Is Criminal Background Checking a Necessity?

Conducting a criminal background check will cost employer and even landlord’s a great piece on their fund’s cartwheel. For employers, a simple background check is not enough to accept applicants likewise to landlords to its potential tenants. They must both need, at most cases, conduct criminal background checks. Perhaps the main reason for such is to be certain that what they hire to join the company or what they accept to live in their property is trustworthy just like what they claim on their resume, interview or with their appearance.

Other than that, what else are the possible and imperative grounds giving justice why a criminal background check is needed?

Here’s a short list why:

1. Negligent Hiring – A check on the criminal records of the person under consideration is the employer or landlord’s preventive measure to steer clear from being sued with negligent hiring. An employer or a landlord can be sued with this lawsuit if they hire or accept person as a tenant with criminal record that later will cause danger and injuries to others be it a co-worker, customer, client, patient or co-tenant. They are held liable for hiring a person with that is dangerous or harmful and that is unfit to do the job. For example, a patient can sue the hospital if one of its staff nurse happen to give him/her wrong medicine that later will cause more injury or illness to him/her. The hospital can be charged with negligent hiring for hiring a incompetent nurse.

2. Violence at the Workplace – Safety in the workplace or in the residence is one of the top priority employers and landlords wants to maintain. An act of violence can cost profit and revenue loss to company which figures rising up to millions annually. A person with records showing past incident of violence will logically be repeated in the future. That’s why a criminal background check can be a deciding factor to hire or deny applicant or accept or reject a tenant.

3. As Required or Mandated By Law – Criminal background check on applicants that will work on a childcare institution, hospitals, and nursing homes are is required by the federal law to be conducted. This is an answer to the growing statistic of child violence and crimes committed against them like kidnapping, molestation and sexual assault. Employers have also a legal duty to ensure a workplace free from any danger or violence. What’s better way to prevent this is to pre-screen all potential employees. That way, any person with violent tendency is prevented from entering.

Whatever the reason applicable for employers or landlords, the bottom line is to be always preventive and safe. A criminal background check is an effective tool to achieve it.

An Expunge Case Should Not Be a Hassle in Finding a Job

Work is a term than can almost replace the word life. Work can also be considered an equivalent to the word money. Nowadays, one of the top priorities of man is to work. This is due to the fact that through working you’ll be able to earn enough to support not only yourself, but the needs of your family as well. However, getting employed can be such a hassle at times. One of the usual setbacks experienced in getting hired are these background checks done related to the application process. An applicant should always be sure that he has a clean slate of records kept in his credentials; otherwise, he’ll have a hard time getting himself hired. This is the common problem faced by felons and ex-cons. A simple arrest, even if you weren’t even convicted can actually stain and leave a criminal record that could give enough trouble on employments.

A common trouble during a criminal background check is the usual misunderstanding on expunge cases. It should be properly explained and understood that an expunge case actually is a dismissed case. That gives the person a clean record, thus removing its possibility of becoming a hindrance on employments. The option of having their records expunged is given to those that had served their time, and many other bases. You can consult your personal lawyer about this because making sure that your criminal records goes back to zero gives you better benefits on finding a job. However, there are incidents where expunged cases still comes up on employment background checks. This usually happens when third party companies offering background check services fails to update their copies of the government files included in employment background checks.

It should be remembered that an employee who was dismissed, or an applicant denied of a job because of some trouble regarding background check resulting on an expunged case output, has the right to appeal for reconsideration for the application or the job position. Take note that once a case is expunged, it is no longer considered a conviction. This is strongly backed by the California Labor Code, Section 432.7 prohibiting employers from asking the applicant further more details about an arrest or detention which didn’t result in a conviction. If you live somewhere else, it would be best if you could visit and find out the laws that could safeguard you from possible harassment or discrimination because of an expunged case record. Know your rights and be prepared, then everything will be alright.

Erroneous Report Costs Job

Lately, unemployment seems to grow at large because of the country’s recession problem. Due to the economic crisis affecting not only the states but all around the world, companies are cutting down on their costs. However, even before the country’s problem, there had already been an estimate of 10 Americans losing their jobs every day. This doesn’t concern the economic issue. According to one survey, out of the 10 people who lost their job, 3 of them lost it because of an unfavorable background check report. Yet, 1 out of the 3 is most likely a victim of an erroneous report. Most of the time, the criminal background check report is the cause. Bundled in a background check package common on employments includes this criminal background report where it shows information necessary for the requirement of the employer.

However, there are times where these records are inaccurate. Criminal background checks may be a necessity but it doesn’t mean it should affect the applicant so much. There are cases where job descriptions don’t always imply the need for this type of record. Most often, professions such as those that would put an individual in contact with children, and public positions are the ones that require, as much as possible, a clean slate on criminal background records. Expunge cases are usually misunderstood. These are criminal records that are considered legally erased. But then again, there still are incidents where records aren’t updated devotedly therefore, come the collection of it, the requester gets the wrong record, and the poor individual being investigated gets fired for the wrong information. Definitely, being terminated with false accusations could heat up anybody’s ego.

There are different bases as to which or how a case becomes expunged. This of course, still depends on what the state follows. On most standards, convictions that happened and had been served seven years ago and back should no longer be included in a background check report. Pardons are also considered as expunge record, therefore resetting his record to zero. The usual mistakes with regards to erroneous criminal records come from third party investigators that had already kept their own set of government copies but failed to update them. For these cases, the victim can appeal and file a correction therefore preventing an employer from firing or turning down an applicant or employee. The lesson here is that employers or anyone of us shouldn’t judge easily unless proven otherwise. Background check should be used as a means to gather informative significant data about a person, to learn more and know the individual better, and not be used just because you wish to find something foul about that being.