com/bulletins/gd/USDHSCIS-4e551e.

New EEOC Rules Adds To Employers Decison Making Woes

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0500

by Mark Fijman In a lifetime of crime, Willie Sutton robbed banks of almost $2,000,000.00. From 1934 through 1947 he was one of the nation's most successful bank robbers. He made the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list in 1950, after escaping from prison disguised in a prison guard's uniform.He's famous for a comment he supposedly made to a reporter who asked him why he robbed banks. His now legendary reply was "because that's where the money is." With his long history of arrests, convictions and prison time, what are the chances Willie Sutton would be hired today if he decided to go straight and fill out a job application for a sales job in retail, or even more unlikely, applied for a job as a bank teller? It's no longer as easy a question as many employers might think. That's because On April 25, 2012, the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") issued revised enforcement guidance on the extent to which employers may rely on an individual's criminal history in making hiring or other employment selection decisions. The guidelines impose additional duties on employer's to establish that any reliance on such information is legitimately "job related." To borrow from Willie Sutton's famous phrase, employers using criminal background histories in making hiring decisions now have to proceed very carefully, "because that's where the liability is."

Fake Resumes Not Unique Problem in Asia

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Jobseekers who tout inflated resumes is a problem that exists in both emerging and mature Asian markets, according to recruiters who suggest ways to spot fake credentials when hiring IT professionals. Richard Farmer, director for professionals at recruitment agency Randstad, said competition for highly-skilled professionals in Asia can result in employers rushing through the hiring process and not giving it the appropriate due diligence. He said this is not a new problem and is not limited to emerging or mature markets. Farmer said: "Common areas where people exaggerate or list fake details include academic degrees, start and end dates of employment, previous employers and job titles." According to Edwin Lim, managing consultant for IT&T at Hudson, providing fake credentials seemed more common in emerging markets and not in mature markets such as Singapore. But while the act is not prevalent in Singapore, he noted there still are fake resumes in the market. Train Luo, managing partner of CTPartners China, said even high-level executives in Asia had been caught giving fake credentials. For example, Tang Jun, current CEO of Xin Hua Du Industrial Group and former president of Microsoft China, was publicly criticized for lying about his education and work experience, noted Luo. A Times of India report published earlier this month revealed one in five resumes in the country's IT industry were deemed "suspect". An executive told the newspaper: "Honestly, most IT firms don't care; they just terminate these employees and forget about it. Unless employees, who fake their credentials, are taken to the police, this issue will never come to an end." Farmer said hiring candidates who lie in their resumes inevitably creates a "big problem" for IT companies. "It's not until the candidate is in the role that it becomes clear his or her skills do not match [those stated in] the resume," he said. Kathryn Yap, managing partner of CTPartners Singapore, said employees who are dishonest in their resumes can also damage the reputation of a brand. She pointed to how former Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson's inflated resume--which were "small but important details"--can severely damage the image of a company, the CEO, as well as the board. Lim noted that large multinational corporations such as IBM, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco Systems, SAP, Oracle and other companies conduct detailed background and reference checks, and request supporting documents such as education certifications and identity documents before delivering the letter of offer to their chosen candidates. The Hudson consultant said some IT companies also employ third-party vendors to conduct detailed background checks to look into the candidate's credit status, criminal records and employment tenure with companies stated in the resumes. Farmer said: "Evaluating candidates' resumes is an important part of the recruitment process and this is where a recruitment company plays an important role in checking employment history and qualifications." He said there are several ways for recruiters to validate the credibility of a candidate's resume. Performing a background check is a good starting point, he recommended. "We always speak to referees or people at the candidate's previous workplaces to cross-reference salary, dates of employment, reporting lines and work undertaken," he said. Randstad also checks for red flags such as unexplained gaps in employment or reluctance from the jobseeker to give reasons for leaving a role, Farmer said. "With the increase of social media networking sites, it is also easy to conduct online research to verify details," he added. Luo cautioned jobseekers against inflating their resumes. "Today, social networks such as LinkedIn or Weibo have increased transparency and provide additional sources for background checks. The penalty of resume inflation, particularly on one's education, is just too high to be worth engaging in," he said.

New Fingerprint Technique Determines Gender, Drug Use

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The gender of suspects can now be determined from latent fingerprints. Peptides and proteins left behind in fingerprints can be processed using a technique called mass spectrometric imaging, a new milestone in fingerprinting technology. The technique, entitled the "matrix assisted laser desorption ionisation" process was developed by Simona Francese and Rosalind Wolstenholme of the Biomedical Research Center at Sheffield Hallam University. The project is supported by UK's Home Office in order to enhance the country's law enforcement capacity. In certain cases, the peptides and proteins left behind in fingerprints will be the only data police will have on suspects, especially if the suspect's profile is not matched within the UK's National Fingerprint Database. Determining the gender, based on the chemical composition of a finger mark, can help narrow down suspects. Based on a study using matrix assisted laser desorption ionisation profiling, 85 percent accuracy was gained using the technique. The process can detect drug use or drug handling from lipids present in latent fingerprints. The profiling can help investigators create suspect composites along with determining the nutritional habits, drug use or hormonal status of a person.

NJ Criminal records Now Online

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0500

In what's been a long time coming, a searchable database of criminal convictions in New Jersey Superior Court is now available on the state Judiciary's website. The Criminal Conviction Public Access system provides access to information for all cases filed after 1994. Users can search by name or docket number and find the charge for which the defendant was convicted. Hometowns and birth years of defendants, as well as their State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) numbers, helps reduce misidentifications. Expunged cases and cases that have not been resolved are not available through the system. "The addition of this online feature to the Judiciary's website is part of a comprehensive plan to make more court information and records available to the public," Judge Glenn A. Grant, acting administrative director of the courts, said in a release. "Online access to criminal conviction information is one of several convenient web-based public access systems that the Judiciary has made available in recent months. We are continuing to leverage our existing resources to provide more access, transparency, and more convenience to the public." Visitors to the Judiciary website also can search the status of civil cases; search the attorney registration index, which allows users to determine whether an attorney is eligible to practice law in New Jersey; and search the judgment lien index, which allows users to determine if liens are filed against individuals. Click on "Online Resources" on the Judiciary website to access the databases. Website: www.judiciary.state.nj.us/

Most Dangerous Television Towns

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0500

If you're looking for somewhere peaceful to spend a holiday, you might think of Oxford, somewhere quiet in Scandinavia or perhaps quaint Cabot Cove in Maine. They all look so pretty on TV shows Inspector Morse, Wallander and Murder, She Wrote. But you would be lucky to return alive if their fictional crime levels are to be believed. The rates were calculated by BBC Radio 4 show More Or Less which found sleepy, but fictional, Cabot Cove is actually the most dangerous place on Earth. The home town of amateur sleuth Jessica Fletcher, played by veteran actress Angela Lansbury, had just over five murders a year in the series' 12-year run. Since the town has a population of 3,560, that works out at 149 per 100,000 people. Even strife-torn South Africa and drug-ravaged Colombia had murder rates in their worst years of under 70 per 100,000. The dreaming spires of Oxford are much safer, in Inspector Morse and its sequel Lewis. The city has a population of 154,000 but suffered about four TV murders a year. That works out at around three per 100,000 people, compared to roughly one in real life. Scandinavian detectives are the latest TV trend. Take the best-known, Wallander, set in the Swedish town of Ystad. It has a population of 18,350, although that must be hard to maintain considering how many serial killers Wallander hunts. While not every episode is set in Ystad, the annual murder rate is about 110 per 100,000. The real figure for the whole of Sweden is roughly one. Back in England, Midsomer was the haunt of DCI Tom Barnaby, played by John Nettles in Midsomer Murders. It is a fictional county but much of it was filmed in Oxfordshire so Charlotte McDonald, numbers expert on More Or Less, worked out a murder rate for a similar population around 3.2 per 100,000. The real total is one.

Les Rosen's Corner Eeoc Must Testify On Own Use Of Criminal Background Checks

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0500

FBI Crime Stats Are Not Its Best Work

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Les Rosen's Corner

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0500

According to regulations from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), three essential forms mandated by the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) used in the background screening process must be modified by January 1, 2013. The forms must be changed to reflect that consumers can obtain information about their rights under the FCRA from the CFPB instead of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The three forms in use currently indicate that the FTC is the agency consumers can contact with questions. The regulation with the revised forms is available online at: http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/ The three forms at issue are: -Summary of Consumer Rights under the FCRA
-Notice to Users of Consumer Reports of their Obligations under the FCRA
-Notice to Furnishers of Information of their Obligations under the FCRA

Each of the three notices is mandated for use in certain situations under the Fair Credit Reporting Act: The "Summary of Consumer Rights under the FCRA" is a notice that a background screening firm must provide to an employer and employers in turn must provide the notice to applicants in different situations. The FCRA also mandates that a background screening firm (known as a Consumer Reporting Agency or "CRA") must provide each user of its services the "Notice to Users of Consumer Reports of their Obligations under the FCRA." The "Notice to Furnishers of Information of their Obligations under the FCRA" is aimed at certain furnishers of information to CRAs and must be provided in prescribed situations such as a re-investigation where the consumer disputes the report or in a situation involving identity theft. The changes are the result of the creation of the CFPB as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Pub.L. 111-203, H.R. 4173) that was signed into law by President Barack Obama on July 21, 2010. The CFPB has rule making and enforcement powers over the FCRA. However, the CFPB does not have supervisory power over background screening firms. Congress specifically exempted background screening firms from being supervised by the CFPB since a background check report is not a financial product. The result may be some confusion as the CFPB and FTC determine which agency will perform which tasks.

Owe Money In UAE - Go To Jail

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0500

A National News Editorial Sometimes, through no fault of their own - perhaps by losing a job or receiving unexpected bills - people end up owing more money than they can pay back. But, unless you have brought it on yourself by behaving recklessly or fraudulently, bankruptcy should not make you a criminal. As we have noted on these pages before, UAE law is tough on people who bounce cheques or accumulate unpayable bills. Do it, and you will go to jail until you can settle the debt - and that could mean you languish behind bars longer than thief. Prisons serve a necessary role in the community, not least by keeping criminals apart from the rest of us. Motivated inmates can learn a skill or acquire an education that will serve them well on the outside. But one thing you can't currently do in jail is earn money to pay off a debt. Not everyone with unpaid bills goes to jail, however. Some flee the country before that happens. Either way, creditors don't get repaid. Some good news has come to light following discussions between the attorney general of Dubai Courts and officers of the Indian Embassy, which has expressed concern about the high number - about 1,300 - of its nationals in UAE prisons for unpaid debt. As The National reported yesterday, India's Ambassador MK Lokesh has said that there was already "some movement in the Government to make amendments to the bankruptcy laws". While the specifics are not yet available, this might allow prisoners to perform paid work and to use their earnings to pay off their debts. This is surely a move in the right direction. If it means fewer people are in jail, society wins by not having to bear the cost of supporting them. Presumably the work the prisoners undertake will also have some benefit to the nation. There will be savings, too, and benefits for inmates who will be able to earn the chance for freedom. None of this trivialises the offences of those who have broken the law, or changes the fact that people must be held accountable for their debts. No one is advocating a "get out of jail free" card, just a measure that provides a light at the end of the tunnel for people with little or no hope. Prison is not a good way to deal with debt and, pending broad reforms of debt collection and bankruptcy laws, the proposal offers one solution.

South Korea President Fed Up With Soft Stance On Alcohol-Induced Violence

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0500

South Korea's president called for tough action against alcohol-induced violence in a country where the police and courts have traditionally taken a lenient attitude towards intoxicated offenders. "We must correct a culture of tolerating misbehaviour by drunk people," Lee Myung-bak told police officers and officials working to stamp out violence in schools and other sectors of society. "Our country must be the only nation where drunks beat up the police," he said. South Koreans are the world's heaviest consumers of spirits, with the average adult drinking 9.57 litres a year, according to 2005 data from the World Health Organisation published last year. Street brawls, family violence and other crimes involving drinking are common but police and courts often hand down lenient punishments to offenders who acted under the influence. Last month top liquor maker Hite-Jinro started labelling soju and beer bottles with messages such as: "No more drunken violence!" The joint campaign with the Seoul police aims to curb alcohol-induced violence and other rowdy behaviour.

A System For Compensating Victims That Needs Fixing

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0500

by Hassan Hassan In pre-Islamic Arabian history, a cycle of revenge between two major tribes was triggered by the killing of a camel. The two tribes fought a vicious war that was said to have lasted for 40 years. Islam adopted a system of compensation in a bid to put an end to such cycles of violence, which were rampant in the area at the time. But today in the UAE and elsewhere in the Muslim world, this mechanism for distribution of justice is subject to abuse. Centuries after its creation, the system of blood money - diyya - needs to be revisited. Sharia stipulates that if a person commits a murder, the family of the victim can demand the death penalty, accept diyya (the Hadith suggests it be equal to the value of 100 camels) or forgive the killer. The process requires an understanding by the adult members of the victim's family, who are entitled to inheritance, that they will not seek further retribution. In cases of wrongful death and physical or mental injuries, diyya must be paid to the person or their dependents. Diyya is also required for livestock killing. As a former justice and courts reporter for The National in Abu Dhabi, I often discussed the issue of diyya with lawyers and legal experts. Four areas of possible reform stand out: First, the concept of aqela (the male family members of the convicted who are required by Sharia to pay diyya in cases of wrongful death) is in need of reconsideration. The purpose is to foster a sense of familial responsibility of a person's mistakes, ensure speedy payment to the victim and encourage responsible social behaviour. However, social dynamics have changed and families no longer feel obligated to pay for a family member. As a result, many people can linger in jail for years after serving their prison sentence because they cannot afford to pay (diyya in the UAE is equal to Dh200,000 per victim). Consider the case of Humayun Al Rahman, a 24-year-old from Pakistan, who was sentenced to three years in prison for causing the death of 10 people in a traffic accident in Dubai. He completed his sentence in 2008 but is still in jail for failing to pay Dh2m worth of diyya. Al Rahman is stuck in a Catch-22, where he cannot be released without paying yet cannot pay while he is in prison. Nor is his family able to pay for him. Al Rahman's case is complicated by the number of casualties and the possibility of leaving the country if he is released. But his case and so many others could be solved if the concept of aqela is broadened to include a person's country, community or place of work. In Sudan, for example, the community or the government is required to pay the diyya if the person cannot afford to pay. Under this system, if Al Rahman were released and left the country before the payment was made, it would become the responsibility of his country to ensure the payment to the victims' families. In countries like the UAE, where many communities exist, each community might also create a special fund to cover such cases. A solution is needed. Keeping a person in jail for failing to pay a diyya is not compliant with Sharia nor with the UAE constitution. Second, insurance companies or employers should be forced to make good on their commitments. It is common that insurance companies avoid the payment of diyya under various pretexts. In one case, an insurance company refused to pay the diyya for a driver, arguing that the contract states the company is liable for any "road" accidents, while the accident occurred "off road". Two lower courts accepted the company's argument but the Supreme Court ruled the argument is fallacious and ordered the company to pay. That was the exception, however. Many other companies often avoid honouring their obligations because claimants do not pursue the case to higher courts, or have incompetent lawyers. Third, some courts still consider diyya for female victims to be valued at half the diyya for men. The courts of Abu Dhabi and Dubai order equal diyya for men and women, while federal courts give half the diyya for women based on the inheritance law. But, unlike in the past, women are now also breadwinners and they must be treated as such in the courts of law. Also, equal diyya for women goes beyond the financial significance. In pre-Islamic days the system of blood money varied from one tribe to another, and served to assert tribal or individual supremacy. Under Islam, the mechanism was regulated and the value of 100 camels was set as the standards diyya payment, partly to cultivate equality. This system of equal treatment must be extended to gender, and courts must be the agencies of promoting this fairness. Fourth, diyya can be abused in cases of physical or mental injuries. In such instances, victims can claim to be injured in ways that are difficult to prove medically. In one instance in Al Ain, a man claimed he lost his sense of smell in a traffic accident and demanded diyya for it. In another case in Fujairah, a motorist was ordered to pay Dh2 million in diyya for causing damage to a man's memory, consciousness and brain. Lower courts ordered diyya for each instance of harm, but the Supreme Court amended the ruling, calling for payment to compensate brain damage only. In western countries, victims of crimes or their dependents can apply for compensation, expenses or benefits. The case of Al Rahman, and many others like him, is complicated by the antiquated application of a Sharia principle. That principle must be revisited to establish its purpose and context.

Tanzania Goes High Tech

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The introduction of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) in service delivery at the High Court-Commercial Division is a blessing in disguise as far as timely dispensation of justice for all is concerned. This was said in Dar es Salaam by the Chief Justice of Zanzibar, Omar Othman Makungu, when touring the court. Mr Makungu said he was much impressed with how it was now simple to access information regarding cases in the court. "I am personally very impressed with the system as we are looking forward to establish a commercial division in the Isles," he said. Justice Makungu noted that plans for the establishment of the proposed division were set, and already a plot has been allocated for the Division and that it would start anytime late this year or early next year. Earlier, the High Court-Commercial Division Registrar, Mr John Kahyoza, said the court's mission was to provide just, quality, efficient, effective and speedy disposal of commercial cases through modern systems and practices. He said that through the Digital Recording System, the Division records court proceedings and transcribed them. "The practice eases the proceedings as judges are no longer required to write everything that is been said in the court. "It is also much simpler in making reference on previous cases,'' he said. Judge Kahyoza said that all cases filed with the court are now registered electronically for production of case list and uploading on the website through the Division's website hence easy access to all. He added that the Division also has an e-Library which enables members of judiciary to access books from the judicial library physically and online for those who are provided with passwords. He noted that the Division's Mobile Application System (MAS) enables access to case related information using mobile phones handset. The telephone companies involved are Vodacom, Tigo and Airtel. "On your mobile handset, open a message page then text 'Kesi' or 'case'' or 'wahusika' or 'parties', leave a space and write a case number (e.g. 11/2011), send it to 15564 and a reply will provide information on the dates, time, hour, and chamber," he said. He pointed out some of the challenges as including, shortage of transcribers and stenographers leading to delayed transcription of all audio records, lack of rules governing recording of proceedings and absence of an established ICT department in the Judiciary. Others includes, insufficient budget for ICT, insufficient skills capacity of ICT personnel and staff, missing of records due technical hitch and lack of electricity back up during the power failure among others. ''We are planning to improve and extend Recording System to sub-registries in upcountry regions and build a kiosk where plaintiffs will be researching information about their cases,'' he said.

Claim Of iPhone Hacking Raises Questions About FBI Data

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0500

A hacker group's claim that it obtained from an FBI laptop a file with more than 12 million identification numbers for Apple iPhones, iPads and other devices has set off widespread speculation about why a federal agency would possess such information. But the FBI disputed the allegation, saying that "at this time, there is no evidence indicating that an FBI laptop was compromised or that the FBI either sought or obtained this data." If the FBI's denials prove correct, the agency may have been the victim of a clever hoax by the group known as AntiSec that spurred thousands of headlines around the Web and left readers wondering how and why the FBI could have gotten access to Apple customer records. The hackers said they found the file when they infiltrated a Dell laptop computer belonging to Christopher K. Stangl, a member of the FBI's Cyber Action Teams. They posted to a website a file containing 1 million of the so-called unique device identifiers, or UDIDs, to bolster their claim. They said the larger file included "user names, name of device, type of device, Apple Push Notification Service tokens" as well as ZIP Codes, cellphone numbers and addresses, though they did not release any of those details. The hacker group said the file containing the data was called "NCFTA_iOS_devices_intel.csv". That set off a flurry of speculation among privacy activists that the data was linked to the National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance, a partnership of business, government and academia that includes a former FBI agent as its director of operations. No one from that organization responded to requests for comment. The NCFTA, which is based in Pittsburgh, has billed itself as a clearinghouse through which companies can indirectly share cyber security-related data with the government. Cyber security legislation that failed to pass the Senate in July included provisions to expand such information sharing, so that the FBI and other agencies have help in tackling malware used in cyber crime. "It's exactly the type of scenario that we were worried about happening with cyber security legislation," said Trevor Tim, an activist and blogger with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group focusing on technology. "That these companies were going to use cyber information sharing provisions to hand over large swaths of data to the government that they would otherwise need a subpoena or a warrant or a court order." After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the FBI was given legal tools to request "third-party business records" without a court order, as long as it deemed those records "relevant to an investigation." Many consumer interactions with businesses on the Web produce records that are covered under those provisions and are not protected by the 4th Amendment requirement of a search warrant. Most security experts said that the release of UDIDs into the wild in and of itself did not pose much of a privacy or security risk. It was no more harmful than a list of car VIN numbers, they said. But if AntiSec's claims are true that the larger file accessed includes names, phone numbers and email addresses, the information could be used to track individuals, see what apps they've downloaded or lead to identity theft, said Ori Eisen, founder and chief innovation officer of security firm 41st Parameter.

How We Fudge Cheating

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0500

by Michael Roth Behavioural economist Dan Ariely is a funny guy on a mission. As director of the Centre for Advanced Hindsight, he insists on a commitment to absurdity, but there is nothing cynical about his approach to human behaviour. In his previous book, Predictably Irrational, Ariely exposed our false assumptions about the rationality of markets and individuals with plenty of surprising and humorous examples. Our irrationality may be very predictable, but our ability to forecast this behaviour doesn't alter the conditions that give rise to it. Recognising this, he adopts his paradoxical mission: to design better economic and social institutions to protect us from our confident pursuit of rational economic and social institutions. In The (Honest) Truth about Dishonesty, Ariely applies his experimental approach to how we "lie to everyone especially ourselves". The book discusses the powerful ways irrationality affects our lives and begins with a critique of those who think dishonesty is really the result of a rational cost-benefit calculation. In a series of experiments, Ariely neatly shows that neither the size of the reward nor the probability of getting caught substantially affects the likelihood of dishonest behaviour. The cost-benefit framework for understanding cheating just doesn't pay off. Ariely sees two conflicting motivations at work in dishonest behaviour. On the one hand, we want to view ourselves as honourable, and on the other hand we want to get as much stuff as possible. We want the benefits of cheating, and we want to see "ourselves as honest, wonderful people". So we fudge. We fool ourselves and others. Our "cognitive flexibility" cuts us so much slack that we often don't even perceive ourselves as getting away with anything. This flexibility keeps the contradictions between our principles and our behaviour beyond the horizon of our consciousness. The (Honest) Truth about Dishonesty is full of examples of how we deceive ourselves about cheating. Somehow it seems to most people less like cheating to favourably reposition a golf ball with one's foot than to move it with one's hand. Tapping the ball with your club is best of all! As a rule, "cheating becomes much simpler when there are more steps between us and the dishonest act". We are more averse to directly taking some cash off the table, but much more likely to behave dishonestly to get a reward that in the end has cash value. Psychological distance is key. Dishonesty isn't always so bad. The author describes how doctors and nurses lied to him repeatedly when as a teenager he was recovering from severe burns that almost killed him. If they had told him the brutal truth, he might not have mustered the strength to go on. They didn't want him anticipating excruciating pain that he was in any case powerless to avoid. The pain was real, but the altruistic dishonesty of his care-givers eased his suffering. Ariely notes that "we quickly and easily start believing whatever comes out of our own mouths", which means that once we take credit for something, we are likely to really believe that we deserve it. When students are induced to cheat on tasks in an experimental situation, they start to really believe their skill level has increased. They certainly realise they are, say, using an answer key to "solve" a problem. Nonetheless they begin to inflate their perception of their own competence at problem solving. This kills two birds with one stone. They don't feel guilty for having cheated, and since they've forgotten about the cheating, they feel better about their performance. Despite the good humour with which Ariely discusses his ingenious experiments, this is depressing stuff. But there is hope. Although it is easy to induce dishonest behaviour in people, it is also easy to reduce the incidence of such behaviour. Mostly, small reminders of basic moral standards tend to improve behaviour. Whether it's the Ten Commandments, an honour code or a declaration of professional principles, bringing moral standards to mind reduces cheating. Signing a pledge before filling out a form (at the top of the page) is more effective at reducing dishonesty than signing a pledge after completing a form. Ariely likes students to write out their own honour codes on assignments so that they have to think about ethics rather than just signing something automatically. He offers some recommendations on conflicts of interest, particularly in medicine. The problem is that many of our professionals systematically find themselves in conflict situations and they fool themselves about not falling into unethical behaviour. And when these professionals know their clients well, when they are most trusted, this is when the worst conflicts tend to arise. Whether we are on the client or the professional side, we are likely to tell ourselves that these situations don't apply to us and the people we trust. We fool ourselves, and so we don't recognise the dishonesty. Ariely shows us how some basic factors, such as being tired or hungry, undermine our efforts to be ethical. I was struck here, as I was in Daniel Kahneman's excellent Thinking, Fast and Slow, by the example of judges who tended to defer to parole boards as the judges got hungrier. The concept of "ego depletion", that we can run out of the strength to do what we know we should, reminds us that willpower is a muscle. It takes energy to do the right thing. We also learn that, once cheating starts, it tends to gain momentum and become contagious. That's why we shouldn't tolerate small indiscretions; it lowers the bar for everyone. Ariely raises the bar for everyone. In the increasingly crowded field of popular cognitive science and behavioural economics, he writes with an unusual combination of verve and sagacity. He asks us to remember our fallibility and irrationality, so that we might protect ourselves against our tendency to fool ourselves. I guess only advanced hindsight will one day tell us how successful we have been.

Tardy Background Check Leads To Firing of HuffPo Exec

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Recently hired Huffington Post Senior Vice President of Sales Moritz Loew was let go after only three months on the job, thanks to a background check that turned up a 9-year-old DWI arrest. Loew had an outstanding warrant in Seattle from 2003 for failure to appear in court for the charges. "My biggest regret is having even touched a set of car keys after drinking beer," Loew wrote in an email message to friends and colleagues. "If this is the worst thing that happens to me due that mistake, I will consider myself extremely fortunate" I have since cleared everything up with my friends at the King County Court House and hoping to move on in a positive fashion." After his dismissal, HuffPo owner AOL said only that Loew did not meet their hiring standards. It may seem strange that the results of the background check came about months after Loew was hired. Why waste time and resources bringing an employee on board if he hasn't been fully vetted yet? In fact, the practice of delayed background checks isn't all that unusual, according to Joshua A. Hawks-Ladds, a labor and employment attorney in Connecticut. "There's a whole host of reasons why these things happen," Hawks-Ladds explains. "Some employers don't bother to wait for the background check to come back before making a hire. Some don't bother to do a background check until the hire already takes place. Some don't check them, some don't follow up. Sometimes they get suspicious after the hire."

Australian Men Take A Beating

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0500

New data released by the Australian Institute of Criminology reveals the rate of assaults by females increased by 49 percent from 125 to 186 per 100,000 between 1996-97 and 2009-10. In the same period male assault rates increasing by 18 per cent. But men are still more than four times as likely as women to bash someone. The rate of violent men rose from 664 to 786 in 100,000. Assault is the most common type of violent crime in Australia, with 171,083 assaults nationally in 2010, compared with 17,757 sexual assaults, 14,582 robberies and 260 homicides. In 2009-10, men also experienced a higher rate of assault victimisation. Males were victimised at a rate of 837 per 100,000 compared with 675 per 100,000 for females.

Sex Killers Not Who You Think They Are

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Drawing from the largest-ever sample of sex-related homicide cases in Canada, a pair of researchers have developed what they say is one of the clearest portraits yet of the people who commit these unusual crimes and their victims. Contrary to previous studies that suggested sexual murderers were socially inept individuals who "blitzed" unsuspecting victims, many sexual murderers are not socially isolated and often utilize a ruse to make contact with their victim, the researchers found. "The current study uncovers very important differences that could prove useful for the investigation and profiling of these crimes by the police," the researchers wrote. The release of the study in the International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology comes just months after the nation was gripped by the gruesome sex-related killing and dismemberment of Concordia University student Jun Lin. Luka Magnotta, a one-time porn actor and model, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in relation to the killing. Eric Beauregard, a criminology professor at Simon Fraser University, and Melissa Martineau, a senior research specialist with the RCMP, analyzed RCMP records related to 350 sex-related homicides that occurred from 1948 to 2010. Each murder case involved some sort of sexual activity. For instance, there was evidence of sexual intercourse or the victim's body was positioned in a sexual manner or was missing clothes. The researchers found that the average age of sexual murderers was 28. Sixty-six per cent were white and 29 per cent were aboriginal. As for marital status, 57 per cent were single and 15 per cent were separated or divorced. A majority of offenders " 80 per cent " had no prior sexual convictions. "The investigative strategy of prioritizing "known sex offenders" would thus likely be unproductive as the majority of sexual murderers have no prior convictions for sexual crimes," the researchers wrote. The average age of victims was 27. Ninety per cent were women, 63 per cent were white and 33 per cent were aboriginal. Eighteen per cent of victims were known to engage in prostitution. The researchers found that most offenders selected their victim at random, and most " 41 per cent " used a con to approach their victim, such as befriending the victim or asking for the victim's help. Only a minority of sexual murderers surprised their victims, such as attacking them in their sleep, or "blitzed" their victims by quickly overpowering them through violence. "This finding is important for the investigation of these cases as it suggests that in almost half of the cases, sexual murderers possess the necessary social skills to approach their victims under false pretence," the researchers wrote. "This once against contradicts the image of the introverted social inapt offender as depicted in previous studies." Contrary to non-sexual homicides, offenders in sexual homicides rarely used firearms. Instead sexual murderers typically beat or strangled their victims. If a weapon was used, it was typically a knife. Researchers noted that "overkill" " the act of inflicting more grievous bodily harm on a victim than is necessary to cause death " was reported in 43 per cent of sexual homicides.

Men Make Women Drink

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0500

By Laura Berman A number of studies have highlighted the physical and emotional benefits of marriage: Research has shown that married people are less likely to get cancer, less likely to have heart attacks, and also have a lower risk of developing dementia later in life. Studies have also found that married people are less likely to suffer from depression. However, a study presented at this year's annual American Sociological Association meeting revealed that marriage might have a surprising side effect: Researchers found that married women are likely to drink more after they are hitched. They also found that married women drink more than any other group of women, including divorces, widows, and single women. Men, on the other hand, actually drink less once they are married. What can account for this gender discrepancy, and why do women drink more once they tie the knot? There are a number of possibilities, but the authors of the study suggest that this increase could be attributed to the influence of the women's husbands. This theory is based on the fact that single women, widowed women, and divorced women drink less than married peers , in fact, women experience a decline in drinking following divorce, while men experience an increase (probably as a way to self-comfort following the dissolution of the marriage). Because women drink less when they are single, the researchers suggest that "men introduce and prompt women's drinking." But are we to believe that men really cause women to drink more? It's impossible to say for sure, especially since this study wasn't able to prove why married women drink more than their single peers or whether men really do lead women to drink more. However, it could be that drinking is similar to eating when it comes to couples. For example, some women feel tempted to eat like their mates once they are in a committed relationship. They see their guys ordering Buffalo wings or having a third slice of pizza, and it's only natural that they want to follow suit. This explains why women tend to gain weight following marriage (as revealed in a study from Ohio State University that found that women gradually become heavier after tying the knot). Once again, the opposite is true for men. They gain weight after divorce, not marriage. Does this mean that men aren't a good influence on women when it comes to lifestyle habits? Of course not. Getting married still has positive benefits for men and women alike, but it's important to remember that what's good for the gander isn't always good for the goose! Unfortunately, when it comes to alcohol and food, women sadly can't enjoy like "one of the boys" their caloric requirements are different from those of men, as is the ability of a woman's body to break down alcohol. So the next time you go out for dinner and your guy wants to order a round of beer or another appetizer, lead the way by suggesting a lighter option or by challenging him to a workout session after dinner. Ultimately, your health is in your hands, but if you both commit to making healthy lifestyle choices, you will inspire and motivate each other to stick to those goals. A healthy marriage is a happy marriage!

Warren, Mississippi Court Going Online

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The public should be able to access criminal cases in Warren County Circuit Court by December, according the chief justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court. Chief Justice Bill Waller Jr. made the announcement in a speech to the local Bar Association. "Hopefully, one day in the not-too-distant future, you'll be able to log in and practice law all across the state," Waller said. Waller said a version of the Mississippi Electronic Courts system is in use for civil cases in Warren County and a few others around the state. Waller said the criminal court program is still under development but should be ready for distribution in the pilot testing area, including Warren County, by December. Waller says domestic violence files, for example, will not be included or be heavily edited because of the amount of personal information they contain. "It's huge because the general public will be able to access the case on the Internet," he said. "It brings the courthouse, if you will, closer to the public." If the system is successful it will be launched across the state, he said. "We're very committed, if there is any way to, to having one system statewide," Waller said.

Case Dismissed Because Of Too Much Evidence

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0500

A fugitive doctor charged in the nation's largest prosecution of Internet pharmacies is getting off in part because there's just too much evidence in his case: more than 400,000 documents and two terabytes of electronic data that federal authorities say is expensive to maintain. Armando Angulo was indicted in 2007 in a multimillion dollar scheme that involved selling prescription drugs to patients who were never examined or even interviewed by a physician. A federal judge in Iowa dismissed the charge last week at the request of prosecutors, who want to throw out the many records collected over their nine-year investigation to free up more space. The Miami doctor fled to his native Panama after coming under investigation in 2004, and Panamanian authorities say they do not extradite their own citizens. Given the unlikelihood of capturing Angulo and the inconvenience of maintaining so much evidence, prosecutors gave up the long pursuit. "Continued storage of these materials is difficult and expensive," wrote Stephanie Rose, the U.S. attorney for northern Iowa. She called the task "an economic and practical hardship" for the Drug Enforcement Administration. When a major drug suspect flees the country, federal authorities often leave the charges pending in case the fugitive tries to sneak back into the U.S. or a country with a friendly extradition process. But in Angulo's case, the volume of evidence posed a bigger burden. The evidence took up 5 percent of the DEA's worldwide electronic storage. Agents had also kept several hundred boxes of paper containing 440,000 documents, plus dozens of computers, servers and other bulky items. Two terabytes is enough to store the text of 2 million novels, or roughly 625,000 copies of "War and Peace." Two-terabyte memory drives are widely available for $100, but the DEA's data server must be relatively small and may need replacement, a costly and risky proposition for an agency that must maintain the integrity of documents, said University of Iowa computer scientist Douglas Jones. "A responsible organization doesn't upgrade every time new technology is available. That's all they would be doing," Jones said. "But the result is you end up in situations like this where the capacity they have is not quite up to the incredible volume of data involved." Randy Stock, who runs the website whatsabyte.com, which explains electronic storage, said he doubted that storing the data would have been that problematic for the government. "I'm thinking that excuse is just their easy way out," he wrote in an e-mail. U.S. District Judge Linda Reade dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning it cannot be refiled.

Johnson County, A Sign Of Prosperity For Record Checks?

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0500

As more people file for divorce, struggle to pay bills or commit crimes, local courts are moving slower and taking longer to close cases. With a growing population and an economy that has been sluggish in recent years, local judges expect to see increases over last year in felony and misdemeanor charges as well as mortgage foreclosures, criminal and civil court cases. If the number of new civil and criminal cases continues at the same rate as in the first half of the year, the county would be on track to have around 1,200 more court cases than last year. Last year, local courts handled 14,901 cases, a drop from recent years. But the number of people facing criminal charges or landing in court over unpaid bills has continued to grow over the past decade. In 2004, for example, 12,942 cases were filed in local courts, according to court filing numbers from the Johnson County court administrator.

Kind Of ID Theft That Works

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0500

A 56-year-old man in Salem has stolen Taylor Dark's Social Security number and it seems there's nothing she can do about it. Dark, a 22-year-old Oregon State University engineering student and former Eugene resident, is the victim of an obscure but insidious kind of identity theft. The Salem man isn't using her name, just her Social Security number, or SSN. He isn't racking up all kinds of charges and wrecking her credit. He might be an undocumented worker who doesn't want to draw attention to himself, but does want to work, get electrical service, buy a cell phone, borrow money and the myriad other things that require a credit history. Because the thief stole her SSN, but hasn't yet tried to take her money, police are unlikely to go after him. So the man " police and at least two Oregon electrical utilities know his name " may well continue using Dark's number because he knows that government bureaucracies and business entities have policies that make it easy on thieves and hard on victims. In at least two cases, courts have concluded that stealing "just" a Social Security number may not even be against the law. Known as "synthetic" identity theft, it's far more common than the better-known theft of a person's name and SSN, according to the Federal Trade Commission. What frustrates its victims: The traditional tools for combating ID theft " fraud alerts and credit freezes " typically don't work.

Private Company Offers Irish Credit Check Online

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0500

A new website designed to inject consumer confidence back into the economy went online: creditcheck.ie.
Anyone can go online now and check a firms' financial status, credit history and general background.

Spokesperson Christine Cullen says the site helps filter out the risky companies, so the public can do business with better firms: "Consumers and small business can do one-off on-demand searches. The website is updated three times daily with judgements and full background history, even going into the court services. "It goes into quite an in-depth overview of the company for less than the price of a cup of coffee."

BRB Public Record

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Civil Case Limits Raised in 3 Louisiana Counties Through several 2012 legislative acts, three cities have individually increased the upper $$ limit on civil lawsuits. The limit increase means the affected cases do not need to be filed in the more costly and time consuming District Court. The City Court of Slidell (St. Tammany Parish) increased its limit from $35,000 to $50,000. The Abbeyville and Kaplan City Courts (both in Vermilion Parish) raised their limit from $25,000 to $35,000. The increases took effect August 1, 2012. View a chart of all legislative changes affecting City Courts at www.lcaanet.org/images/2012_Legislative_Changes_City_Court_6-14-12_.pdf. City Courts are courts of record and handle misdemeanors, limited civil, juvenile, traffic and evection. The amount of civil is concurrent with the District Court based where the amount in controversy does not exceed $15,000 to $50,000 depending on the court. SAM and the Excluded Part List System (EPLS) At the end of July 2012, access to the Excluded Parties List System (EPLS) was taken over by a new system. EPLS, along with Federal Agency Registration (FedReg), the Central Contractor Registration (CCR), and the Online Representations and Certifications Application (ORCA), were migrated into the new System for Award Management also known as SAM (https://www.sam.gov/portal/public/SAM) At this time, SAM is overwhelmed and record searching on the EPLS is still available at https://www.epls.gov/. Indications are this search feature will eventually be moved to SAM Other free search federal government sites commonly used in background investigations remain unchanged, including: Denied Persons List - www.bis.doc.gov/dpl/default.shtm Unverified List - www.bis.doc.gov/enforcement/unverifiedlist/unverified_parties.html Debarred Parties List - www.pmddtc.state.gov/compliance/debar.html

Derek Hinton's Column

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Protecting Yourself "Should an intruder attack you in your home, you are likely to be within your rights if you pick up an item such as a frying pan, umbrella or golf club to defend yourself. Likewise if the attacker is wielding a hefty blade it is probably OK to parry this with a kitchen knife, but a court is unlikely to be sympathetic if you use more force than a court decides is necessary to deter the burglar or intruder."
---The book "Extreme Survival" I suspect that if you're like me, if someone breaks into your home they're going to be met with more than an umbrella and we'll figure out what they were wielding later. (My son was reading the book referenced above, found that passage, showed me and, it's a Great Britain import.) I've thought about that passage several times while talking to employment screening firms recently. They would have gone to great length to protect themselves, their family and business if an intruder broke in to steal what they had built. But when confronted with a somewhat more covert - but every bit (or more) as dangerous a threat to their business "I do say old chap, out comes the umbrella and the TAP" tappity-tap-tap on the noggin of the threat begins. What external threats should concern you as a CRA and what is much better protection than a figurative umbrella? The protection answer is much more within your control: you should learn, adopt, document and internalize the practices detailed in the NAPBS Accreditation Standard. It is a CRA best practices handbook. The external threats are harder to predict, but there are three areas of concern. Government Actions The recent FTC penalty on HireRight for $2.6 million is the first time the FTC has charged an employment background screening firm with violating the FCRA. Is this a new threat? Not really, but it is a new focus by the agency which increases an existing threat. They've made a statement in one area of practice (primarily in criminal record reporting) but consumer identity theft protection, employer education and practices and use of credit reports are other areas of practice of interest to them. There's also a new wannabe co-sheriff in town, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). How much power and authority they will have over whom may not be exactly clear, but when an agency is making a list of companies, there's oftentimes a purpose. http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201207_cfpb_list_consumer-reporting-agencies.pdf. And if your agency is not listed, I would certainly not presume that it will not later be added. Plaintiff Attorney Fishing Expeditions and State Government Agencies You may believe that because you are not one of the big boys the FTC will not target you, or you are not on the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's radar so there is not much to worry about. I can assure you, with first-hand knowledge, that there are other external threats that would like to have some or all of the money your agency may earn. At present, there is an attorney who is making a nice living by finding CRAs who make even no-harm technical violations of some manner and then shake them down for $20K to go away. This attorney does not discriminate against the smaller agency. Oftentimes, the CRA will be charged with a claim that is defensible--but a review of the CRA's forms and processes show non-compliance with another law and thus the CRA cannot defend the defensible claim because of the other issues that will come out on discovery. There are also some state and even local government agencies that are stepping up to sue CRAs. This is not a new threat, there have been plaintiff attorneys and state government agency actions since the little known and poorly recorded aftermath of Moses parting the Red Sea and the resulting destruction of wetland habitat imbroglio. What is new, is the focus and specialization of looking for CRAs and plaintiffs as a specialty. The good news is that you can greatly inoculate your firm from these threats by adopting, living and documenting the NAPBS Accreditation Standard. Competitors will be accredited Another outside threat is that many more companies are becoming accredited and it will soon be a standard that employers look for when deciding whom to use for their screening. Most of you have seen it on RFP questions already. It will become the norm, but prior to that it will (and is) being used as a competitive advantage by accredited firms. The bad news is that whether it be government action, plaintiff attorney, competition, disgruntled consumer or even an uneducated employee or client, you don't know from where the next threat will come. The good news is that there's an effective protection strategy common to much of these threats'NAPBS Accreditation.

Les Rosen's Corner

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0500

According to regulations from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), three essential forms mandated by the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) used in the background screening process must be modified by January 1, 2013. The forms must be changed to reflect that consumers can obtain information about their rights under the FCRA from the CFPB instead of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The three forms in use currently indicate that the FTC is the agency consumers can contact with questions. The regulation with the revised forms is available online at: http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr;sid=09558a8309d73086b9217fe5af1ce0ef;rgn=div5;view=text;node=12%3A8.0.2.14.16;idno=12;cc=ecfr#12:8.0.2.14.16.1.1.1. The three forms at issue are: -Summary of Consumer Rights under the FCRA
-Notice to Users of Consumer Reports of their Obligations under the FCRA
-Notice to Furnishers of Information of their Obligations under the FCRA

Each of the three notices is mandated for use in certain situations under the Fair Credit Reporting Act: The "Summary of Consumer Rights under the FCRA" is a notice that a background screening firm must provide to an employer and employers in turn must provide the notice to applicants in different situations. The FCRA also mandates that a background screening firm (known as a Consumer Reporting Agency or "CRA") must provide each user of its services the "Notice to Users of Consumer Reports of their Obligations under the FCRA." The "Notice to Furnishers of Information of their Obligations under the FCRA" is aimed at certain furnishers of information to CRAs and must be provided in prescribed situations such as a re-investigation where the consumer disputes the report or in a situation involving identity theft. The changes are the result of the creation of the CFPB as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Pub.L. 111-203, H.R. 4173) that was signed into law by President Barack Obama on July 21, 2010. The CFPB has rule making and enforcement powers over the FCRA. However, the CFPB does not have supervisory power over background screening firms. Congress specifically exempted background screening firms from being supervised by the CFPB since a background check report is not a financial product. The result may be some confusion as the CFPB and FTC determine which agency will perform which tasks.

Straightline International Has Defintive International Criminal Record Research Solution In Puerto R

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0500

AmericheckUSA Appoints New Account Associate

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0500

AmeriCheckUSA (http://www.AmeriCheckUSA.com) announced today that Steven Santiago has joined the firm to further develop their growing portfolio of regional and national accounts. Steven Santiago comes with a background in sales and excellent customer service. His exuberant personality and outstanding organizational skills will be of great value to AmeriCheckUSA. Steven joins AmeriCheckUSA as Account Associate to continue AmeriCheckUSA’s recent success providing business services to many of the top condominiums in the United States. Steven comments “I am excited to start a new challenge within AmeriCheckUSA and look forward to working with the team to further develop their national account base. I am fortunate to be joining such a respected company that prides itself on top quality service.” About AmeriCheckUSA AmeriCheckUSA is a full service Background Check Provider http://www.AmeriCheckUSA.com which offers clients quality services to suite their needs. AmeriCheckUSA’s understanding and experience in the Industry is unparalleled. More information on the company’s notable achievements, services provided, key leadership, or history can be provided here as well.

Access, Other Changes Coming Online for Pinellas Public Records

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Users are closer to having easier access to some online public records with the launch of the first part of a multi-million dollar program that updates and consolidates the Pinellas/Pasco Courts’ online case management system. Clerks, judges, court staff, other employees and users can access Civil and Family Division case files online through a $6.4 million program called the Justice Consolidated Case Management System, which recently launched. Other court divisions will be added over time. Other changes to the system also include dropping the subscriber fee for records started Oct. 1. “The application moves us closer to a paper-on-demand court system, by getting all of our case records and files into a digital format,” Chief Judge Thomas McGrady said in a release. Still, officials are working through privacy issues related to offering case file images nearly instantly, to anyone, online. Some information including addresses and Social Security numbers is supposed to be redacted before being released. When the system is complete it will have PDF versions of court case files. However, until then it could be a lot of clicking for users. In the transition, users will have to search individual databases for court information rather than being able to look through, criminal, traffic and civil at once. Ken Nelson, the court’s chief technology officer, said it will be about a year and a half transition to get all the new systems ready. He said the new civil system went up Sept. 17. The criminal, juvenile and traffic system will be live in mid-2013 and probate should be up at the end of 2013. McGrady said he would like to see the program incorporate Pasco court records as well. The way the system works now, users must log on to the Pasco Clerk of Court site for those records. Nelson said the Pinellas Criminal Justice Information System was put into place in 1977. The outdated system was heralded in the mid 1990s. However, as the courts have changed the system was expanded in pieces creating a difficult program to update and maintain. “The long range result,” McGrady said. “Will be a system that allows the clerk to efficiently manage the courts record, require less handling of paper and give the public easier access to public documents.”

N.H. E-court Project Slows Due To Funding Issues

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

A sweeping plan to modernize New Hampshire's court system has been slow to get off the ground due to limited funding. In 2011, judicial officials announced a $5 million plan to transition to a paperless, electronic system for all courts. But the pricetag has nearly doubled since then, and the Legislature declined to allocate more money this spring. Supreme Court Chief Justice Linda Dalianis told the Concord Monitor that for now, the e-court project will focus on small claims cases rather than the entire court system. She hopes lawmakers will be more generous once they see that the changes produce good results and aren't wasting taxpayer dollars.

USA Overrun By Criminals - EEOC Asks Employers For Help

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Background checks are necessary to keep the workplace safe and to protect the good workers from the bad ones. But the checking is fraught with risks and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission cautioned businesses: Conduct criminal background checks at your own risk. If companies ask job applicants about their criminal histories they could face discrimination lawsuits. John Hendrickson, the regional attorney for the EEOC’s Chicago district said, “I would suggest to (businesses) that they think long and hard about why they think they need to do a criminal background check,” insinuating that if they felt it was not required, they’d be safer not doing it. Guidelines issued by the EEOC in April clearly state that people cannot be denied employment, just because they have a record of criminality. The EEOC has such stringent rules for such checkups, but does not outright ban them. However, the rules are enough to scare the employer from basing his employment on the background checks alone. The EEOC has advised employers to take three things into account before rushing into judgment. When was the crime committed, in what circumstances, will it impact the job that the candidate is seeking are questions that the EEOC demands that employers consider. Most importantly the, EEOC asks employers to give candidate’s with a criminal background an opportunity to expalin their past misconduct and talk about their conviction and what it has done to them. Jeff Nowak, a Chicago labor and employment attorney, “Employers should record and document the justification for their employment decisions when they are making the decision with someone with a criminal history.” Of course for all that EEOC may say about these people deserving a second chance and that it behooves for civil society to contribute to their rehabilitation efforts, there are some sensible reasons why it may be more prudent not to hire people with criminal records. If a job-applicant had been charged with misappropriation of funds, surely any employer would be reluctant to employ him in a financial capacity. The vexing question however, is that would denying him a job in some other capacity that does not require dealing with money, be in violation of EEOC rules? To make employers more wary and on the alert is that companies have ended up paying penalties, when it was proved that people were denied work owing to their past convictions. At the beginning of this year Pepsi ended up paying $3.13 million to black applicants, who proved that the soft-drink company denied them work because of their past arrests. The employers are being forced to choose between denying people work they consider unsafe, owing to their past criminal conduct and risk being taken to court by the EEOC, or allow them to work and worry about whether the person will not pose a danger to other workers or the employers clients. Many businesses are opting out of criminal background checks; others are being selective and doing it for some positions and not for other positions at the workplace. Some say that they use their intuition to judge an applicant, whilst some say that unless the man is guilty of serious misdemeanor like theft, sexual or physical assault, it may perhaps be safe to employ him or her. An attorney said that the EEOC rules could make the workplace unsafe for other workers and advises employers not to stop conducting background checks. Moreover, they should not respond to workers who have been denied work to avoid charges of discrimination.

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Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Contact or send your pre-employment screening or background checks press release to Steven Brownstein directly at steveb@seach4crime.com

India Juvenile Records Explained

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The crimes of young people, who serve jail terms for the same, are not being shown on their records. This revelation came out in an interview with the Family and Juvenile Prosecution Chief Prosecutor Mohammed Rustom Bu Abdullah, as he discussed the increase in the number of reported juvenile and family criminal cases. According to article 18 of the Federal Law No. 36 of 1992 on restitution of the eligibility, criminal cases against juveniles shall not be considered as a criminal record even if the juvenile was convicted and jailed. “No record shall be kept against any youngster who faced an investigation or was even convicted and jailed. His file shall be kept in our system only for our own reference,” Bu Abdullah said. This gives youngsters a second chance not afforded to adult criminals, who need specific documents or court rulings to become eligible for work and other privileges again after spending time in jail. The flow of the cases to the Family and Juvenile Prosecution has kept a steady increase, with almost 50 more family criminal cases investigated in the past year to September, than the year before, while juvenile cases jumped more than 30 in the same period. Bu Abdullah said as many as 342 family cases and 262 juvenile cases have been investigated by the Family and Juvenile Prosecution till September end this year, compared to 299 family cases and 229 juvenile cases for the same period of last year. In 2010, 265 family cases and 242 juvenile cases were handled by the same prosecution in the first three quarters. While cases of threat, assault and verbal abuse topped the family cases, theft and driving without licence topped the juvenile cases, Bu Abdullah said. Driving without a license was most common amongst teenagers aged between 15 and 17, he said. “Sometimes it happens with the parents, namely the father, unaware or (un)responsible for it. But if the father’s consent of his under-age son’s or daughter’s driving unlawfully is proven, he would also be held responsible and charged in the court of law for putting others’ lives at risk.”

Internet Providers to Begin Warning Customers Who Pirate Content

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

In the coming months five of the nation's largest Internet service providers will begin implementing a program they hope will cut down on illegal downloads of copyrighted materials. The program, called the Copyright Alert System, is being implemented by the five ISPs--AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner, and Verizon--rights holders, and industry groups including the Motion Picture Association of American and the Recording Industry Association of America. The system will be overseen and largely run by the Center for Copyright Information, an organization composed of stakeholders including the RIAA, MPAA, and individual rights holders like Disney, Sony Pictures, and EMI. The Center will use a service called MarkMonitor to monitor activity on peer-to-peer sharing networks and collect the Internet protocol (IP) addresses of those suspected of illegally sharing copyrighted materials. These IP addresses will then be provided to the ISPs, which will match them with costumers who will receive an escalating series of warnings if the activity continues. These will begin by notifying users of the suspected illegal activity, requirements that they acknowledge receiving the warnings, education about the possible consequences of copyright theft, and other measures including the throttling of the user's Internet connection. ISPs are quick to point out, however, that the plan does not allow for the termination of a suspected user's Internet service.

Faking It - 'Clean' Urine

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

by WEAU-TV, Eau Claire Pre-employment and random drug tests have become standard for many companies. But some think they can beat the system by turning to products that claim to provide “clean” urine. Synthetic urine products promising a negative drug test can be found all over the internet. In our Assignment 13 investigation, we focused on just one and had it tested by a professional drug screener. While it looks like the real deal, what we found may surprise you. In a jam, partied too hard? Well, you’re in luck, or “urine luck”. There’s a website called urineluck.com. It is home to Spectrum Labs. Their prized product: Quick Fix. The site appears to be a drug user’s best friend, providing them synthetic urine that’s ready to pour for a drug screening. A few clicks, $35 and a couple days later, we had a batch of Quick Fix in our hands. We wanted to see if the fake pee delivers on its promise or if it would send druggie workers to the unemployment line. The instructions that came with the product say you can either put the faux urine in the microwave to get it between 94-100 degrees, or you can wrap it in a heating pad for one hour to get it to a normal body temperature that would fool testers. Craig Olson, a professional drug screener from LabZone in Woodville helped us out with the test. “On first appearance it's the right color, it's the right amount of volume. It would pass visually,” Olson said. The rapid urine test used in our screening looks for cocaine, amphetamines, methamphetamines, marijuana and opiates. Olson explained the results as they were coming in. “You can see that we have lines going across the top and that's the control, the one below it is the test. And they tell me they're all negative. So your sample is negative,” Olson said. Yep, it passed. But not all that glitters is gold. After one hour on the heating pad, the fake stuff failed getting to a normal body temperature and that blew the entire test. “The specimen would be rejected due to low temperature. So we wouldn't have gone any further in the testing at this point,” Olson said. The tester said when screeners find urine that's not the right temperature; they make people do the test again. “It's unconscionable to me that there would be a cottage industry out there, but there is, on how to defeat a urine-based drug test,” said Don Osterberg, Senior Vice President of Safety and Security for Schneider National. Schneider National is a trucking company headquartered in Green Bay. Their trucks roll through the Chippewa valley and all over the country. It's just one of many transportation companies to require hair tests for drug screenings. Urine tests only show drug use that goes back 30 days but hair tests go back 90. Since starting hair tests in March, 2008, Osterberg said Schneider has done 43,000 pre-employment screenings. The company said 1,525 potential drivers tested positive for drugs using a hair test. From that 1,525, the urine test caught only 127. “The good news is there’s commercial drivers who are drug abusers who aren’t driving an organge Schneider truck today, but in all likelihood they’re driving a commercial truck, and they’re on the highways with our families,” Osterberg said. Osterberg said he'd like the federal government to mandate hair tests for truck drivers. “The day has come for hair testing for drugs. It's a better test, it’s a more effective, reliable test,” Osterberg said. But urine testing remains the gold standard. Olson said until we transition to hair tests, screeners know how to weed out fakers by watching for suspicious behavior, checking IDs, making them empty pockets, and listening closely. “People's behavior shows their true colors over time. So you might be able to fool a test once and a while. But in the long run it's pretty tough to fool an employer or whoever you're testing for,” Olson said. We reached out to Spectrum Labs to see what they had to say about our test but never heard back.

New Orleans' Criminal Justice System Is 'Fragmented,' Outdated, Consultants Say

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

An independent study, commissioned by the city of New Orleans to scrutinize its embattled criminal justice system, found "highly fragmented" and low-tech coordination among the dozen agencies under the public safety umbrella. The report, "A 21st Century Criminal Justice System for the City of New Orleans," was released by Mayor Mitch Landrieu's office. "In a world of Microsoft Outlook, the New Orleans criminal justice system is functioning in a bygone era," the report notes of the court system's reliance on hard-copy calendars and handwritten summonses. The antiquated organization system, the report notes, creates poor communication between agencies and scheduling conflicts that bog down the entire system. The report is the first of two, commissioned in March by Andy Kopplin, the city's chief administrative officer. This first report focuses on an overview of the system, with its sequel, to be released later, targeted at the court system. The city spent $90,000 on the two reports. Kopplin asked the consultant to determine how much money the entire system spends and receives, to document how cases are processed through the system, and outline best practices for performance evaluations and improvement. The consultants tallied the system's budget at around $300 million each year, collected from a hodgepodge of local, state and federal budgets, along with various grants and fines and fees from traffic tickets and defendants. The city spent $181.3 million in 2010 on criminal justice, 71 percent of which went to the NOPD alone. On top of that, the state spends an estimated additional $75 million on city crime through "the disproportionate number of state prisoners, probationers and parolees who come from New Orleans." The report, by Philadelphia-based consultants The PFM Group, found the system also is plagued by inconsistent data collection and analysis. It took the NOPD months to revamp its accountability procedures because of lack of access to data; arrest tracking systems don't account for court disposition; Criminal District Court could not provide the consultants with information on case disposition times because "such data does not exist in an easily obtainable way." The Orleans Parish sheriff also couldn't provide timely, complete basic information on inmates, and the coroner tracks thousands of annual psychiatric evaluations only on paper. The report did applaud the city on its steps in the right direction: the consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice, the mayor's Nola for Life homicide-reduction strategy, the police superintendent's plan for reforming its ranks. "All of these development are reason to be optimistic about the city's ability to improve the criminal justice system," the study states. But overall, the report notes, officials collect inconsistent data that is rarely shared in a meaningful way. It is a sprawling system, employing 3,200 people, with almost all of its agencies -- at least three courts, the district attorney, public defenders, sheriffs and clerks -- entirely self-contained and in charge of their own budgets. "There is no system-wide assessment of performance," the report notes. "Even if individual components of the criminal justice system were performing -- from a narrow perspective -- optimally in terms of efficiency and effectiveness, there is no way to determine whether the system as a whole is doing so." The consultants recommended creating a collaborative bridge between agencies. The current Criminal Justice Coordinating Council has a limited function: making decisions on federal and state funding distribution. The report suggests broadening that commission's authority to oversee collaboration between departments.

Follow Up To Olympic Flag Seller Conviction

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

By Jennifer Selway If I get so much as a parking ticket I panic and assume my details have been forwarded for inclusion on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. The sight of an unexpected official letter makes me slightly sick. What have I done? What have I failed to do? I’m envious of those who don’t seem to care about these little run-ins. It’s exhausting being so law-abiding. Which is why I feel sorry for Jay Mosedale, found guilty and fined for selling flags on the streets during the Olympics. Once sentence had been passed Jay, a 25-year-old architecture graduate, raised her hand and asked the district judge if she now had a criminal record. She was told she did and Ms Mosedale left Westminster magistrates’ court in tears. Poor girl. I could almost cry myself. It’s that detail. She raised her hand. That’s what well-behaved people do. Awed by being in a courtroom she did what she thought you did if you wanted to ask a question. It’s what she’d been taught in school. Don’t shout out! Put your hand up if you need to say something. Jay always did exactly what was expected of her in school. She worked hard, passed her exams and won a place at the University of Westminster. She graduated this summer, this golden summer of the London Olympics. Caught up in the excitement and seeing an opportunity to make a few quid (“I thought it would be a fun way to get involved”) Jay sold some flags in central London before she was apprehended. You can see immediately what a desperate criminal she was, how low she had sunk. You can’t? Well no neither can I. Her crime was unlicensed street trading. “I in no way knew I was participating in an illegal activity. "It was simply from naivety,” she says. Yes very naive. We’ll all need permits for breathing soon. But an honest mistake nonetheless. WHY couldn’t she have been given a warning? Why couldn’t it have been explained that she was breaking the law? That would have been more than enough. But instead she was hauled before a magistrate and now has a criminal record that could affect her life in all sorts of ways. And we can all imagine the horror she feels. It’s a tiny thing in the annals of crime but I bet it’s a huge deal for her. Every day we hear of offenders who don’t turn up in court, wave two fingers at authority and walk away unpunished. But she’s not one of those. She’s a perfectly decent young woman who made a mistake. Ignorance is no defence in the eyes of the law but in this case it really should be.

New York Court Burns Down

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

As investigators worked their way through the wreckage in downtown Castile, New York, village and town continued to re-establish themselves. Town and village offices were set to re-open in the Bank of Castile location across the street. A truckload of court equipment also arrived at the fire hall, which will host local sessions for the time being. “It’s going very well,” said Town Supervisor Stephen Tarbell, speaking on behalf of himself and Mayor Keith Granger. “All our daily functions will be out of there starting tomorrow. All our same phone numbers and everything will be intact and transferred over there. Our next available court date is Oct. 15 on a Monday night.” The town and village have remained in a state of emergency since the blaze that destroyed their respective offices brought things to a standstill. The designation has allowed both municipalities to receive assistance quickly. It’s unknown exactly how long it will remain in effect. Firefighters were able to remove some additional records from the ruins of the building on Wednesday. The municipalities still have their day-to-day records, which were already being processed. “A lot of our old records, it’s sad to say, are going to be lost,” Tarbell said. “Most of our records over the last 20 years we have on backup, and we’re going to be in good shape.” A moving truck also arrived, carrying supplies to help re-establish the town and village courts. Andrew Isenberg, executive assistant for Judge Paula Feroleto of the 8th judicial district, had traveled to Buffalo and Chautauqua County to round up desks and filing cabinets, said Wyoming County District Attorney Donald O’Geen. The district’s information technology personnel were also on-staff to transfer the town and village’s electronic court records, which were stored on a computer server off-site. “We were just told they were lucky enough to retrieve this year’s court files,” O’Geen said. “We assumed all of them were gone, so what my staff and I had done, was we made staff files of all the court cases we knew were currently open. I brought them down here this morning, so they could start to function as soon as possible.” In the meantime, felony arraignments will be handled in Warsaw, he said. Other arraignments will be conducted in surrounding municipalities.

Les Rosen's Corner

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

CareerBuilder Study Finds Over 50 Percent of Employers Have Hired Job Applicants with Criminal Records A study from CareerBuilder of more than 2,000 hiring managers nationwide revealed 51 percent of Human Resource managers reported that their organizations have hired a job applicant with a criminal record. More information about the study conducted by Harris Interactive©, which also looked at what job applicants with criminal records can do to better their chances of getting hired, is available on CareerBuilder.com®, the largest online career site in the U.S., at: http://www.careerbuilder.com/Article/MSN-3152-Job-Search-Half-of-employers-have-hired-someone-with-a-criminal-record/. “The number one recommendation hiring managers have is to own your past and focus on what you learned from it to grow professionally and personally,” Rosemary Haefner, Vice President of Human Resources, stated in a press release available at: http://www.careerbuilder.com/share/aboutus/pressreleasesdetail.aspx?sd=9/27/2012&id=pr717&ed=9/27/2099. According to the study of 2,298 U.S. hiring managers and human-resource professionals conducted between May 14 and June 4, 2012, job applicants with criminal records can make themselves more marketable to employers by following these recommendations: -68 percent of hiring managers recommended being up front and honest about the conviction and stress what was learned from it. -48 percent of hiring managers recommended being willing to work your way up. -46 percent of hiring managers recommended staying positive. -39 percent of hiring managers recommended preparing while in prison (taking classes, getting a degree, or vocational training). -31 percent of hiring managers recommended not applying to jobs where a criminal record means automatically disqualification. -31 percent of hiring managers recommended volunteering. -26 percent of hiring managers recommended taking freelance or temporary assignments. -18 percent of hiring managers recommended joining the military. -16 percent of hiring managers recommended starting your own business. -13 percent of hiring managers recommended monitoring what is said on social media. According to figures from the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics cited in a July 2011 meeting by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on ‘Arrest and Conviction Records as a Barrier to Employment,’ more than 92 million individuals have a criminal history on file in state databases. For more information, visit: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/newsroom/testimony/2011/11_0726asolomon.pdf. In April 2012, the EEOC – the agency that enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination – voted to approve updated Enforcement Guidance on the Consideration of Arrest and Conviction Records in Employment Decisions Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The complete text of the updated EEOC Guidance is available at http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/arrest_conviction.cfm.

Olympic Flag Seller Given Criminal Record

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

An architecture graduate who illegally sold flags on the streets of London during the Olympic Games wept in court as she was convicted and given a criminal record. Jay Mosedale, who recently finished studying architecture at the University of Westminster, was stopped by a council inspector in Whitehall, central London, during the games as she shouted: “Get your flags here – two pounds”. Ms Mosedale was selling what were described in court as “assorted flags” after a friend of hers had started a business to coincide with the Games. She said that she had no idea that she needed a permit to sell things on the street. Representing herself, Mr Mosedale said: “I thought it would be a fun way to get involved. I in no way knew I participated in illegal activity – it was simply from naivety.” The graduate was approached by an inspector as she stood on a street corner in Whitehall at around 1.30pm on August 2, almost a week after the opening ceremony. The 25-year-old admitted a single count of unlicensed street trading. She was ordered to pay a £45 fine, a £15 victim surcharge and £336 towards prosecution costs at Westminster Magistrates Court.

Korean Courts Ordered Online (In Several Years)

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

All court rulings in criminal cases will be disclosed to the public, starting next year, as part of the judiciary branch’s efforts to bring transparency and fairness to the legal system, the Supreme Court said Wednesday, All courts, including the appellate and highest courts, will be obliged to provide access for citizens to the texts of their rulings in all criminal cases via online or offline, the top court said, noting the system will be expanded to civil cases from 2015. So far, those who want to have details of a case need to make a separate request, causing inconvenience to the public. The highest court said it will devise relevant rules within the year for the official launch of the system. From 2014, details about evidence and relevant documents for a criminal case ruling will also be available both via online and offline, it added. “The decision follows last year’s law revision to disclose all details about the rulings,” a court official said. “We are pushing to open all court rulings on civilian cases starting in 2015.” “The disclosure is expected to boost transparency in the legal system,” said Roh Young-hee, a spokesman of the Korean Bar Association.

Don't Cut Yourself - It's A crime

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

A 42-year-old Waukesha man is charged after he repeatedly stabbed himself with a box cutter after waking up inside the emergency room at "Waukesha Memorial Hospital", according to a criminal complaint. Juan Cortes was charged in Waukesha County Circuit Court with one count of disorderly conduct with use of a dangerous weapon. If convicted, he faces up to 90 days in jail and $1,000 in fines. According to the criminal complaint: At 5 p.m. Oct 15, Cortes was admitted to the emergency room hospital while passed out drunk. There was no room for him, so he slept on a gurney while staff took a blood sample and placed an IV in his arm. Cortes woke up and began to pull the IV out of his arm, so he was admitted into a room in the emergency room. Staff said Cortes would become agitated then calm down. When asked if he wanted to be admitted to a detox unit, Cortes said "No, I like to drink." But a staff memer told police he said "you don't know me, I'm crazy." Cortes pulled out the box cutter and repeatedly stabbed himself in the thigh, the staff member told police. A Waukesha police officer was called to the room where he found Cortes sitting on a bed and still stabbing himself in the thigh, arms and neck. He commanded him to stop, but Cortes continued, the complaint states, so the officer called for backup. Eventually more officers arrived with shields, Tasers and rubber baton rounds. Three baton rounds were deployed at Cortes in order to get him to stop. He was then placed in handcuffs and taken into protective custody.

Georgia Legislator Takes On Mugshots.com

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

At first, it was crazy celebrities whose mugshots began showing up online. Now, everyday people pop up on some very popular mugshot sites. It can be embarrassing not for a minute, but indefinitely. Sophia Andrade is woman who is on many of mugshot sites, and for a crime she didn't even commit. The court may have figured out the error, but Andrade says these mugshot sites won't take down her pictures unless she pays them. It's a common complaint, and a state representative wants to see these sites lose the ability to make money off of other people's misery. It was a decade-old shot of actor Nick Nolte that got the everybody talking about celebrity mugshots, and the idea caught on. Nationwide, jailhouse mugshots turned into money making Internet criminal yearbook. Under Andrade's mugshot it says she was locked up for domestic violence. But, behind the random mugshot is a real person devastated by her arrest. "It was surreal. I just stood there. I cried endlessly cause I didn't know what was going to happen," said Andrade. Andrade says it was all a big mistake. She says her husband, after she'd asked for a divorce, filed a domestic violence claim against her. She was arrested, but that's about as far as it got. "The charge was thrown out. So, I went through the process of trying to repair my life. I thought it was going to be, like, expunge your record and move on. Chalk it up as a bad experience," said Andrade. The court did erase her record, but the mughot lives on. Two years later, it's still on several web sites. She says one web site wants to charge several hundred dollars to have it removed. But then there is no guarantee it won't pop up on another site. "I am not going to pay any of them. They're just extorting me and I'm not going to be a part of it," Andrade said. Imagine yourself in a jail processing room. No matter what you've done or maybe didn't do, that police photograph is now available to anybody who asks for it through the Open Records Act. It's legal to post it. But there is one legislator who wants to stop these sites from profiting and turning somebody's bad day into the day that never ends. "It will make it illegal for you to publish the information and then ask for a fee to take it down," said Rep. Roger Bruce, (D) District 64 It's not just one removal fee. Bruce says many of the mugshot web sites are connected, so one owner can charge to remove the same picture over and over again. "And each time you're paying the same person or the same company," said Bruce. A news investigative team called one of the most well-known sites, mugshots.com. Their comment was "I don't have time for this, honey," and hung up the phone. So, Andrade just remains another face on their Web site getting trampled by the internet's lasting footprint. "It really affected me deeply. I was depressed for a little while. It was hard. It was hard. My kids were embarrassed about it," said Andrade. This isn't just about innocent people having their mugshots online forever. There are plenty of people who've been arrested for pretty insignificant crimes, like forgetting to pay a ticket.

Pennsylvania Death Records Get Easier To Obtain

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that coroners cannot withhold information about the cause and manner of deaths until after the end of each year. The high court ruled 5-1 in favor of a south-central Pennsylvania television station that was turned down when it sought such records from the Cumberland County coroner after a Shippensburg University football player died more than three years ago. The ruling overturned decisions by the Office of Open Records, a county judge and Commonwealth Court, which had all ruled against WGAL-TV and in favor of then-coroner Michael Norris. The station wanted information about the death of Thomas Rainey, 19, inside his apartment in April 2009. Authorities said Rainey's death was not suspicious. The earlier rulings, siding with Norris, had cited a provision of the Coroner's Act that said their records must be made public for each year by the end of the following January. But the Supreme Court majority said public access requirements under the Right-to-Know Law are not in conflict with the other law, making the records more immediately available. The court said both laws provide immediate access to cause and manner death records. In the dissent, Justice J. Michael Eakin said the immediate access under the Coroner's Act is not mandatory, so the two laws are in conflict and therefore the Coroner's Act trumps the Right-to-Know Law. He said he would have upheld Commonwealth Court. "The Coroner's Act only requires disclosure of cause and manner of death reports by a coroner once a year; earlier disclosure is discretionary with the coroner," Eakin wrote. "The provision of the RTKL requiring immediate disclosure of such reports upon request is thus not reconcilable with the Coroner's Act." A lawyer for WGAL parent company Hearst Corp. called the decision an important victory for public information. "The principle was incredibly important because if you could find a conflict between two laws that require disclosure just on the basis of the timing, you could have conflicts between the Right-to-Know Law and many other laws," said Hearst deputy general counsel Jonathan Donnellan, who argued the case. The Right-to-Know Law prohibits access to autopsies, and the ruling does not change that.

Maor, NZ Court Computers Down

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The NZ Ministry of Justice says it will be at least a month until public computers at the Maori Land Court are switched back on. The ministry has closed off access to the computers at the courts while the department's IT security systems are reviewed. The computers are used to access Maori Land Online, a database of Maori land records. The ministry says Maori Land Court staff will be able to assist with any land record searches while the kiosks are closed.

Logan County, Arkansas Court Online

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Logan County residents are now only a couple of mouse clicks away from being able to read public court records on their computer or Internet-connected mobile device. Logan County Circuit Clerk Everly Kellar said last Wednesday she has requested that the Administrative Office of the Courts in Little Rock public access for records entered into the AOC database through her office, making the records available on the AOC CourtConnect website. Although those records will include felony information filings, domestic relations cases and civil suits, Kellar said older filings will not be available for some cases, especially domestic relations cases. The CourtConnect website to search for records is http://caseinfo.aoc.arkansas.gov. From there, a user can search by a person's name, business name or case type; can search for judgments against a person or business; and can display case information and activities. The records are available online because to Kellar and Logan County Clerk Peggy Fitzjurls have converted from a DOS-based application to the web-based Contexte program, a court case management system. The clerks and their deputies were trained on system use for about six weeks before a live launch on Aug. 6, which drew a visit to the county from Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Paul Danielson of Booneville. Since then, the system has been available to court officials in real time in the court rooms across the 15th Judicial District, which includes Logan, Yell, Conway and Scott counties. In the largest single launch, the program was actually put into service in six locations because both Logan and Yell counties operate dual courthouses. Kellar said she notified the AOC last Wednesday that she was ready for the public access component to be available as well, making Logan the third county in the 15th Judicial District and the 19th county in the state to have electronic public access of records. Partial access is available for 26 other counties. The Arkansas Court Automation Programs (ACAP), which includes Contexte, began in 2002 when the state Supreme Court authorized a contract with Xerox for a statewide license for case and jury management software. Its roots actually date back to 1990 when the Supreme Court established a goal of creating a comprehensive plan to provide compatible equipment throughout the judicial system. The Contexte system is also in use in Logan County for juvenile cases, but those records will continue to be shielded from public view. Although the system has the capability, district court records are not being entered into the system here. Only the Malvern Department of the Hot Springs District Court has public records available. According to the website, the site is unavailable from 12:30 p.m. to 2 a.m. on weekdays and from 10 p.m. Saturdays until noon on Sundays for routine maintenance.

Think Having HIV Is Not a Crime? Think Again

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

By Sean Strub At the beginning of the fourth decade of the HIV epidemic, profound stigma and discrimination is a fact of life for those with the disease -- not just socially, but within our legal system. Ask Robert Suttle, an advocate against HIV criminalization. Robert, born to a 13-year-old mother in Shreveport, Louisiana, has lived much of his life at the intersection of multiple forms of discrimination and disadvantage: As a young African American man, he falls into a population with the nation's highest incarceration rates. His home state of Louisiana has one of the highest rates of HIV infection amongst young African American men in the country, as well as the highest incarceration rate of any state in the nation. The cumulative impact of these challenges cannot be underestimated. Nonetheless, Robert was determined to succeed in life. After graduating from Louisiana State University, he sought to enlist in the Air Force, but was rejected when he tested positive for HIV. But he overcame his disappointment and began working for Louisiana's Second Circuit Court of Appeal, in Shreveport, as an assistant clerk. After several years, he was well on his way to becoming the first black male deputy clerk in that court. But then, his life was destroyed. After a contentious relationship broke up, his former partner filed criminal charges against him for not having disclosed his HIV status when they first met. Robert was not accused of transmitting HIV or of lying about his HIV status. But he was still prosecuted under a Louisiana law that effectively requires people with HIV to disclose that status prior to having sexual contact, regardless of whether there was any chance of HIV transmission. Rather than risk a 10-year prison sentence, Robert accepted a plea bargain and served six months in prison. He is required to register as a sex offender through 2024, and the words "SEX OFFENDER" are printed in red capital letters underneath his picture on his driver's license. Across the country, men and women like Robert have discovered the hard way that their HIV status renders them subject to a range of unique accusations and criminal penalties Robert's case is just one of over a thousand HIV-specific criminal charges that have been filed around the country that have created a viral underclass, one that heavily overlaps with other categories of Americans who already suffer unequal treatment before the law, including drug users, LGBT people (particularly the transgendered) and people of color. Louisiana and Iowa are only two of 35 states with criminal statutes that apply solely to those with HIV. Other sexually transmitted infections can, if untreated, cause serious harm or death, but only HIV gets these special criminal statutes. There is no evidence showing these statutes reduce HIV transmission, and there is a growing body of evidence that demonstrates how they are making the epidemic worse. A recent survey of over 2,000 people with HIV in the U.S. conducted by the Sero Project, reveals these consequences. Nearly a quarter of respondents knew at least one person who was afraid to take an HIV test for fear of prosecution if they tested positive. Nearly half believe that such fears are reasonable. The survey paints a dismal picture of a disabling legal environment for people with HIV in the U.S. Over 60 percent of people with HIV don't know whether or not their state has an HIV-specific disclosure statute; nearly half don't know what behaviors put them in legal jeopardy, and 38 percent personally fear being falsely accused of not disclosing their HIV status. If facing charges, nearly 80 percent are uncertain they would get a fair hearing in court. These criminal statutes were intended to reduce HIV transmission by making people afraid to not disclose their status. Our findings suggest the opposite effect: many people at risk may prefer to not get tested for HIV, rather than risk being accused of non-disclosure if they tested positive. These statutes heighten the already-pervasive stigma around HIV, while doing nothing to facilitate disclosure. In fact, when we asked 200 people with HIV what motivates them to disclose their HIV status to a sex partner, most cited basic moral or ethical reasons like honesty or a desire to protect their partner. Less than 1 percent cited the law as a primary motivation for disclosure. In order to help people with HIV protect themselves legally, the SERO Project distributes an HIV Disclosure Acknowledgement Statement for partners to sign. The language reads, in part: "I, ____, acknowledge that my partner, ____, has been diagnosed positive for HIV and that he or she has informed me of their HIV status... I waive any and all claims against my partner for failing to tell me about their HIV status." Humiliating, obviously. But far too often, having documented proof that disclosure was made is the only way people with HIV can avoid facing charges.

NZ Disputes Tribunal Now Online

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Courts Minister Chester Borrows announced today that people can now lodge claims and counterclaims with the Disputes Tribunal and pay their fee online. "In a digital world, New Zealanders expect to access information and services via the internet, with all the convenience and speed that brings. Moving Disputes Tribunal applications online will deliver that level of service for the over," says Mr Borrows. "It is another step away from a system where people have to go to courthouses for most services, and another step towards one that uses technology and infrastructure more effectively and has more efficient courtroom processes." The Disputes Tribunal provides a place for people to resolve disputes that is cheaper, faster, and less formal than the court system. It receives upwards of 15,000 new applications each year, covering disputes of up to $15,000, or up to $20,000 if both parties agree. "The internet has revolutionised the way New Zealanders access services and information in recent years but up until now we’ve been requiring people to come to courts for most things. This is old-fashioned and out-of-step with public expectations. Today’s changes are another step towards bringing courts firmly into the 21st Century." The move comes on the heels of another recent online initiative that allows people to dispute infringement notices via email using a form that can be downloaded. In just the first month since coming into effect, 40% of applications were been received online, and 99.7% have been processed within 24 hours. "This is a great example of both the public appetite for online services, and the improved services they offer, which I’m pleased we can now extend to the Disputes Tribunal," says Mr Borrows. The ability to post applications to the court will not change and counter services will still be available for people who prefer to lodge their applications in that way.

What is The NZ Disputes Tribunal?

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The Disputes Tribunal provides New Zealanders with a quick, inexpensive, informal and private way to help resolve a wide range of civil disputes. Disputes Tribunals are not like the formal courts. There are no lawyers or judges. A referee who has been carefully selected and trained hears a dispute. Any ruling they make is binding and will, if necessary, be enforced by the courts. If your claim is for $15,000 or less (or $20,000 if both parties agree) and is disputed then it may be able to be heard by the Disputes Tribunal.

Nanny Searches, Already Intense, May Become More So

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The battery of questions that can rain on nannies from prospective employers or agencies often resembles a psychological appraisal, far more probing than mere background and reference checks. Did the nannies have happy, healthy childhoods? What was their relationship with their parents like? What is going on now in their personal lives? A nanny who has children of her own might be a red flag for some: she — or sometimes he — might resent having to mind another’s child, and pine for her own. One nanny might be deemed too old or too indifferent to energetically engage with the children. Another might be deemed too young or attractive, and pique a mother’s jealousy. Still another might be deemed too envious of her employers’ better fortunes. In the end, the decision might boil down to whether a person gets a good gut feeling about a potential employee. In their quest for the perfect caregiver for their children — in essentially hiring a stranger to become a part of the family — a parent can leap all of these hurdles. But even the most thorough background check cannot guarantee that something will not go horrifically wrong, as it did on Thursday when, the police say, two young Upper West Side children were killed by their nanny, Yoselyn Ortega. She had been their caregiver for about two years. By most accounts, cases like this are rare. Dr. Michael Stone, a forensic psychiatrist with a half-century’s experience in his field, could recall only a few instances in which nannies murdered their wards. “It’s rare and therefore very hard to put in some kind of psychological pigeonhole,” Dr. Stone said of Ms. Ortega’s alleged actions. “This woman is unique.” Still, parents and experts agree that extensive precautions must be taken. There is no one way to hire a nanny. The Krims, parents of the two children who were killed, received a referral from a friend, the police said. Other parents comb through Web sites of nannies’ résumés, while still others turn to agencies to help them find the best fit. But no method is airtight. Jodie Abbatangelo-Gray, mother to a 2-year-old daughter and a 4-year-old son, cycled through five nannies in five years before finding the perfect fit, relying on word-of-mouth recommendations and nanny-finding Web sites before finally going through an agency. “I’m hypervigilant of what the connection is looking like between the nanny and the kids,” she said. Jocelyn Miller, 40, a photo editor at Condé Nast Traveler, said the stress of finding a nanny was often exacerbated by how quickly mothers generally have to return to work — just three months after a baby is born. “You have these very strong instincts,” Ms. Miller said. “If anything is telling you something’s off, you have to immediately move on from that relationship.” Ms. Miller and her husband interviewed about 10 people they had found through various Web sites before turning to an agency, Heyday Inc., which specializes in placing educated nannies between 25 and 35 years old and plays matchmaker between prospective clients, whom they visit at home, and employees, whom they thoroughly interview and vet. “It was like night and day compared to the people I was meeting on my own,” she said. Even parents who said they had been happy with their nannies found themselves rattled to the core, questioning whether they had taken enough precautions. Darra Gordon, 39, found her Trinidadian nanny on the Internet — she seemed loving, caring and knowledgeable, a good fit to care for her 5-month-old daughter. But now Ms. Gordon is planning on conducting a thorough background check and looking into installing cameras this weekend in her Upper West Side home. “It’s a reminder of just how anything could happen that you have no control over,” she said. Nannies said being hired these days was no easy feat, with stressed New York parents taking all possible precautions. Along with prescreenings and background checks, multiple interviews are often conducted, covering discipline styles, lesson plans and whether nannies can handle kosher kitchens, speak additional languages, play an instrument or swim. “It was tough before,” said Shadé Miguel, 24, who has been watching the same Upper West Side family for a year and a half. “Now it’s going to get tougher. We all know what’s going to happen. Things are going to get even more serious.”

Michigan Court Awards $22 Million Dollar Diploma Mill Lawsuit

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

A federal Judge for the Eastern District Court of Michigan recently awarded plaintiffs in a civil class action lawsuit $22,783,500.00. The plaintiffs in the case were 33,500 U.S. residents who were deceived into purchasing fraudulent high schools diplomas from “Belford High School”. “Belford High School” and “Belford University” are both based in Pakistan. Belford sold thousands of fake college and high school diplomas to online education consumers. The suit also requires the school to forfeit the domain names they used to carry out the fraud. These domain names include www.belfordhighschool.org, www.belforduniversity.org, and www.belforduniversity.com (these websites are no longer active). The award, while substantial is still just a “drop in the bucket” compared to the billion dollar revenue that Diploma Mills generate annually. Diploma mills offer fraudulent high school and college degrees online for a fee. Generally the requirements for “earning” a degree are that the student take a very basic test or write essays that rely on “past life experiences” as qualification for bypassing hundreds of hours of course work. Unfortunately the news doesn’t get better; the United States remains the world leader in Diploma Mills. In 2011, a UK based company called Verifile Limited conducted a research which revealed a 20% increase in diploma mills (from 810 to 1,000) and of these new firms, 40% of operate in California, Hawaii, Washington, and Florida. Currently there is no federal law regulating this type of practice. However eighteen states have passed laws against violators manufacturing fake degrees. Due to a rise in fraudulent degrees, employers should ensure that they are verifying education credentials for sensitive positions. http://www.employerschoiceonline.com/blog/michigan-court-awards-22-million-dollar-diploma-mill-lawsuit/#more-378

Batch Of Galaxy Note 2s Stolen From Malaysian Airport

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Some 1,400 Galaxy Note 2 smartphones by Samsung Electronics disappeared from a cargo depot at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia on Oct. 20, the company said Sunday. The batch, which was worth W1.16 billion (US$1=W1,097), was to be put on store shelves across the Southeast Asian country. Samsung said the local police are investigating the case, but the odds of retrieving the stolen loot are considered slim. Samsung Electronics also had two of its latest OLED TVs stolen in Germany in August. The company sent 55 of the TVs to the IFA 2012 trade show in Berlin for display purposes but two went missing in transit. It immediately reported the loss to the local police but the case has not yet been solved. Many in the industry suspect the theft was aimed at leaking Samsung's technology to rivals as the product had not yet been released on the market at the time. However, the latest incident appears more clear-cut as the Galaxy Note 2 handsets can be resold for profit. Some say it reflects the growing popularity of the Samsung brand, given the numerous cases of Apple's iPhones that have gone missing around the world.

Trusted Traveler Program Coming To Fort Lauderdale airport

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

A holiday gift for some frequent fliers: the Transportation Security Administration in mid-December plans to start its trusted-traveler program at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. Called PreCheck, it funnels preapproved passengers into an express lane, allowing them to go through security without taking off shoes or pulling out laptops. For now, it is eligible only to Delta Air Lines frequent fliers, and they can participate only if they pass strict background checks — and are invited to join. The TSA won't say specifically how many passengers are eligible for PreCheck in Fort Lauderdale, but says that nationwide 3 million passengers have been screened under the program so far. PreCheck already is open to American Airlines frequent fliers at Miami International Airport and to Delta frequent fliers at Orlando International Airport. In all, it's in place at 26 airports, with a goal of 35 by year's end. There are no plans yet to implement it at Palm Beach International Airport. A holiday gift for some frequent fliers: the Transportation Security Administration in mid-December plans to start its trusted-traveler program at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. Called PreCheck, it funnels preapproved passengers into an express lane, allowing them to go through security without taking off shoes or pulling out laptops. For now, it is eligible only to Delta Air Lines frequent fliers, and they can participate only if they pass strict background checks — and are invited to join. The TSA won't say specifically how many passengers are eligible for PreCheck in Fort Lauderdale, but says that nationwide 3 million passengers have been screened under the program so far. PreCheck already is open to American Airlines frequent fliers at Miami International Airport and to Delta frequent fliers at Orlando International Airport. In all, it's in place at 26 airports, with a goal of 35 by year's end. There are no plans yet to implement it at Palm Beach International Airport. Do I have to pay a fee for PreCheck? No. But you must pay a $100 fee to be a member of Global Entry.

What is Global Entry?

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The program allows international travelers to proceed to a kiosk after deplaning. They insert a passport or U.S. permanent resident card into a reader, place their fingertips on a scanner to verify their identification, and make a Customs declaration. The kiosk then spits out a transaction receipt, allowing the traveler to head toward the baggage claim and the exit, bypassing long lines in the federal inspection area. The process, on average, takes about a minute, Customs officials say. How do I apply? Go to globalentry.gov and apply online. Customs and Border Protection then conducts a rigorous background check. Among other things, you will be required to provide your address, employment status, driver's license, passport and travel history. If your application is conditionally approved, the next step is an interview with a Customs and Border Protection officer and having your picture and fingerprints taken. The program is available at the Orlando, Miami and Fort Lauderdale airports, but not Palm Beach International. About 500,000 passengers have been approved. Do you have to be a U.S. citizen to be a member? Not necessarily. Global Entry is available to U.S. citizens and permanent U.S. residents as well as Mexican nationals. Canadian citizens are granted the same expedited privileges under NEXUS. Travelers under the Netherlands' Dutch Privium program or South Korea's Smart Entry Service also can apply for Global Entry. If you have a criminal record, are you eligible? Possibly, but not likely. As with PreCheck, "eligibility for Global Entry is based on past compliance with all U.S. laws, rules and regulations. A criminal record may disqualify an applicant," Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman Stephanie Malin said.

Fingerprinting Of Job Applicants Skyrockets

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The only thing Curtin is guilty of is applying for jobs in fields such as education and health care, which require applicants to be fingerprinted as part of background checks that have become more common and probing in the post-9/11 era. In 2000 about 6.6 million sets of fingerprints were sent to the FBI for vetting, said Chris Brown, an executive with MorphoTrust, which operates 1,200 enrollment centers, including six in metro Orlando, where employers send job applicants for screening. Today the number of prints sent to the FBI is more than 25 million, Brown said. Jason Morris and two partners started EmployeeScreenIQ in 1999 and now serve thousands of large companies (500 workers or more) in the U.S. and abroad. He's been in the industry since 1995. "Back then companies hired someone at the sheriff's department to do background checks," he said. And they were by no means universal, Morris said. A 2003 study showed that only 50 percent of companies did background checks. "Today, I never have that conversation," he said. "I don't run across companies that don't do it." The 9/11 terrorist attack sent Americans scurrying for cover and greater security. "Everybody became security-conscious overnight," Morris said. "We couldn't sign up clients fast enough." Though according to Morris virtually all large companies now do background checks, not all use fingerprinting as a tool. A random sample found that Disney World, Nemours Children's Hospital, Florida Hospital, the city of Orlando and Orange County Public Schools use fingerprinting. OUC, Mears Transportation and the AAA auto club do not. It was more than airborne foreign terrorists that created new demand for closer scrutiny of employees, especially those who work with children and the elderly, Brown said. The 2005 abduction and murder of Jessica Lunsford, a 9-year-old Homosassa girl, was a watershed event, leading public school districts to adopt much tighter screening of employees. The city of Apopka was in the vanguard of heightened awareness. A surge in sexual predator incidents nationwide led Apopka to start fingerprinting employees, applicants – and even volunteers – a dozen years ago, said city spokesman Richard Anderson. They did it the old-fashioned way, with ink and paper. ""It was crazy, sending all those cards to the FBI.," Anderson said. This year the city switched to state-of-the-art technology – a fingerprint identity device with a silicon-based sensing area – developed by Zvetco Biometrics, a Casselberry company with customers worldwide. No one has to tell Nancy Lathrop about the importance of protecting children. Lathrop, 64, was a teacher in Orange County schools for 37 years, specializing in learning disabilities, before retiring four years ago. Since then she has un-retired three times, and each time has had to be fingerprinted anew at her own expense (she was reimbursed only once, by a private school). Like Curtin, Lathrop finds it a costly and unnecessary hassle for someone with an uneventful Hallmark Channel life story. "I'm like, 'What is the problem?'" she said. "It's not going to show I'm a pervert." Curtin and Lathrop can't understand why there is no central data base of background information that public and private institutions could draw on, eliminating multiple, redundant background checks on the same person in a short period of time. Curtin has been fingerprinted three times this year by two private schools and a home-health agency. She was thinking of tutoring in the Orange schools next year, but that would mean a fourth printing and she's had it with trips to little offices from Maitland to south Orlando to be vetted, sometimes having to return because the print didn't "take." "I've been through hell with this," she said. Currently teaching an enrichment class in a private school, Curtin hopes to retire next year. Until then she will continue to walk the straight and narrow of her boring life. "When I start getting Social Security," she said, a twinkle in her voice, "that's going to change. I'm going to do all that arrest-worthy stuff."

Philippines Background Checks More Important than Ever

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

As the world’s economy keeps scaring people through a boomerang effect that began three years ago and some economist predict will last seven more, scams in the Philippines and the entire Asian region seem to be evolving. Criminals and internet scams are not cyclical, they in fact do quite well in an economic downturn. Business scams are often the highest volume in recessions, while romance scams and online dating scams seem to stay steady regardless of the economy. Given the ongoing uncertainly and trouble in the global economy, business fraud levels are very high, and the Philippines remains a high risk area, and for investigators considering conducting business or starting a new relationship in this island nation, a professional background check is key. Philippine scammers are becoming more sophisticated and experienced criminals can be far more devastating than the average internet scammer. Criminal groups conducting online business fraud and scams can now be organized and highly effective, with management or bosses coordinating the scams even from other countries, such as Malaysia or Hong Kong. The NBI (National Bureau of Investigation) in Manila says business fraud is a greater risk than ever for foreign firms looking to invest in the Philippines and Malaysia. Joint law enforcement agencies between the two countries have had some success, but when one network gets shut down, another quickly rises. Professional investigators say that Philippines background checks and due diligence is the key to avoid being a victim. Foreigners and international investors from other countries are targeted by criminals in Southeast Asia. Sophisticated and organized crime targets multinational corporations to small companies to individuals by using professional looking but fake websites, emails that seem to be from a reputable company but are in fact from another sender, and even referrals from sites like Linkedin and Twitter, and other online commerce and investing websites. Managers looking for opportunity abroad can easily be caught up in the scams, fake offers, and investment scams. Law enforcement and private investigators say the trend is likely to continue to worsen in 2013, as the global economic situation shows little sign of improvement. American companies are increasingly looking abroad to survive, where risk levels are higher, and the potential for fraud is a serious risk. For those companies that have no experience in due diligence and international background checks, it can be a dangerous game when screening Asia business opportunities. Be safe and verify. Talk to a professional international investigation firm about the risks and verification options. Both Wymoo® International, a leader in international private investigation, and Philippine PI™, a reputable investigation firm specializing in the Philippines and Asia, report that scam cases have risen in response to the economic downturn. Business leaders should consider company and individual verifications as a cost of doing business, and a prudent insurance policy. Professional investigation firms in the Philippines like Straightline International stress the need for real background checks to be performed by seasoned investigators with a proven track records. Trained Straightline International investigators conducting background checks can verify information first hand by going to the sites or companies, obtaining discreet testimony and statements from informants, conducting on the ground research, covert surveillance, checking business registration and civil registries, immigration records, court documents and verifying company operations.

India Background Checks and Due Diligence Rising

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The economy in India is still growing. Fueled by extreme overpopulation and citizens fighting to feed their family and reach a better quality of life, the country is expanding in nearly all sectors despite the global recession. IT and technology and customer support and call center jobs in India are growing. New internet and SEO companies are leading the way in internet start-up companies in New Delhi and Mumbai. The country is slowly improving its infrastructure and modernizing its record keeping systems. Many companies worldwide are capitalizing on India’s large number of educated and English speaking workforce. Healthcare, customer support, and information technology jobs are expanding as developed world firms increase outsourcing. India is the ideal market for many companies seeking a cheap provider or cheap labor. But, the benefits do not come risk free. With a sharp rise in fraud and scam cases, background checks and due diligence in India is also booming. Verifying in India is more important than ever. Young people in India are transforming the country perhaps faster than any other country in the world. China is changing also, but India is arguably the most dramatic and stark contrast between old world and new. In the process, India is losing much of its old world charm. It is fast becoming a concrete, urban landscape of modern buildings and service center, offering cheap labor to the world. More mouths to feed means less resources to go around, and from an economic standpoint, this means cheap labor and desperate workers. As Indians are doing anything necessary to get into the workforce, and companies around the world are doing whatever it takes to find cheap suppliers and employees, the risk has risen significantly. All business deals, resumes, CV’s, references, companies and potential business partners should be screened and verified. Poverty is among the highest in the world in India. Nowhere on Earth is poverty so widespread and in your face as it is in India. Local companies and job seekers are doing whatever necessary to escape the hard life, and get on board the new modernization. According to India private investigators, the country represents a moderate and growing risk for business fraud and scams. Business deals, new hires and investments found over the internet are especially prone to fraud. Hiring a new employee in India, or starting a business relationship with a company in India without verifying its operations, reputation, legal filings and management can often lead to disaster. If the company is a fraud, or misstating its financial results or number of offices or employees, or reputation, it’s essential to find out sooner rather than later. If an India CV or resume is a fraud or has false employment data or education listed, it is of utmost important to know prior to hiring. Not verifying employees, companies and investments can be a costly learning mistake. India background checks and due diligence is smart risk management.

5 States Where ID Theft Is Booming

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

As people flock to states like Florida and Texas for a warmer climate, someone they would rather not see is following them. Of the top five states among reported identity thefts, all are in the southernmost regions of the country. At the bottom of the list? North and South Dakota. But don't blame the sunny skies. You might be surprised to learn what is really contributing to an identity theft problem that affects as many as 9 million Americans a year. The majority of identity theft cases occur when thieves steal private personal data from a victim's computer, lift it from an unsecured WiFi network or online transaction, or hack the victim with viruses and other malicious software delivered through email phishing attacks, said Kevin Yu, vice president of operations at Scambook, an online complaint resolution platform. Some states are particularly prone to these activities. Florida has the highest per capita rate of reported identity theft complaints, followed by Georgia, California, Arizona and Texas, according to a survey by Consumer Sentinel Network. The most commonly reported form of identity theft in these five states was government documents/benefits fraud, followed by employment-related and credit-card fraud. All of these states are densely populated, while states with low populations such as Montana, Maine, South Dakota and North Dakota ranked lowest on the list. The question remains: Why do identity thieves target those southern states? Here are three explanations. 1. Reporting For Duty. Members of the military are often targets for identity theft because they conduct their financial business online while overseas. They also tend to be slower to notice unauthorized credit card charges or suspicious activity because of extended training or deployment. Texas, California, Georgia and Florida are among the top states in the country with active duty military populations, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. 2. Laid-Back Snow Birds. Florida has the highest population of adults older than 65, a demographic that is easy prey for cyber criminals because the elderly are less familiar with Internet and mobile technology. Senior citizens who are unaware of their personal security fall victim to scammers who file for false tax refunds in their name or obtain new lines of credit. More than 17,500 identity theft complaints were reported in 2011 by residents in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach metropolitan statistical area. 3. Illegal Issues. In other regions, border states attract a higher immigrant population, which includes its share of illegal immigrants. To work in this country, you need a Social Security number, so many turn to the black market. "If you're an illegal immigrant, that Social Security number is a dollar sign to you," said Robert Siciliano, an identity theft expert and CEO of IDTheftSecurity.com. Organized criminals earn millions of dollars by counterfeiting fake identification and selling them. Unfortunately, there are plenty of people out there willing to steal those numbers from their employers or hack databases to make a buck. Possibly most troubling is that people can legally access Social Security numbers through the Social Security Administration Death Master File, which contains information on more than 80 million deceased individuals with U.S. Social Security numbers. Shockingly, the index is public information. Siciliano said laws are being proposed to prevent that information from staying in the public realm. Regardless of where you live, you can take steps to avoid becoming an identity theft victim. Siciliano recommends a credit freeze: A new account can't be opened in your name unless you unlock the freeze. Protect your computer data by choosing strong passwords and installing anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-phishing and firewall protections. Pay close attention to credit card statements and immediately report unauthorized activity. Or consider purchasing credit theft protection insurance, which runs $100 to $150 a year. The good news is we don't all have to move to North Dakota to protect ourselves.

After Trayvon Martin: Should Neighborhood Watch Groups Require Criminal Background Checks?

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Now that the Florida neighborhood watch volunteer who killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in February has been charged with second-degree murder, some national experts are suggesting that neighborhood watch organizations across the country need to take a good, hard look at themselves. While local crime-watch groups exist to make neighborhoods safer, volunteer George Zimmerman’s harassment and subsequent shooting of the teenager demonstrate that such organizations may also be attractive to overzealous, vigilante types who may abuse their position. So how can neighborhood watch groups prevent similar situations in the future? By conducting criminal background checks on all volunteers, for starters, says Gabriel “Jack” Chin, a professor of law at the University of California at Davis School of Law. He recommended neighborhood watch groups take the following measures: Criminal background checks. Chin insists that criminal background checks should be required for all neighborhood watch members – or at least those who go out on patrol. A criminal background check on Zimmerman, for example might have turned up his violent past and flagged him as an unsuitable member for the local neighborhood watch. In 2005, he was charged with resisting arrest with violence and battery of a law enforcement officer; the same year, his ex-fiancé was also granted a domestic violence restraining order against him. Anti-weapon policies. In addition to criminal background checks, another safety measure Chin recommended was that crime-watch groups create written policies prohibiting members from carrying weapons while carrying out group activities, regardless of whether they have a license to carry. Extra training. Finally, he suggested that neighborhood watch organizations consider providing extra training to make sure members understand the laws around using deadly force.

Hidden Camera Scandal Blamed on Lack of Employment Screening

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

After returning from their spring break vacations, students living in the dorms at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga were faced with a scandal that has brought attention to the need for background checks and employment screening within the university system. This past Monday, UT student and Resident Assistant Bernard "Junior" Morris was arrested by police for allegedly installing hidden cameras in female dormitories. The surveillance camera's were found within alarm clocks that Morris had placed in these rooms while residents were away on break. After students had returned to find the mysterious clocks, campus security was contacted, stemming an immediate investigation. University officials reviewed security footage within the dorms which revealed images of Morris going from room to room, knocking on the doors, and later entering if there was no reply. With this evidence in hand, Chattanooga police were contacted and Bernard Morris was immediately arrested. Following his arrest, Morris will be arraigned on April 13th on more than a dozen charges including felony burglary and theft. However, parents and students alike are still upset that this occurred in the first place--especially considering that Morris had an extensive criminal history yet no background check before his appointment. What would an employment screening have revealed if the university had run one? A lengthy criminal record including felony aggravated burglary, stalking, and harassment. Since the incident, the school immediately changed their screening policy on Resident Assistants, but some feel that it was too late as the damage had already been done. Not only were students violated, but the incident has drawn a large cloud of negative attention that has the school working to maintain their public relations. Unfortunately, it took this scandal for the school to realize the importance of background checks and employment screening . . . a lesson that should noted by other universities and employers alike.

California AB 1844 Prohibits Employers from Demanding Usernames and Passwords from Applicants and Em

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

In September 2012, California Governor Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 1844 (AB 1844) to increase privacy protections for social media users in the state by prohibiting employers from demanding usernames, passwords, and information related to social media accounts from employees and job applicants. California now joins Maryland and Illinois as the only states that currently prohibit employers from requiring job applicants and employees to disclose social media information. AB 1844 also bans employers from firing or disciplining employees who refuse to divulge social media information. The new law covers “social media” that includes videos, photographs, blogs, podcasts, text messages, e-mail, online accounts, and website profiles. However, AB 1844 does not apply to information used to access employer-issued electronic devices and is also not intended to infringe on the existing rights and obligations of employers to investigate workplace misconduct. Governor Brown also signed Senate Bill 1349 (SB 1349), introduced by Leland Yee (D-San Francisco), which establishes a similar privacy policy for postsecondary education students with respect to their use of social media by prohibiting universities from requiring that students, prospective students, and student groups to disclose user names, passwords, or other information about their use of social media. In April 2012, Maryland passed the first law in the nation to prohibit employers from asking for social media user names and passwords as a condition of employment when both Houses of the General Assembly approved two social media privacy protection bills Senate Bill 433 (SB 433)/House Bill 964 (HB 964). In August 2012, Illinois became the second state to prevent employers from requesting social network account information from current employees and job applicants when Governor Pat Quinn signed House Bill 3782 (HB 3782). At the federal level, H.R. 5050: the Social Networking Online Protection Act (SNOPA) would prohibit employers from requiring or requesting that employees provide a user name, password, or other means for accessing a personal account on any social networking website. SNOPA is currently pending in Committee.

What Is A Government Background Check?

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

When American citizens choose to work for the federal government in positions that require access to classified information, they are required to undergo an intense government background check. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is responsible for conducting the majority of government background checks for most federal agencies and their contractors. An executive order signed by President Eisenhower in 1953, gave OPM and other agencies the authority to regulate the security of federal personnel through the use of background investigations. Government background checks that aren’t performed by OPM are usually conducted by the Department of Defense or the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The agency conducting the government background check has a first priority to make sure that the applicant is reliable, trustworthy and loyal to the United States. To what depth they investigate an applicant depends on the position that has been applied for. Positions that require the most access to classified information and that give an employee the opportunity to do the most individual harm, require a government background check of the largest scope. A government background check is regarded as the most thorough of background investigations, therefore, it is considered very intrusive by many people. The first step of a government background check requires an applicant to fill out a security questionnaire that has extremely personal questions on it. Additionally, applicants must be fingerprinted, so their prints can be entered into the computers of the FBI and confirm that they are not criminals. Next, interviewers that work for whichever agency performing the government background check, find and locate people listed on the security questionnaire and others that may not be, so they may have an unbiased account of an applicant’s character. They will conduct interviews with an applicant’s friends, family, acquaintances, current employers, past employers and anyone they can find to give personal information to them about an applicant. In addition, a credit report will be run to make sure there are no major credit problems with an applicant. Most government background checks take at least 30 days, and many of them 90 days or longer. The length of the investigation depends on the number of contacts an applicant has outside of the United States and the difficulty that an interviewer has contacting people on an applicant’s security questionnaire. After the pertinent information has been gathered about an applicant, adjudications officials at the agency requiring the investigation will evaluate the information communicate their recommendation to the appropriate personnel or security office.

Will Private DNA Services Replace State Crime Labs?

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

A new Cloud-based DNA service could possibly serve as an alternative to state-run crime labs for DNA processing. The advantage of the technology, which is called Local Entry Accessible DNA (LEAD) and which uses Rapid DNA tools, is that police departments would sometimes not have to rely on state agencies to get samples processed. Existing DNA profiles can be uploaded to the LEAD database via an Internet connection by a local state crime lab, or can be sent to the lab of Sorenson Forensics, which developed the LEAD technology, to be analyzed and added to the LEAD system. However, using Rapid DNA is limited to cheek swabs, so genetic material taken from other areas of the body would have to be processed in a traditional laboratory. Also, LEAD is not connected to the FBI national DNA database that state crime labs use; the system would search on an individual agency’s database, or agencies could elect to share their databases with one another.

Get Me Out Of Here! Drunk On Board

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

by Dennis Brownstein's Extreme Court News A drunk man on Delta Flight 1215 thought the plane was on fire when the aircraft landed in Salt Lake City October 16, triggering a frantic effort by the Ukrainian man to open the rear door of the aircraft, and a furious struggle with some passengers to restrain him. According to an FBI affidavit filed in federal court in Utah, the flight departed from Boston’s Logan Airport. The passenger told FBI agents that he was returning to Portland, Oregon, after visiting relatives in his native Ukraine. According to the FBI, when he ran to the rear of the aircraft, a flight attendant ordered him to stop, but was unable to prevent him from opening the emergency exit door on the starboard side of the plane. The man mishandled the door, causing it to malfunction, so it did not deploy the inflatable chute. At that point, the flight attendant asked for help from passengers. Several rushed into assist, according to the FBI. The disruptive passenger was scheduled to make an initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City October 17 on charges of attempting to disable an aircraft and assaulting and interfering with the flight crew on board Flight 1215. No passengers or flight crew needed medical attention.

It Was The Bad Check That Did them In

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

by Dennis Brownstein's Extreme Court News A Lawrenceville, Georgia couple was convicted for a tax defiance scheme after claiming that they were “American citizens” and not subject to federal income tax laws, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced October 16. The husband and wife were found guilty by a federal jury of conspiring to defraud the United States and making false claims upon the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) by a federal jury. According to the information presented in court, the couple, who owned a yard furnishing store and general contracting business in Duluth, conspired to avoid taxes from 1999 to 2009 and submitted false claims for refunds. The couple stopped filing federal income tax returns in the 1990s, then hired the now-defunct American Rights Litigators (ARL) to fight the IRS on their behalf. ARL sold and promoted tax defiance schemes, authorities said. The husband and wife’s ploys to avoid taxes included sending “obstructive, frivolous, and harassing documents” to the IRS and Department of the Treasury, and establishing business bank accounts using fake tax identification numbers to hide money. In 2009, the couple submitted two fraudulent tax returns claiming more than $420,000 in refunds. They also sent the government a bogus $100 billion, private registered bond to pay off their debts.

Not A Good Idea To Bring Hand Grenade to Government Office

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

by Dennis Brownstein's Extreme Court News A man recentlytook a grenade he found on a south Memphis,Tennessee lot to Memphis Fire Station No. 14. He feared that if he turned the grenade in to the police, they might keep him all day. He parked in front of the fire station, leaving the grenade in the truck when he told firefighters about it. The fire department took him to a back room, away from the fire station windows. A fire department battalion chief made a bomb threat report to Memphis police. Nearby residences, about two dozen of them, were evacuated if people were at home; police blocked off the street for about two blocks, and the police bomb squad arrived to safely cart the grenade away. A police report described it as an old military-grade grenade with a rusted pin and the handle still intact. The man had found it stuck in the ground of a lot where a house had been demolished days earlier. Police determined that the grenade was hollowed out and not a “live” grenade that could have exploded.

Steven Santiago Joins Americheck USA

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

AmeriCheckUSA announced that Steven Santiago has joined the firm to further develop their growing portfolio of regional and national accounts. Steven Santiago comes with a background in sales and excellent customer service. His exuberant personality and outstanding organizational skills will be of great value to AmeriCheckUSA. Steven joins AmeriCheckUSA as Account Associate to continue AmeriCheckUSA's recent success providing business services to many of the top condominiums in the United States. Steven comments, "I am excited to start a new challenge within AmeriCheckUSA and look forward to working with the team to further develop their national account base. I am fortunate to be joining such a respected company that prides itself on top quality service"

Newark, NJ Bans The Background Check

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

by Les Rosen Effective November 18, 2012, an Ordinance passed by Newark, New Jersey will impose restrictions on employers in the city with five or more employees regarding the use of criminal background checks of job applicants. Newark employers will be prohibited from performing pre-job application criminal background checks and denying employment based on criminal background check results conducted post-offer without an individualized analysis of the criminal background using factors listed in the new Ordinance, which is available at: http://www.employmentlawalert.com/uploads/file/12-1630(1).pdf. Under the general requirements of the Ordinance, Newark employers may not conduct a criminal background check before making a conditional offer of employment. An employer may discuss criminal backgrounds before a job offer only if applicants disclose their criminal history voluntarily - called "self reporting" - and without solicitation. In addition, the Ordinance contains certain exemptions such as mandatory state and federal regulations requiring employers to consider criminal histories when hiring. The Ordinance allows an employer to conduct a criminal background check for a job applicant post-offer if the employer makes a "good faith" determination the job being applied for is sensitive enough that a criminal history inquiry is needed. Before conducting a criminal background check for an applicant or employee, the employer must provide standard written notification in the consent form that: Upon the written consent of the applicant or employee, the employer will conduct a criminal history inquiry; and Following any adverse decision by the employer regarding employment, the applicant or employee will have the right and opportunity to present evidence regarding the accuracy and relevance of the background check. Barring certain exceptions existing for violent crimes, the Ordinance allows Newark employers to inquire about convictions up to 8 years from sentencing, disorderly persons convictions or municipal ordinance violations up to 5 years from sentencing, and pending criminal charges. Employers are prohibited from inquire about, require a candidate to disclose, or take any adverse action based on: -An arrest or criminal accusation not currently pending; -Records which have been erased, expunged or subject to an executive pardon; and -A juvenile adjudication of delinquency or records which have been sealed. The Ordinance also requires Newark employers to consider the following factors when basing a hiring decision on a criminal background and also document its analysis of six factors using an 'Applicant Criminal Record Consideration' form: -The nature of the crime and relationship to the duties of the position; -Information pertaining to the degree of rehabilitation and good conduct; -Does the prospective job provide the applicant the opportunity to commit a similar offense; -Whether the circumstances leading to the offense are likely to occur; -The length of time that has elapsed since the offense; and -A certificate of rehabilitation issued by any state or federal agency. Regarding "adverse action" where the employer makes an adverse employment decision after conducting a criminal background checks, the Ordinance requires the employer to: -Notify the applicant or employee of the adverse employment decision; -Provide the applicant or employee with a photocopy of the results of the criminal history inquiry, indicating the particular conviction(s) relating to the responsibilities of the job, and a copy of the Applicant Criminal Record Consideration form; -Provide the applicant or employee with a written notice of rejection, specifically stating the reasons for the adverse decision and including the employer's consideration of the six factors outlined in the Applicant Criminal Record Consideration form; and -Advise the applicant or employee of the opportunity for review, including how the applicant or employee may present evidence related to the employer's consideration of the six factors outlined in the Applicant Criminal Record Consideration form, and what kinds of evidence may be presented. The Ordinance also requires employers to send a copy of these notices in one package by registered mail to the applicant or employee. Since this process differs from the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) required process of a Pre-Adverse Action letter followed by an Adverse Action letter after a reasonable waiting period, employers subject to the new ordinance must modify their background check processes. Under the Ordinance, applicants and employees will have 10 business days after receipt of the notices to respond to the employer regarding the results of the criminal background check. Employer must provide them with an opportunity to present information related to the accuracy and relevance of the results of the criminal history inquiry. The employer must review all information received before making any final decision regarding employment and must also document the following in writing: -The information and evidence provided; -The employer's consideration of this information and evidence; and -The employer's final action, specifically stating the reasons for the final action taken, which the employer must notify the applicant or employee of within a reasonable period of time and provide them with copies of the written documents. Penalties for non-compliance with the new Ordinance range from $500 to $1,000. A copy of the Ordinance is available at: http://www.employmentlawalert.com/uploads/file/12-1630(1).pdf.

Security Flaws in Airline Boarding Passes

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Aviation blogger John Butler recently drew attention to a security flaw in the barcodes used on airline boarding passes that would allow terrorists or other criminals determine if they will be subjected to more intensive screening before boarding a flight. He also reported that the flaw could allow them to modify that information to ensure they would not have to undergo certain measures. According to Butler, the information in the barcode is unencrypted, allowing it to be read using a smartphone or other device. The Transportation Security Administration declined to comment on these reports, but security expert Chris Soghoian commented that terrorists could use the vulnerability "to make sure the right guy is carrying the right bags."

Public Records Update by BRB Publications

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Two Federal Courts Moving Iowa Both the U.S. District and U.S. Bankruptcy Courts located in Cedar Rapids Iowa are moving into a new court building on November 5, 2012. The new address is 111 7th Street SE, Cedar Rapids, IA 52401-2101. The main phone numbers for both courts remain the same: however, the inside personnel individual numbers will likely change. The Court has been in temporary quarters since a flood destroyed the old court building approx. 5 years ago. Utilization of and access to the U.S. Bankruptcy’s Post Office Box address (PO Box 74890) discontinued Wednesday, October 31, 2012. Paper filings intended to be delivered via the United States Postal Service to the Cedar Rapids division of Court with a mailing/postmark date occurring on or after October 25, 2012, should be addressed to the new address. Texas The Austin Division of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas is moving into a new court building on December 3, 2012. The new address is 501 W. 5th Street, Austin, TX, 78701. The phone numbers remain the same. Note the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Austin is NOT moving.

SAM And The Excluded Part List System (EPLS) by BRB Public Records

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

At the end of July 2012, access to the Excluded Parties List System (EPLS) was taken over by a new system. EPLS, along with Federal Agency Registration (FedReg), the Central Contractor Registration (CCR), and the Online Representations and Certifications Application (ORCA), were migrated into the new System for Award Management also known as SAM (https://www.sam.gov/portal/public/SAM) At this time, SAM is overwhelmed and record searching on the EPLS is still available at https://www.epls.gov/. Indications are this search feature will eventually be moved to SAM Other free search federal government sites commonly used in background investigations remain unchanged, including: -Denied Persons List - www.bis.doc.gov/dpl/default.shtm -Unverified List - www.bis.doc.gov/enforcement/unverifiedlist/unverified_parties.html -Debarred Parties List - www.pmddtc.state.gov/compliance/debar.html

Criminal Record Retrieval In Saipan And Guam

Sun, 18 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0600

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AmericanChecked Inc. and Casino Careers Strengthen Strategic Alliance

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0600

AmericanChecked Inc. and Casino Careers jointly issued a renewal statement of their longstanding strategic relationship in the gaming and hospitality industries. AmericanChecked is a leading national provider of employment background screening and Casino Careers serves as a talent acquisition resource for the gaming, hospitality and technology industries. Julie Hakman, President/CEO of AmericanChecked commented, “Over the years, AmericanChecked and Casino Careers, the two premier providers in their respective industries, have developed a long lasting relationship which continues today as a key strategic alliance.” Additionally, Beth Deighan, Founder/President of Casino Careers said, “Employers can now look to AmericanChecked and Casino Careers as their premier, one-stop shop for the talent acquisition and placement process.” From job posting to recruiting, placement and successful on-boarding, AmericanChecked and Casino Careers save employers time, money and effort in finding, attracting and keeping the brightest and the best. To learn more, call AmericanChecked at 800-975-9876 and ask for Babetta Jimpie. Visit their website at: www.americanchecked.com Employees seeking staffing and executive placement services may call Casino Careers, LLC at 609-813-2333 or visit www.casinocareers.com for more information.

How Judges Set Bail

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0600

by Judge Galler You have probably seen news stories about someone being arrested for a horrible crime and then heard that the judge set bail allowing the person to be released from custody. You then thought, “What is with those crazy judges? Why would there be any bail set? Shouldn’t this person just sit in jail until trial?” Some states have laws that allow an accused person, in certain circumstances, to be held in jail until trial with no chance of bailing out. Other states, like Minnesota, require judges to set bail in every case. The Minnesota Constitution mandates that “All persons shall before conviction be bailable by sufficient sureties, except for capital offenses...” Capital offenses are those where the death penalty could be imposed. As Minnesota abolished the death penalty in 1911 we no longer have capital offenses. Accordingly, in 1958 our Supreme Court decided that bail must be set in every case. This followed decisions in other states, with similar constitutions, affirming that bail is required no matter how “diabolical or atrocious” the charge. In response, you might think, “Judges should set bail so high that the accused could never post it.” However, that would be illegal and improper. Judges are sworn to uphold the constitutions and laws of the United States and the State of Minnesota. Both constitutions mandate that “excessive bail shall not be required.” Judges are not to substitute their views of what the law should be for what the law actually is. To do so would violate the separation of powers and be an example of judicial activism. A judge must follow the law regarding bail. Our law requires that bail must be set in an amount that is fair and reasonable given all of the facts of the case. There are two primary factors that affect bail settings. First, whether the person is likely to voluntarily appear in court, and second, whether the person will likely constitute a danger to the public, or themselves, if released. Courts generally require higher bail settings for those with a history of missing court, those who seem likely to flee, and those, whom the court reasonably believes, if released, will be dangerous or commit other crimes. In determining a fair and reasonable amount of bail judges consider numerous factors including the nature of the charge, the person’s criminal history, whether they have a job, own a home, have a family, or if they have completed schooling. Experience shows us that those who are well invested in a community are lesser risks to flee, endanger others, or commit more crimes. In the end, all any judge can do is to use their best judgment, experience, and common sense. Even after considering all of the best information available, it is impossible to predict with any real certainty which defendants will later flee or turn out to be dangerous. This interplay between protecting society and respecting the right to bail makes these some of the hardest decisions that judges make.

West Virginia Courts Catching Up To 21st Century

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Monongalia County's (WV) magistrate court was the second in the state to begin using a new computer system that will likely link court records throughout West Virginia by 2016. The Unified Judicial Application (UJA) system eventually will allow area residents to obtain information about crimes that occur elsewhere in the state without leaving Monongalia County -- or their homes. A public-access terminal was set up at Monongalia County Magistrate Court.

D.C. Federal Court Has Smallest Average Criminal Caseload, Survey Finds

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Between October 2006 and July of this year, judges in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on average sentenced 147 defendants in criminal cases. According to a new study, the city's federal court had the smallest average criminal caseload of any federal court nationwide during that time. The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, released the results yesterday of a new analysis of sentencing data from the federal courts. TRAC, which is based at Syracuse University, measured criminal caseloads by the number of defendants sentenced per judge; TRAC Co-Director Susan Long said they thought sentencings would be a useful measuring tool because most criminal cases in the federal courts end in a guilty plea or conviction. But U.S. District Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the D.C.-based court said he didn't think the study was a helpful way to gauge criminal caseloads and judicial workloads, since it put all criminal cases on an even playing field, regardless of their complexity or how long they took to resolve. "In other courts, most of those cases are one-hour guilty pleas. If that's the case, compared to Roger Clemens or large cases we have here that go on for weeks, I don't think it's helpful for understanding the process," he said, referring to the years-long proceedings against Clemens, the former professional baseball player who was ultimately acquitted of charges of lying to Congress. Courthouses in states along the U.S.-Mexico border had the largest average caseloads, according to the TRAC study. In the Las Cruces, N.M., courthouse, the one active judge studied there handled 7,020 sentencings alone, the most of any other court's average caseload. According to TRAC, sentencings have been higher in the Southwest because of the federal government's increased efforts to prosecute immigration-related matters. Long said that while different cases might have different lengths, the length of the study period – more than five years – was enough to take into account the varying lengths of cases and provide an accurate sense of the criminal caseload in any given court. She said that a previous study looking at the total number of defendants yielded similar results as far as showing varying caseloads between different courts. Lamberth noted that the study didn't include the large number of cases the D.C. court has handled related to detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention center. Those cases, which are mostly habeas petitions filed by detainees, aren't considered criminal cases, he said, but they had "swamped" the court. Besides comparing caseloads at different courts, the TRAC study explored the differences in caseloads among judges serving in the same court. Although caseloads varied widely among judges in some courts, including the Los Angeles courthouse of the Central District of California and the Beaumont, Texas courthouse of the Eastern District of Texas, caseloads in the Washington federal courthouse were fairly consistent.

Even The Feds Make Money Off Criminal Records

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

The federal government has collected millions from the online Public Access to Court Electronic Records system, or PACER – nearly five times what it cost to run the system. Between fiscal years 2006 and 2010, the government collected an average of $77 million a year from PACER fees, according to the most recent federal figures available. Critics have derided PACER, saying the government has increased user fees over the years without making the system easier to use. The fees, some say, act as a deterrent to public access. The Judiciary Appropriations Act of 1992 limited the use of PACER fees to “reimburse expenses incurred in providing these services.” But lawmakers on the House Appropriations Committee have allowed the courts to invest in a wider range of information technology projects using fees collected from PACER. Fees for online access have risen from 7 cents to 10 cents per page. “Given the lack of oversight for what the fees are being used for, the incentive for the courts is to raise fees,” said Stephen Schultze, associate director of Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy. In recent years, U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and the American Association of Law Libraries, which represents 5,000 law librarians nationwide, have tried without success to persuade the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts and members of Congress to provide free access to PACER records.

Air Force May Limit Access To Criminal Records

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

The Air Force is changing the rules on how the media and general public get information about airmen accused of crimes. A recent Air Force Instruction lists several changes to how the service applies the Uniform Code of Military Justice that are intended to protect the privacy of accused airmen at the expense of the public’s right to know. The Air Force Instruction appears to curtail the public’s access to criminal records. “Under the Privacy Act, information from a system of records, such as a court-martial file maintained in a [Judge Advocate General’s] office about an individual, may not be released to the public without the individual’s consent unless release is required by the Freedom of Information Act,” the instruction says. But submitting a FOIA request does not guarantee that you will get such records if doing so would be “an unwarranted invasion of an individual’s personal privacy,” which is when someone’s privacy interests outweigh the public’s interest in the information, the instruction says. “Considering the fact that anyone subject to the UCMJ can act as an accuser under the UCMJ, the accused normally retains a reasonable expectation of privacy upon preferral of charges,” the instruction says. That expectation of privacy begins to decline when the charges reach a public forum, such as a court-martial or Article 32 hearing, the instruction says. An Air Force spokesman said the changes outlined in the instruction do not limit what information is available to the media but are meant to ensure that FOIA and the privacy act are implemented properly. “This will not change the media’s current ability to get charge sheets or other information about accused airmen,” Lt. Col. John Dorrian said in an email. “We have simply clarified current policy and law to ensure uniform application across the Air Force. Cases must always be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.” However, the instruction also requires military attorneys to comply with the FOIA guidelines, a concern to Eugene R. Fidell, who teaches military justice at Yale Law School. “Taken literally, this regulation produces absurd results,” Fidell told Air Force Times. Fidell wonders if everyone, including attorneys who want to write “friend of the court” briefs, will now have to submit a FOIA request to get any documents related to criminal trials from military attorneys — even defense motions. With all the paperwork, delays and internal appeals, the FOIA process ends up impeding transparency. But retired Army Lt. Col. Dru Brenner-Beck doesn’t believe the instruction’s FOIA requirements are anything new. “They may have been doing things less formally, but to the law, that was the requirement all along,” said Brenner-Beck, a former military attorney who specialized in FOIA and privacy act issues for the Army. The balance of privacy concerns versus the public’s interest changes as military proceedings progress, she said. Before an Article 32 hearing, the only information available is the charge sheet, which includes the type of offense and the caveat that the charges are only accusations. "As they get to the [Article] 32, because it’s a public hearing, it’s now become public, so therefore the privacy restrictions get slanted more toward disclosure as opposed to keeping it under control,” she said. But the instruction means the Air Force will default to the FOIA process as the only way to obtain court records, which are readily available in civilian courts, said Mark Caramanica, freedom of information director for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. “Having to go through the FOIA process is definitely going to slow things down,” said Caramanica, who is also an attorney. “If you want ready access to court-martial material, you’re going to be put in the FOIA queue and be processed on a first-come, first-serve basis, which is not how our regular courts work. Keeping these records in possession of the JAG’s office really frustrates ready access to court records which you would be able to get much more quickly in the civilian court.” The Reporters Committee believes that court-martial records should be held by a clerk within the military justice system so the public can see them — with the understanding that some sensitive information cannot be viewed, Caramanica said. “When you have trials going on in real time, you need ready access to dockets to see what motions are being filed and so forth to keep up with the case and be able to report on it, and FOIA is not a good means of daily deadline-based reporting,” he said. For example, Air Force Times has tried unsuccessfully since March to get records about Staff Sgt. Nicholas Cron, who was sentenced to life without the possibility for parole after pleading guilty in January to killing a fellow airman at Kadena Air Base, Japan, after slashing the airman’s neck, according to court reports. Cron called the man’s wife — a co-defendant — so she could listen to him die. Air Force Times submitted a FOIA request to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations in March and followed up multiple times. An Air Force Times reporter eventually received a response in May — which arrived two months late because it had been misplaced — that said OSI could not confirm or deny the requested information existed and, even if it did exist, it could not be released because it would constitute “an unwarranted invasion” of Cron’s privacy. Even though Cron had been convicted in a public court-martial, the case had not been “administratively closed,” OSI explained. Later, OSI said that since Cron and the dead airman’s wife were still alive, Air Force Times should request “records pertaining to the death of the victim.” The reporter did just that — and her FOIA request was denied again on the grounds that it was an ongoing investigation — even though both had been convicted. “This final process takes a while because of the lengthy review process and all the legal folks that have to submit their final legal paperwork to us,” OSI spokeswoman Linda Card said in an August email. “Then, all the stuff has to be scanned and manually entered into the system by someone. For this reason, OSI still considers this case open. ” Undaunted, the Air Force Times reporter appealed and requested the trial’s transcript from Pacific Air Forces. That request was ultimately sent to the Air Force secretary’s office, which has requested more time to process the request “because we are examining a substantial amount of records.” As of Nov. 1, both the appeal and the request for the transcript are still pending. In September, the Reporters Committee filed a “friend of the court” brief with the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces arguing that it is in the public’s interest that reporters have access to court records from military proceedings. The brief challenged the cloak of secrecy the government has used to shroud all court records from the case of Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, who is accused of leaking classified information. Even the court documents have been kept secret, all of which is an obstacle to the media’s constitutionally protected right to report the news, the brief says. “Journalists rely heavily on court documents to gain and provide to readers the background of and context surrounding a legal controversy — awareness and understanding of which is often necessary to accurately report on the dispute,” the brief says. “Prior access to the materials allows reporters, the overwhelming majority of whom have no legal background or education, to process oftentimes complex legal theories at their own pace, or to interview a legal expert who could explain the issues, so they are better equipped to understand what is transpiring in the proceeding they attend.” The committee argues that the First Amendment protects the public’s right to access documents from courts-martial. “The Supreme Court’s established practice of deciding issues of constitutional importance in public is grounded in the recognition that openness helps promote a perception of fairness and foster a better-educated public,” the brief says. “But by refusing to provide reasonable and proper notices of such proceedings and the nature of the documents filed in connection therewith, the military justice system has severely undercut this foundational tenet of American democracy.”

NAPBS Offers Tips For Screening Job Candidates in 2013

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

As employers begin to plan business strategies for the upcoming year, there is no question that personnel needs will be high on their to-do lists. To help business owners and human resource managers make sound hiring decisions, more and more are turning to pre-employment background screening to ensure they find the right people for the right positions. Each year, business owners, corporate human resources departments, government agencies and nonprofits successfully partner with professional background screening companies to conduct millions of pre-employment and volunteer background checks. Not only do background checks help employers find the most qualified workers, but they also play an important role in helping employers meet their legal responsibilities and provide a safe environment for existing employees and the customers they serve. The National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS) and its members are committed to ensuring the highest degree of accuracy and professionalism when it comes to background checks. To that end, NAPBS offers the following best practices intended to benefit employers and job seekers who are planning for 2013: 1. Be Complete: Conduct a comprehensive background search to avoid negligent hiring. Relying on partial information or information that may be out of date can be as risky as not conducting a thorough background check at all. 2. Be Efficient: Time is a precious commodity especially for recruiters. Look for ways to utilize technology to help create efficiencies. Talk with your background screening provider about ways to improve your process to save you money and time. 3. Be Thorough: As an employer, you have certain responsibilities under the law. Make sure that all background screening practices meet federal and state regulations as well as industry requirements. Be mindful of the new Equal Employment Opportunity Commission criminal guidelines and the Fair Credit Reporting Act. 4. Be Analytical: Consider job responsibilities when screening candidates. Go beyond basic background information and assess job relatedness and business necessity. 5. Be Consistent: Develop a method for a targeted level of screening for each open job position to align with business needs and job relatedness. Accuracy in background screening is the number one priority of NAPBS members who continually strive to maintain their high accuracy rates. A recent informal poll of NAPBS member companies, including both large and small companies, reaffirmed this commitment. The poll showed accuracy rates of more than 99 percent with a small fraction requiring changes as a result of consumers disputing their reports. Over the course of 2013, NAPBS member companies will continue to work to refine best practices and compliance information for their clients. The National Association of Professional Background Screeners encourages employers and job seekers alike to prepare themselves by taking advantage of the useful information available on the Association's web site www.napbs.com and to contact NAPBS with any questions you may have.

Glitch Has Limited Access To Riverside, CA Court Records

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

A programming glitch when a new computer system was installed in the Riverside County Superior Court system mistakenly labeled public records as confidential. Civil temporary restraining orders are public records but have been off limits to the public for several months because of an error in programming and a misunderstanding by records department clerks, said Lori Whaley, chief deputy of operations for the county court system. Civil restraining orders are not legally permitted online but are accessible in the records department. But the system error made them confidential at the courthouse, as well. Clerks also there were under the impression that the records were not public because of the programming mistake. Technical employees are working to fix the problem that has existed for a couple of months, Whaley said.

Records Retrievers Trash Dallas Courthouse

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Dallas County Clerk John Warren told the Dallas County Commissioners Court that abstractors who have been using a Records Building room for decades have left the space in disarray. He presented to commissioners pictures that showed open records drawers, microfilm cartridges strewn about cabinets and all sorts of old office equipment stacked also stacked on top of cabinets. His comments came during tense interactions between county officials this morning. Misty Morelock, operations vice president of DeSoto-based Metroplex Document Retrieval, said most of the clutter is abandoned office equipment from title companies and abstractors who used to work in the room. A stairwell between the workroom and Warren’s office is so cluttered with old office equipment, that people in Room 333 can’t access the stairs in the case of an emergency. “So it’s just piled on and piled on and no one wants to take the responsibility of cleaning it,” Morelock said. She also said Warren has never asked anyone who uses the room to clean it. “Not once,” she said. Morelock said the county has essentially ignored the room and its upkeep. She said custodians empty the trash but haven’t mopped it or cleaned it in five years. She said the heating and air conditioning units in the room barely work. “It’s a county building, what right do I have to make any decisions about the room?” she said.

Woman Has Lost Right To Know Father

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

A woman who wanted to know the identity of her sperm-donor father is taking her case to Canada's top court after the B.C. Court of Appeal threw out an earlier decision that sided with her. Olivia Pratten wanted offspring like herself to be treated the same as people who are adopted and argued that the B.C. government should change its laws accordingly. But the appeal court ruled there is no legal right for offspring to know their past and providing such information would amount to state intrusion into many people's lives. "It's very disappointing," Pratten said of the appeal court ruling. "All we were asking for is the same benefits of adopted people. They've basically said, `No, you can't have that.' And they've basically said that it's OK for the government to discriminate. It's failing to protect the health and safety of donor-conceived people, that's what this court has done. We'll be appealing it to the Supreme Court of Canada." The appeal court concluded that contrary to Pratten's argument, it is not her constitutional right to know her biological past. "There are many non-donor offspring who do not know their family history or the identity of their biological father because of decisions taken by others, or because of the circumstances of their conception," Justice David Frankel said in the written ruling on behalf of the three judges. "However desirable it may be that persons have access to information about their biological origins, Ms. Pratten has not established that such access has been recognized as so `fundamental' that it is entitled to independent constitutionally protected status under the Charter," the ruling said. In May 2011, a B.C. Supreme Court judge agreed with Pratten, giving the province 15 months to amend its Adoption Act, saying people who are deprived of their genetic backgrounds suffer psychological harm. Judge Elaine Adair also ordered a permanent injunction against the destruction of donor records, which can be disposed of in six years, but the B.C. government appealed the ruling.

New York Cops Find Way To Get Cell-Phone Telephone Records

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

By Rebecca Greenfield Without court orders of any sort, the New York City police have gotten access to "a trove of telephone logs," reports The New York Times's Joseph Goldstein. In a somewhat frightening twist, it takes more paperwork to get a thief's cell records than it takes to get the victim's. Here's how it works: Police need a subpoena to get access to the phone logs of the person who did the stealing, which makes sense because those could help solve the crime. (Though, often they don't, say detectives.) But in that process, the NYPD, without additional warrants or subpoenas or any of that, can see all the happenings on that stolen phone. Sometimes phone companies even give up information associated with the victim's new number, which is a little bit unsettling, right? Civil Rights Lawyer Norman Siegal agrees. "There is absolutely no legitimate purpose for doing this. If I’m an innocent New Yorker, why should any of my information be in a police database," he tells Goldstein. Also, it doesn't quite make sense that law enforcement would hold on to the information after the case is closed, either. Police won't say how many records they have hostage. But phone companies got 1.5 million* of these requests in 2011 alone. So, probably a lot? T-Mobile responded to almost 300 in January alone.

Researchers Charge Racial Profiling On Online Criminal Record Websites

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Two Harvard researchers charged that a website which catalogs mug shots and criminal records engages in racial profiling in its advertising—just before the founder of a different criminal records website made his first public appearance. Director of the Data Privacy Lab at Harvard Latanya Sweeney and Harvard Department of Government Fellow Adam Tanner have researched these websites while writing an upcoming book on online criminal records. “What has changed is scope of sharing,” Sweeney said. “Years ago...limits of technology posed natural barriers to sharing and dissemination.” Today, however, this information is rapidly spread online. In their talk—subtitled “a tale of crime, betrayal, lust, race, and the internet”—Sweeney and Tanner alleged based on their research that Google searches for typically African-American names lead to negative ads posted by one of these criminal records sites, InstantCheckmate.com, while typically Caucasian names draw neutral ads. For example, when Sweeney searched her own name, she saw an ad saying, “Latanya Sweeney: Arrested?” In contrast, a search for “Tanya Smith” produced an ad saying, “Located: Tanya Smith.” Sweeney and Tanner’s research led them across the country in attempt to uncover the people behind these criminal records websites. Tanner traveled to Las Vegas to try to speak to an employee of InstantCheckmate.com. “I told them what I knew about the racial profiling, and they said, ‘We can’t talk to you, you have to come back.’” Tanner said. When Tanner finally met with the company’s call center manager, he said he was told, “I don’t care if you’re the Pope of Rome; you’re not welcome here.” But at the event on at which Tanner and Sweeney spoke in CGIS, Kyle Prall, the founder of similar site BustedMugshots.com, agreed to answer audience questions and accusations about his business. Sweeney suggested that sites like BustedMugshots.com could qualify as using extortion tactics, since they demand payment to remove images. Prall affirmed that these public records are available to the public based on the First Amendment, justifying the practices of his website.

Government At Fault For Many Criminal Record Errors

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

by Dick Baggett There are various reasons the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission decided to reissue guidance on the use of criminal and arrest records in hiring decisions, among them: Recent studies have found that a significant number of state and federal criminal record databases include incomplete criminal records. A 2011 study by the Department of Justice reported that, as of 2010, many state criminal history record repositories still had not recorded the final dispositions for a significant number of arrests. A 2006 study by the Department of Justice found that only 50 percent of arrest records in the FBI's database were associated with a final disposition. Reports have documented that criminal records may be inaccurate. Even if public access to criminal records has been restricted by a court order to seal and/or expunge such records, this does not guarantee that private companies also will purge the information from their systems or that the event will be erased from media archives. Criminal background checks may produce inaccurate results because criminal records may lack "unique" information or because of "misspellings, clerical errors or intentionally inaccurate identification information provided by search subjects who wish to avoid discovery of their prior criminal activities."

California Marijuana Decriminalization Drops Youth Crime Rate To Record Low

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Between 2010 and 2011, California experienced a drastic 20 percent decrease in juvenile crime--bringing the underage crime rate to the lowest level since the state started keeping records in 1954. According to a recently released study, much of that improvement can be credited to the decriminalization of marijuana. The study, entitled "California Youth Crime Plunges to All-Time Low" and released by the San Francisco-based Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, looked at the number of people under the age of 18 who were arrested in the state over the past eight decades. In that one-year period (2010-2011), the number of arrests for violent crimes dropped by 16 percent, homicide went down by 26 percent and drug arrests decreased by nearly 50 percent. The category of drug arrests showed decreases in every type of crime; however, the vast majority of the drop resulted from far fewer arrests for marijuana possession. In 2010, marijuana possession accounted for 64 percent of all drug arrests, and in 2011, that number decreased to only 46 percent. California's drop in serious youth crime has decreased faster than in the rest of the nation. The study's authors discount a host of explanations as to why juvenile crime has dropped so precipitously (such as changes in the way the statistics are gathered, demographic changes, harsher sentences acting as a deterrent and other cultural factors like family connections). They assert that only two major factors explain the trend: the loosening of marijuana laws and improvements in the economic well-being of California's youth.

Brits Can Have No Conviction But Criminal Record Haunts Them For 100 Years

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Growing numbers of people are being turned down for jobs and university places because they accepted police cautions for minor offences without realising they would give them a criminal record. New figures show that cautions showed up on 153,000 Criminal Records Bureau checks carried out last year, allowing employers to stop candidates working with children or in health and social care. Young people caught shoplifting or taking part in drunken pranks are agreeing to sign the statements in the mistaken belief they will be wiped from databases after a few years, not realising that they remain on file until they turn 100. A lawyer has now set up a business to help people affected by vetting checks find work or education, as the problem is becoming so common and overturning cautions is so difficult. David Wacks, the legal director of CRB Problems Ltd, said: 'Minor incidents or pranks which in the past may have merited a 'good talking to' by a policeman often end up in cautions which may ruin a person's job prospects.' Josie Appleton of the Manifesto Club, a libertarian group that is campaigning against out-of-court punishments, said: 'It is fundamentally unjust that people's careers can be blighted by a reprimand that hasn't been proven in a court of law.' Jackie Sinclair from the crime reduction charity Nacro, said: 'Cautions, reprimands and final warnings do form part of a person's record, and are always disclosed on both standard and enhanced criminal record checks, even though many people have been told otherwise.' In total 2.8 million cautions, known as first-time reprimands and final warnings when given to under-18s, have been handed out in England and Wales over the past decade. They are usually offered by police after they arrest someone for shoplifting, possession of small amounts of soft drugs and minor violent crimes. Station officers tell offenders they can either sign a statement to accept the caution and the matter will be closed, but if they refuse they will face prosecution. Cautions do not count as convictions but they do require the perpetrator to admit their guilt and details are recorded on the Police National Computer. Until 2009 there was a system whereby they would be 'stepped down' after a few years, but although this was removed it is widely believed that the penalties are wiped when teenagers turn 18. Now cautions remain on a person's file until they turn 100 and although they do not have to be disclosed when applying for jobs, they show up on CRB checks. The only way cautions can be deleted is by applying to the chief constable of the force that handed it out.

Workplace Violence Caused Nearly 17 Percent Of All Fatal U.S. Work Injuries In 2011

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

According to the 2011 Census of Fatal Occupation Injuries, workplace violence was the cause of nearly 17 percent of workplace fatalities in the U.S. in 2011. At 4,609 incidents in 2011, fatal work injuries were down 21 percent compared to 2006 and by more than 25 percent compared to two decades ago. Of those 4,609 workplace fatalities, 780 were attributed to workplace violence, with 458 homicides and 242 suicides. Men where the victims of 680 of these incidents of workplace violence and women 100. Shootings were the cause of 78 percent of the homicides. Homicide was a more common cause of workplace fatalities for women, 21 percent, than for men, 9 percent. Current and former spouses or domestic partners were involved in 40 of the workplace killings of women, while relatives were the assailants in only two percent of workplace homicides where men were the victims. The largest numbers of workplace homicide victims worked as first-line sales, retail, and cashier supervisors, followed by law enforcement workers, managers, and protective agents.

Workplace Drug Testing And Marijuana Legalization In Washington State And Colorado

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Employers in Washington State and Colorado have raised questions about how the recent legalization of recreational marijuana in those states will impact their right to test workers for drugs. Some universities and other organizations have already issued statements saying that they have no intention of changing their drug testing policies. However, other organizations are consulting lawyers to determine how best to proceed. There is nothing in the new state laws preventing drug testing, and the Colorado law specifically states that it is not intended to "require an employer to permit or accommodate the use, consumption, possession, transfer, display, transportation, sale or growing of marijuana in the workplace or to affect the ability of employers to have policies restricting the use of marijuana by employees.” Legal experts say that a company's first concern under the new laws should be employee conduct. The new laws will not protect any employee who appears under the influence at work.

IRS Income Tax Return Verification Launched on IDValidation Portal

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Computer Information Development (CID) announces the addition of IRS Income Tax Return Verification (ITRV) service on their IDValidation (IDV) web based platform. ITRV is a governmental service matching the applicant’s personal identifiers direct to Internal Revenue Service (IRS) records and is used to verify income, mitigate fraud, and strengthen due diligence processes. It’s used by Lenders, HR Departments, Background Screening companies, Property Management, and other businesses whenever income verification is needed or required. CID’s IDValidation process is simple, fast, and efficient. The IDV portal generates IRS Form 4506T which is then ready for applicant signature. The signed form is returned electronically to IDV and submitted to the IRS. Results are returned in two business days or less. Personal and business income tax returns/transcripts can be requested from the IRS, including:
Form 1040 and others (Forms: 1065, 1120 series) for current year and prior 3 years (4 year total)
Form W-2, 1099 and others (Forms: 1098 series and 5498 series) may be available for up to 10 years. “Consent based matching of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) to source governmental records, like IRS Income Tax Return Verification and SSA’s CBSV service, are far superior to any alternative methodologies. All other options are fundamentally flawed, have polluted profiles, are easily manipulated by identity thieves, and contain stale data,” says Paul Campione, CID CEO. ITRV is the second service offering on the IDV portal. It joins Consent Based SSN Verification which protects vital business interests by accessing the SSA Master File and Death Index to match Name, SSN, DOB, Gender, and Death Indicator following the signed consent of the applicant/SSN holder. Like ITRV, CBSV is used for many business purposes including, Loan Originations, Fraud Investigations, Collections, Employment (both pre- and post-hire), Applicants of all types (customers, members, patients, students, policyholders, etc.) and to meet Compliance requirements. Now businesses can obtain accurate income information with a much quicker turn-around time and mitigate fraud direct from the IRS with Income Tax Return Verification from IDValidation. Contact:
Chuck Salvia is VP at Computer Information Development LLC – a provider of fraud detection, prevention and remediation services since 2001. He works with businesses in the battle against fraud risk and associated losses through education and training. CID provides Skip Tracing services to locate evasive debtors and/or collateral, is an SSA Agent with access to the Master File through the Consent Based SSN Verification (CBSV) service and is an Authorized Company in the IRS 4506-T Income Tax Return Verification (ITRV) service. Mr. Salvia is an active member of ACA International, Credit Union Executives Society (CUES), and National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS) where he is co-cha ir of Government Identity Verification Systems sub-committee and a member of the NAPBS Litigation Avoidance sub-committee. Direct: (956) 457-4116 / email: csalvia@IDValidation.net

Ex-NASA Scientistâ€™s Data Fears Come True

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

In 2007, Robert M. Nelson, an astronomer, and 27 other scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory sued NASA arguing that the space agency’s background checks of employees of government contractors were unnecessarily invasive and violated their privacy rights. Privacy advocates chimed in as well, contending that the space agency would not be able to protect the confidential details it was collecting. The scientists took their case all the way to the Supreme Court only to lose last year. This month, Dr. Nelson opened a letter from NASA telling him of a significant data breach that could potentially expose him to identity theft. The very thing he and advocates worried about had occurred. A laptop used by an employee at NASA’s headquarters in Washington had been stolen from a car parked on the street on Halloween, the space agency said. Although the laptop itself was password protected, unencrypted files on the laptop contained personal information on about 10,000 NASA employees — including details like their names, birth dates, Social Security numbers and in some cases, details related to background checks into employees’ personal lives. Millions of Americans have received similar data breach notices from employers, government agencies, medical centers, banks and retailers. NASA in particular has been subject to “numerous cyberattacks” and computer thefts in recent years, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office, an agency that conducts research for Congress. Even so, Dr. Nelson, who recently retired from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a research facility operated by the California Institute of Technology under a contract with NASA, stands out as a glaring example of security lapses involving personal data, privacy advocates say. “To the extent that Robert Nelson looks like millions of other people working for firms employed by the federal government, this would seem to be a real problem,” said Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, an advocacy group which filed a friend-of-the-court brief for Dr. Nelson in the Supreme Court case. In a 2009 report titled “NASA Needs to Remedy Vulnerabilities in Key Networks,” the Government Accountability Office noted that the agency had reported 1,120 security incidents in fiscal 2007 and 2008 alone. It also singled out an incident in 2009 in which a NASA center reported the theft of a laptop containing about 3,000 unencrypted files about arms traffic regulations and wind tunnel tests for a supersonic jet. “NASA had not installed full-disk encryption on its laptops at all three centers,” the report said. “As a result, sensitive data transmitted through the unclassified network or stored on laptop computers were at an increased risk of being compromised.” Other federal agencies have had similar problems. In 2006, for example, the Department of Veteran’s Affairs reported the theft of an employee laptop and hard drive that contained personal details on about 26.5 million veterans. Last year, the G.A.O. cited the Internal Revenue Service for weaknesses in data control that could “jeopardize the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of financial and sensitive taxpayer information.” Also last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission warned its employees that their confidential financial information, like brokerage transactions, might have been compromised because an agency contractor had granted data access to a subcontractor without the S.E.C.’s authorization. In a phone interview, Dr. Nelson, the astronomer, said he planned to hold a news conference on Wednesday morning in which he would ask members of Congress to investigate NASA’s data collection practices and the recent data breach. Robert Jacobs, a NASA spokesman, said the agency’s data security policy already adequately protected employees and contractors because it required computers to be encrypted before employees took them off agency premises. “We are talking about a computer that should not have left the building in the first place,” Mr. Jacobs said. “The data would have been secure had the employee followed policy.” The government argued in the case Dr. Nelson filed that a law called the Privacy Act, which governs data collection by federal agencies, provided the scientists with sufficient protection. The case reached the Supreme Court, which upheld government background checks for employees of contractors. The roots of Dr. Nelson’s case against NASA date back to 2004 when the Department of Homeland Security, under a directive signed by President George Bush, required federal agencies to adopt uniform identification credentials for all civil servants and contract employees. As part of the ID card standardization process, the department recommended agencies institute background checks. Several years later, when NASA announced it intended to start doing background checks at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Dr. Nelson and other scientists there objected. Those security checks could have included inquiries into medical treatment, counseling for drug use, or any “adverse” information about employees such as sexual activity, or participation in protests, said Dan Stormer, a lawyer representing Dr. Nelson. But Dr. Nelson and other long-term employees of the lab challenged the legality of those checks, arguing that they violated their privacy rights. NASA, they said, had not established a legitimate need for such extensive investigations about low-risk employees like themselves who did not have security clearances or handle confidential information. Dr. Nelson, for example, specializes in solar system science — concerning, for example, Jupiter’s moon Io and Titan, a moon of Saturn — and publishes his work in scientific journals “It was an invitation to an open-ended fishing expedition,” Dr. Nelson said of the background checks. In friend of the court briefs for Dr. Nelson, privacy groups cited many data security problems at federal agencies, arguing that there was a risk that NASA was not equipped to protect the confidential details it was collecting about employees and contractors. In 2008, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco temporarily halted the background checks, saying that the case had raised important questions about privacy rights. But last year, the Supreme Court upheld the background investigations of employees of government contractors. Dr. Nelson said he retired from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory last June rather than submit to a background check. He now works as a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute of Tucson. NASA has contracted with ID Experts, a data breach company, to help protect employees whose data was contained on the stolen laptop against identity theft. Mr. Jacobs, the NASA spokesman, said the agency has encrypted almost 80 percent of its laptops and plans to encrypt the rest by Dec. 21. He added that he too received a letter from NASA warning that his personal information might have been compromised by the laptop theft.

Les Rosen's Corner

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

A large background screening firm facing a class action lawsuit alleging inaccurate reports in violation of the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) failed in its attempt to have the FCRA declared unconstitutional on the basis that it violates the right to free speech under the First Amendment. A Pennsylvania federal court ruled on November 6, 2012 that the FCRA was constitutional since it regulated information disseminated for private purposes for a fee, and not to the public. More information about the ruling is available at http://www.paed.uscourts.gov/documents/opinions/12D1046P.pdf. The FCRA is the federal law that regulates background checks. The lawsuit alleges that the screening firm provided inaccurate reports by providing a prospective employer with information on past arrests that were dismissed and were older than seven years, which is prohibited by FCRA section 605 (U.S.C 1681c). That law prohibits a background firm, known as a Consumer Reporting Agency (CRA) from providing arrests records to employers that are more than seven years old. There is an exception, however, if the annual salary is expected to be $75,000 or more a year. . In this case, the lead plaintiff in the class action lawsuit alleged that the CRA reported ten cases older than seven years where she was arrested but no prosecutions occurred. It appears that the parties agreed with the fact that the arrests too old to report under the FCRA. However, the CRA argued that the FCRA itself was unconstitutional since it violated the CRA's right to free speech. The CRA contended that a 2011 U.S. Supreme Court case on commercial speech marked a major change in the protections provided to commercial speech and required a court to apply a stricter standard of review. The plaintiff, as well as the federal government which entered the case, argued that a background report is not protected since it deals with private matters, and that the information is only disseminated to an employer that purchases the services. After a lengthy review of the arguments and an analysis of the applicable law, the court concluded that the FCRA was constitutional. The Court also noted that "...the federal government enacted section 1681c of the FCRA to provide businesses with the most accurate and relevant information while simultaneously protecting the privacy right of consumers. More important, section 1681c's speech restriction is appropriately justified." The ruling had the effect of denying the background firm's effort to have the case dismissed. (NOTE: The case is from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, No. 10-6850, and filed 11/06/12). It is this author's policy not to identify firms where a matter is only in the pre-trial state since the complaints are just allegations.)

Regardless of the eventual outcome of the lawsuit, the case demonstrates yet again that background checks are subject to ever increasing levels of litigation, legislation, and regulation. On the other hand, failure to perform background checks will almost certainly subject an employer to the legal and financial nightmare of a bad hire. The solution is a background check program done in full legal compliance.

Nanomaterial Can Stop A Speeding Bullet

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Researchers at a Rice University lab are researching technology that that could potentially stop a 9-millimeter bullet and seal the entryway behind it — an advance that may have huge implications for ballistic protection for soldiers, as well as other uses. During tests, the researchers were able to shoot tiny glass beads at the material, which effectively stopped bullets in their paths. “This would be a great ballistic windshield material,” scientist Ned Thomas said in a clip posted on the university’s website. The group, which included scientist Thomas, Rice research scientist Jae-Hwang Lee and a team from MIT’s Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies, was looking for ways to make materials “more impervious to deformation or failure.” The result would be better, stronger, lighter armor for soldiers and police, and protection for sensitive materials subject to small, fast moving objects, such as aircraft and satellites. The researchers were looking at a complex polyurethane material that they saw was able to stop a 9 mm slug and seal its entryway. When penetrated by a tiny projectile at a high velocity, the material melted into a liquid that stopped the fast-moving object and actually sealed the hole it made. “There’s no macroscopic damage; the material hasn’t failed; it hasn’t cracked,” Thomas said. During their research, they found an excellent model material called a polystyrene-polydimethylsiloxane diblock-copolymer. Using two different methods, the team was eventually able to cross-section the structure to determine the depth of the bullets, and according to their study, the layers showed the ability to deform without breaking. “[The layers] tell the story of the evolution of penetration of the projectile and help us understand what mechanisms, at the nanoscale, may be taking place in order for this to be such a great, high-performance, lightweight protection material.”

Dennis Brownstein's Extreme Court News

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Two Colombian government employees arrested for selling sensitive information A former prosecutor and a clerk in Colombia’s office of attorney general were arrested for allegedly selling sensitive information about U.S. narcotics prosecutions in New York. The two Colombian nationals were arrested November 16 in Bogota and charged with obstruction of justice, said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). According to ICE HSI, an administrative services assistant in the office of the attorney general of Colombia, international affairs, and a former prosecutor at the attorney general’s office, were involved in a plot to obtain information on U.S. extradition requests.

Two Former Alabama Court Employees Accused of Stealing Records Database Code

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Michael David Carroll, aged 58, and Jill Hawthorne, aged 35, both from Montgomery and both former employees of the Alabama Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), have been indicted for stealing the source code of Namemaster, a court records database. The suspects are accused not only of stealing the source code, but also the schema which contains details on how the database is constructed. Prosecutors believe that Carroll – who is the former director of Information Systems for the Alabama (AOC) – and Hawthorne – former database administrator for AOC – gave the code, the schema and hundreds of thousands of court records to software development company CyberBest Technology Inc. If found guilty, the suspects could each be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison. In addition, they face a $250,000 fine.

Straightline International Improves Turnaround Time In Guam

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Recently the Guam Superior Court announced staffing cuts in the Clerk's office which effectively delayed most criminal and court record retrievals. Extraordinary, but not surprisingly, Starightline International during this same period improved their turnaround times for the same services. According to Steven Brownstein, boss of Straightline, "It was inevitable that Straightline's turnaround time in Guam should improve. After all, Straightline International is the only provider in Guam; the only provider that actually is in Guam." That being said it is no wonder that Straightline International is the premier criminal record provider in the global community.
Straightline International can be reached by calling 1-866-909-6678 or by E-mail at info@straightlineinternational.com

NAPBS Board Election Announcement

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Notice to Members: 2013 Board Elections After careful consideration, the NAPBS Board of Directors has accepted the recommendation of the NAPBS Governance Committee to extend the terms of certain board members to coincide with the time of year change of the 2013 Annual Meeting. This action upholds the alignment of Board elections with the Annual Conference, during which the Annual Meeting of the members is held.

BRB's Public Record Update

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Alabama
Effective October 1, 2012, Chief Justice Chuck Malone entered an Order mandating that all attorneys must e-file their documents in civil, domestic relations, and child support cases. Per this Order and the Administrative Procedures, the Circuit Clerks' offices will eventually go completely paperless in civil cases.
See www.alacourt.gov/pdfppt/EfilingAdminOrder%209-6-12_001.pdf Colorado
This month Eagle County is in the process of moving to a new software provider for searching recorded documents. The site has new options available, see http://acclaim.eaglecounty.us/.
California
California counties continue to close court sites or cut back on operations. The Kings County Superior Court location in Lemoore was closed last month. Also all Kings County court location hours have been permanently cut back. All clerk's windows are now open 8AM-4PM Monday thru Thursday and 8AM-Noon on Friday. In addition the Court intends to close locations in Avenal and Corcoran and reduce hours and staff at Hanford over the Christmas week.
As many other CA counties have already done, effective November 5, 2012 the San Diego Superior Court will only provide court reporters in criminal felony, family, and juvenile matters during regular court hours. Official court reporters will not be available in probate or other civil matters. Also, effective December 28, 2012, official court reporters will only be available in family matters for Domestic Violence Restraining Order hearings, Contempt hearings, and Request for Order hearings of 40 minutes or less. Effective November 1, 2012, Glenn County will be increasing their recording fees by $1.00 per document title.

Oregon
OJIN is the acronym for the online program provides court case information from Circuit Courts in all 36 counties in the state. The Oregon Judicial Department OJD is working to migrate the online platform from OJIN to a designated vendor (Odyssey). The purpose is to create a more modern, user-friendly environment for record access, compared to the OJIN command line based system.
South Dakota
The South Dakota Unified Judicial System (UJS) recently changed the county serving as the centralized mail request center for statewide criminal record searches. The UJS asks that all mail requests be directed to the processing center at: Jackson County Clerk of Court, PO Box 128, Kadoka, SD 57543. 605-837-2122, fax 605-837-2120. Note the UJS will periodically change the designated county to operate the processing center. Be sure to call first.

NBC TV's "Rossen Reports:" Background Check Mistakes Costs Jobs

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

NBC TV's "Rossen Reports:" Background Check Mistakes Costs Jobs Rossen Reports: Background check mistakes cost jobs When you apply for a job, most employers will do a criminal background check. You may think it’s nothing to worry about if your record is clean, but experts are saying background companies are causing innocent people to lose their jobs by mistaking them for felons. NBC’s Jeff Rossen investigates. This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program. >>> back now at 7:41 with "rossen reports." finding a new job is hard enough but now experts say there may be a hidden flaw that can ruin your chance of getting hired. today national investigative correspondent jeff rossen is here with the details. >> good morning. we all know when you apply for a job most employers will do a criminal background check . we do them here. nothing to worry about, right? because you're not a criminal. well, think again. experts say the background check companies are causing innocent people to lose jobs, mistaking them for drug felons, armed robbers, even sex offenders . it happened to catherine taylor . a stay at home mom looking to get back to work. the red cross wanted to hire her. as an accountant. >> i was supposed to start work the following week. >> reporter: but then suddenly catherine 's job offer was yanked. a criminal background check had come back with a long rap sheet of drug felonies. the problem is, it wasn't her. >> i was devastated. it was like my whole world was just torn apart. >> reporter: the company hired to run the background check in 2006 , choicepoint, one of the biggest, mixed her up with this catherine taylor , a repeat drug offender with the same date of birth but nothing else in common. they didn't even live in the same state. >> i have never been convicted of anything, nonetheless have a traffic ticket. >> reporter: consumer advocates say these mistakes are happening far too often. take leonard smith . when he applied for a job the background check company, sterling info systems, confused him with this sex offender , who was in prison at the time. it also happened to james hines , an innocent dad. the background check company adp mixed him up with michael james hines , a convicted sex offender in a different state. they don't even have the same first name. the companies say accuracy is important, but errors do happen. >> consumers are losing jobs by the thousands every year because of bad background checks that are run on them. >> reporter: jim francis is an attorney specializing in these cases. he says too often background check companies rely solely on computers to match the data with no one checking to make sure the results are correct. a billion dollar industry, he says, that is well aware of the problem. if the companies know this problem exists, why not just fix it? >> they would have to spend money on personnel and instituting procedures which would carve into their profits. >> reporter: under federal law , the companies are required to use reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy. >> the error rate is less than 10%. >> we went straight to the industry group representing those companies. >> accuracy is paramount. >> reporter: how do you explain background companies coming back with a different date of birth, different state, just matching a first and last name in some cases. does that seem accurate to you? >> it -- what i will say to that is that the most important thing is to let viewers know how background checks are conducted. you're speaking of hypotheticals. >> reporter: we asked her about a real life example. i want to show you a picture. this woman's name is catherine taylor . she lives in arkansas and applied for a job with the local red cross . the background check comes back and says she has a long rap sheet of drug felonies. turns out they mistook her with this woman who lives in a different state. how does this happen? >> you know, if there are errors in a report individuals do have an opportunity to contest it so i'm sorry. i just don't know all the facts of that particular case. >> reporter: catherine did contest it but by the time choicepoint cleared it up, that job was long gone. >> they need to have tighter, stricter controls. you're talking about human lives. this has got to stop. >> the company that ran catherine taylor 's background check was bought by lexus nexus . they say their systems have since improved and now they have a 99.8% accuracy rate. experts say if this happens to you, you don't have many options, unfortunately. you can contact the background check company as catherine did and dispute it. the problem is, they have 30 days to investigate. by then the job could be long gone as it was with catherine . the only other option unfortunately, savannah, is to sue the company but once again the job isn't there when you want it. they just go down the list. >> doesn't remedy it if you don't get the job. thanks for bringing the story. appreciate

Safe Hiring Expert to Present Five Hour Seminar on Background Checks in San Francisco on December 4

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Attorney and safe hiring expert Lester S. Rosen, Founder and CEO of background check firm Employment Screening Resources (ESR), will present a five hour seminar titled “Conducting Background Checks Thoroughly and Legally” for the Northern California Human Resources Association (NCHRA) on Tuesday, December 4, 2012 from 9:30 AM to 3:30 PM PST at the NCHRA Training Center, 425 California Street, Suite 500, in San Francisco, California. For information and to register for the seminar, which qualifies for 5 General/MCLE Recertification credits, visit http://m360.nchra.org/event.aspx?eventID=45969.
“Just one bad hire can result in a legal and financial nightmare,” warns Rosen, author of ‘The Safe Hiring Manual,’ a comprehensive guide to background checks recently expanded for a 2nd edition. “Employers need to take steps to implement a legally compliant screening program to hire the best employees.” With negligent hiring one of the fastest growing areas of employment litigation, attendees of Rosen’s seminar “Conducting Background Checks Thoroughly and Legally” – which includes a one hour lunch break – will learn legally complaint best practices to keep their businesses productive and out of court: Conducting past employment checks
Obtaining and utilizing criminal records
Verifying education using social networking sites
Selecting and evaluating a screening firm
Rosen will also discuss federal laws that control the background check process, such as the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), unique “only in California” rules, the updated Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Guidance on using criminal records, and the impact of the new National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS) accreditation standards for U.S. screening firms. The seminar “Conducting Background Checks Thoroughly and Legally” will help those people responsible for supervising, implementing, or administering pre-employment screening background checks make certain their organizations do not hire workers who are dangerously unfit, unqualified, or dishonest. Registration for the seminar is $249 for NCHRA Members and $329 for General Admission. The speaker Rosen is a nationally recognized safe hiring expert who was the chairperson of the steering committee that founded the NAPBS and served as the first co-chairman. He is a frequent presenter nationwide for the “ESR Speaks” background check training program. To learn more about upcoming speaking engagements by Rosen, visit http://www.esrcheck.com/Newsletter/ESR-Speaks/.

Law Allows NC Nonviolent Offenders To Clear Records

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

A law change that went into effect December 1st allows one-time, nonviolent offenders of all ages to expunge their criminal records in North Carolina. The change applies only to people convicted of certain felonies or misdemeanors who, for 15 years afterward, have no other convictions other than traffic violations in any jurisdiction. The law can apply even to multiple felonies or misdemeanors if a person was convicted of all within the same court session. Some offenses may not be purged from a criminal record, including:
— those containing assault as an essential element
— certain sex-related or stalking offenses
— those involving methamphetamine, heroin or possession with intent to sell or deliver cocaine
— burning crosses in public places, intimidation by displaying items such as a noose, or intimidation while wearing a mask, hood or other disguise
— those in which a person contaminated another’s food or drink to render them helpless
To purge a record, the North Carolina resident may petition the court at least 15 years after the conviction date or after any active sentence, probation or post-release supervision has been served, whichever is later. The petition — which includes a $175 fee — must contain an affidavit by the petitioner that he or she has been of good moral character, statements from two unrelated people verifying the person’s good character and reputation, and affirmation that the petitioner has no outstanding restitution amounts or civil judgments. The request then goes to the District Attorney’s office, which has 30 days to decide whether to object to the expunction. The district attorney also must make his best efforts to notify the victim of the crime, if one exists. If a hearing on the matter is successful, the petitioner’s record is wiped clean, both in court and law enforcement records. State and local law enforcement agencies will still have the ability to review expunged records for employment purposes, according to the law. The agencies that certify law enforcement officers also can review the expunged records, which are to be kept in confidential files with the Administrative Office of the Courts. North Carolina law already allowed a person to expunge certain crimes committed before age 18 or 21, but the changes now in effect expand the provision to adults of all ages. Expunction also is possible when charges are dismissed, when a person is found not guilty or not responsible, and when a person is pardoned.

National Crime Database Proposed In PI Congress

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Nat’l crime database proposed in PI Congress A member of the Philippines House of Representatives has filed a bill calling for the creation of a national crime database to upgrade the country’s crime fighting capabilities and to hasten the resolution of crimes. “This central computerized database will strengthen and expand inter-agency coordination and cooperation in terms of criminal records and other pertinent data needed to hasten resolution and prevention of crimes,” Marikina representative Marcelino Teodoro said in a statement. Teodoro is the author of HB 5709 or the “National Crime Database Act of 2012,” which proposes the establishment of the criminal record database. “I am confident the Committee on Public Order and Security would give due consideration to my proposal while there’s still time until our term ends in 2013,” Teodoro said. The bill would require the National Bureau of Investigation and the Philippine National Police to provide information and records for the National Identification Index and the National Fingerprint File in order to provide criminal history records in a timely fashion. Likewise, it should create criminal history records repositories, and for non-criminal justice purposes, to update existing criminal records system that are currently outdated and contain incomplete or incorrect information. “This data central would make accessible detailed database of criminal history records, including arrest and dispositions,” Teodoro said. Criminal history records means information collected by criminal agencies on individuals consisting of identifiable descriptions and notations of arrests, detentions, indictments, or other formal criminal charges, and any disposition arising there from, including acquittal, sentencing, correctional supervision, or release. The terms do not include identification information such as fingerprint records if such information does not indicate involvement of the individual with the criminal justice system. The measure mandates the establishment of a National Crime Database Council which shall have the authority to promulgate rules and procedures governing the use of the national criminal database.

How We Punish Crime

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

by Chip Corwin I was taught in law school that prison sentences have two purposes: to ensure public safety and to punish the offender. For the past few decades, meeting those goals has meant long prison terms even for nonviolent offenders, leading to soaring incarceration rates. A few states are now realizing that they can cut prison sentences (and thus, costs) without sacrificing public safety. Reforms include expanding re-entry programs to curb recidivism and developing alternatives to incarceration. Although state budget crises spurred these changes, more than money is at stake. With continued reform, an American prison system that shocked Dickens in 1842 for its cruelty could finally begin to meet international standards, helping to restore America as a country of just authority and moral leadership. But first, we need to stop using punishment as a principal justification for lengthy prison terms and, instead, reserve prison for those who pose a grave risk to public safety. Punishment, where productive, could still be employed through sanctions and local supervision of graduated intensity. But instead of going to prison, low-risk offenders should stay in the community. This emphasis on results over retribution would bring many benefits. Not only would it help redeem America’s image abroad, but it would also help restore many communities that have come to regard prison as a rite of passage. Also, offenders not in prison are better able to pay restitution to victims. And, finally, reform could frustrate the private prison industry’s unconscionable efforts to profit off mass incarceration. Some think the existence of long prison terms for nonviolent offenders is a myth. That is not the case in many states. In Louisiana, writing a bad check can be worth up to 10 years. Even in Minnesota, a leader in community corrections, the time served for drug offenses has increased 99 percent since 1990. It’s time to reverse these trends, and not just because it’s cheaper.

Wayne County Circuit Court Records Now Online

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

By Gus Burns Wayne County's 3rd Circuit Court has had a technological breakthrough. Court records, at least certain details about cases — mostly scheduling, charges, party information and pleadings — are now available via the Internet. This is much easier than calling or visiting a kiosk downtown for basic information about a case. Check it out: https://cmspublic.3rdcc.org Maria Miller, the director of communications for Prosecutor Kym Worthy's office, announced the system's launch Tuesday. Any felony case that has been bound over to the Circuit Court from District Court should be accessible on the website, according to court officials. To see the documents contained in a court file, they must be viewed in person. A statement on the website, "Documents filed by parties are not currently accessible online," leaves open a window of hope that someday filed documents may too be online. District court filing must be viewed in person. To explore what is available on the new online Wayne County Circuit Court Odyssey Public Access records system, I looked up Robert "Bob" Bashara. Bashara's well known case involves the strangulation death of his wife, allegedly at the hands of Bashara's handyman, Joseph Gentz. Bashara, who has been named a "person of interest" in his wife's death but never charged, was subsequently charged with soliciting a hit-man to kill Gentz in jail while he awaited trial. After accepting the terms on the website, I selected Third Circuit Court criminal records. Typing in Bashara's full name reveals a single case file, provides his name on record, birth date, filing, the charge of felony solicitation of murder and case file no. Selecting the case file opens another screen with more information pertinent to the happenings in the case. Listed at 30 different dates, including the would-be trial date of Nov. 9, which the court cancelled on Oct. 11 when Bashara pleaded guilty to the charge. His sentencing is now set for Dec. 10 before Judge Bruce U. Morrow. This system, although a longtime coming, is undoubtedly a positive step toward increasing the ease of public information dissemination in Wayne County. MLive Detroit has requested information related to the costs associated with implementing the new system.

PeopleClues Helps Mike's Carwash Enhance Its Candidate Screening Processes to Identify a High Level

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

PeopleClues, an industry leader in workplace assessments, today announced the release of its latest case study, "Mike's Carwash Cleans Up Recruiting and Candidate Screening Processes with Help from PeopleClues Pre-employment Selection Assessments." The study focuses on how Mike's Carwash, one of the first established carwashes in the U.S., worked with PeopleClues and its partners, The Chrysalis Corporation and Success Performance Solutions, to improve its recruiting processes through the use of online assessments that are seamlessly integrated into its application process. To ensure that it identifies best-fit individuals for its front line, customer service and entry-level positions, Mike's Carwash has long relied on pre-employment selection assessments as part of its recruitment practices. However, the company utilized paper-and-pencil assessments, which required hiring managers at remote locations to fax the assessments to headquarters for scoring and results. Recognizing the need to streamline this process, Mike's Carwash partnered with PeopleClues to move the assessment stage online and reduce the time and effort spent on assessments. By working with PeopleClues and its sales skill and leadership assessment providers, Success Performance Solutions and Chrysalis Corporation, Mike's Carwash modernized its assessment practices and added PeopleClues' web-based, user-friendly candidate selection assessment to its screening process. Now when the company's estimated 41,000 applicants per year complete online job applications for its full-time and part-time opportunities, they also complete a PeopleClues assessment to determine their level of fit, giving the company deeper insight into the skills, behaviors, and characteristics that make an individual successful. "We've definitely experienced increased quality of hire and reduced our turnover rates using pre-employment assessments," said Tom Wiederin, Human Resources and Recruiting manager for Mike's Carwash. "After reviewing the way that we analyzed assessment results, combined with some additional compensation and benefits changes at the company, we were able to reduce turnover by 25 percent in one year. We attribute much of that improvement to PeopleClues." "Organizations are challenged to quickly identify the individuals who not only meet the requirements of the job, but also show the behaviors, attitude and personality that will make them a right fit with the company culture," said Julie Moreland, president of PeopleClues. "Like many companies, Mike's Carwash recognized the value of PeopleClues' assessments in helping them make better-informed hiring decisions and ensure high-quality candidates are identified and placed into the right positions." PeopleClues has made the full case study available for download at: http://peopleclues.com/pdfs/MikesCarwash_CaseStudy_102312.pdf About Mike's Carwash Headquartered in Indianapolis, IN, Mike's Carwash Inc. operates 41 locations in Indiana and Ohio, and is the 4th largest exterior-only carwash chain in the US. Widely recognized for its award-winning customer service, the company has plans for additional facilities for 2013, including its first location in Kentucky. About The Chrysalis Corporation Since 1998 The Chrysalis Corporation has been an industry leader in providing pre-employment assessment solutions to companies in a wide variety of industries. Whether you are a small company who hires only a few individuals each year, or a larger organization that is constantly in a hiring cycle, The Chrysalis Corporation will assist you in creating a cost-effective, customized assessment process that is specific to your needs. www.chrysaliscorporation.com About Success Performance Solutions Success Performance Solutions is a leading provider of employment testing, leadership tests and evaluations, and applicant tracking software for small business. Established in 1996, Success Performance Solutions consistently differentiates itself from the competition with exceptional customer service and its proprietary CriteriaOne(R) Whole Person Approach. From the small mom-and-pop business to companies with up to 5,000 employees, we deliver best practice solutions and prompt, courteous, and reliable service. And our founder and president Ira S Wolfe is recognized as one of the industry thought leaders in employee assessment and workforce trends. www.successperformancesolutions.com About PeopleClues PeopleClues is a global provider of employment assessments for measuring job fit, attitude and level of engagement for candidates and employees. These assessments are built for pre-employment screening, career development, team development as well as training and development. Based in Woodstock, Georgia, PeopleClues provides the assessment tools that allow thousands of companies in 8 countries to make better hiring and training decisions. PeopleClues has also recently launched an industry game changer with its "ACE" "Automated Candidate Experience" product providing Clients a huge strategic advantage in allowing their candidates who have taken the assessments to instantly receive personalized information on how to improve the way they present themselves in their resume and interview. PeopleClues strategic partners include PeopleMatter, Insperity (formerly known as Administaff), CareerBuilder, Bond International (formerly known as VCG Software), Success Performance Solutions, Reliant, Luceo, Prophecy Healthcare, Avionte and Getting Hired. For additional information, contact info@peopleclues.com, visit www.peopleclues.com , or follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/peopleclues , and Twitter @PeopleClues.

Chequed.com to Host Webinar Exploring the Impending Golden Era of Talent Selection

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Greg Moran, president and CEO of Chequed.com, Inc., an online reference checking and pre-employment testing provider, and Charles Handler, PhD, president and founder of Rocket-Hire, a consultancy for pre-employment screening, testing and assessment. WHAT: Will present a webinar titled, "Talent Assessment's Golden Era." WHEN: The webinar will take place on Thursday, December 13, 2012 at 2:00 p.m. EST (1:00 p.m. CST/12). WHERE: To register for this event, please visit: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/339127630 DETAILS: The Golden Era of Talent Selection is coming. Over the past decade, pre-hire testing has become a standard, and today, most large employers use assessments to vet candidates for job openings. Once this new era begins, companies will employ more sophisticated pre-hire selection tools, combined with big data and analytics, to evaluate candidates before and after they are hired. During this session, Charles Handler, president and founder of Rocket-Hire, will explain how companies can capitalize on the impending Golden Era of Talent Selection. Examining how science and data connect talent acquisition with performance management, Handler and Chequed.com CEO, Greg Moran, will discuss how closed loop analytics will impact post-hire situations with pre-hire information. Using these analytics, companies can gain further insight into the relationship between talent acquisition and talent management to ultimately improve the hiring process. They will also explore how expanded data usage can predict candidate performance, an integral component of talent management. Painting a dynamic picture of this coming era, Charles and Greg will illustrate how the increasing emphasis on pre-hiring influences business outcomes as well as the overall hiring process and employee lifecycle. Attendees will learn how to approach this new era from a scientific standpoint, relying more on big data and analytics in conjunction with testing and assessment strategies. HR and recruiting professionals, business managers and executives who wish to learn more about the evolution of talent selection and the intersection of talent acquisition and performance management are encouraged to attend this informative session. About Rocket-Hire Founded in 2001, Rocket-Hire is a consultancy with roots in the field of Industrial-Organizational Psychology. We are based in New Orleans, Louisiana. Rocket-Hire offers its clients a variety of services, all of which leverage the fact that we are the premier source of expert, objective information about pre-employment testing, screening, and assessment products. We work closely with organizations across virtually every industry -- from start-ups to Fortune 500s -- to help them create value through the development, use, and evaluation of testing, screening, and assessment tools. We do not sell any assessment tools. Instead, we partner with our clients to help provide objective, vendor neutral guidance that ensures an optimal fit between their needs and the best tools and strategies available to meet these needs. About Chequed.com References are a joke. Every company requests them, every candidate provides them, but no one checks them. Why? Because old-fashioned reference checks are phone-based, time-consuming and obsolete. Chequed.com makes reference checks relevant with an automated reference-checking solution built on assessment-based logic. As an add-on for an even greater level in hiring accuracy, Chequed.com delivers the same assessment-based screening logic in ChequedFit (TM), a high-volume early stage pre-employment test to rapidly weed out low potential and identify high potential candidates. Chequed.com is headquartered in Saratoga Springs, NY with offices in San Diego and Boston. Further information can be found at http://www.chequed.com or 888-412-0699 or emailing info@chequed.com.