Skip to main content

You Should Always Start with a County Background Check


A family synonymous with The Post and with...

Growing use of FBI screens raises concerns about accuracy, racial bias


Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post - The J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building in Washington, D.C.


“It’s been quite a rough road leading up to fighting this case,” Vanderpool said. “It’s caused us quite a bit of damage that it’s going to take us years to really recover from.”
The FBI’s databases are the largest repository of criminal information in the country. Records are linked to fingerprints, as well as names, reducing the chances of an incorrect match.


Graphic
Find out how background checks are falling short.
        
     

Employers can request an FBI background check only when authorized by state or federal laws and regulations. Many industries require potential employees to be screened by the FBI before they can receive work licenses.
But the FBI databases were not intended to be comprehensive. Instead, they function as a sort of index composed of arrests; the outcomes of those cases often are not reflected in the FBI’s records. A 2006 U.S. attorney general’s report estimated that half of the FBI’s arrest records did not include disposition information.
A spokesman for the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services, which handles the databases, did not provide a more current estimate. However, in a statement, the agency said that it relies on the states to provide its records and keep them current.
The design “decentralizes the criminal history responsibility by making the states, rather than the FBI, primarily responsible for record maintenance and dissemination,” it said.
At the state level, many of the records are incomplete. A report by the Justice Department in 2010, the most recent available, found that in about half the states, as many as two in five records were missing final outcomes. Twenty-seven states reported a backlog of disposition data. Transmitting the information from the courts to state records agencies could take less than a day in Delaware to 555 days in Kansas.
Updating the records of those who fall through the cracks can be confusing and cumbersome. FBI regulations say that employers and licensing agencies should give applicants time to challenge and correct their records, either by contacting the FBI or the jurisdiction that collected the data. But applicants are not always given a copy of their report or told why they were disqualified. Often, the burden is on them to prove an error was made.
The NELP report highlighted the Transportation Security Administration’s move to require FBI screenings for port workers in 2007. Since then, more than 120,000 applications were initially disqualified because of a background check, according to TSA statistics. Just over half of them filed for waivers or appeals to prove they were eligible — and 94 percent of them were successful.
Meanwhile, about a quarter of the 4 million applications to work on the 2010 Census were put on hold after the Commerce Department ran FBI background checks, according to a lawsuit filed against the agency. Applicants had 30 days to prove the FBI’s information was incorrect — but the alleged infractions were not reported to them.
Among the hundreds of thousands of rejected candidates was Precious Daniels of Detroit, who was arrested in 2009 during a peaceful protest and had her charges dropped, according to the suit. Vivian Kargbo of Boston was supposed to have her records sealed after two charges from a juvenile arrest in 1996 were dismissed. Scotty Desphy of Philadelphia thought these charges from her arrest 28 years ago were expunged after she served a year of probation, but they remained on her FBI rap sheet.
“It was a dramatic screen of basically anybody with any interaction with the criminal justice system,” said Adam Klein, a partner at law firm Outten & Golden, which is handling the case. “It included the craziest things.”
The suit alleges that the Census Bureau’s FBI screening process resulted in a disproportionate number of rejections for applications from blacks and Hispanics. These minorities are arrested in higher numbers, which civil rights activitists attribute partly to racial profiling.
Forty-one percent of the census applicants who showed up in the FBI’s criminal databases were black and 20 percent were Hispanic. If certified for class-action status, the suit would cover about 850,000 people, making it the largest discrimination suit in history.
The Commerce Department declined to comment.
The NELP report called for a more “robust” appeals process that would require employers to inform applicants why they were disqualified and give them at least 60 days to dispute any errors. It said that the FBI should provide regular reports to Congress on its background checks and any effect on minorities.
“People lose their jobs. They lose their homes. They have to go on public benefits to feed their kids,” Neighly said of the inaccurate reports. “It is so damaging.”

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why Drug Testing is Important?

Why Drug Testing Is Important September 28, 2015 TDT Although many aspects of society are harmed by illicit drug use and abuse, it is especially detrimental in the workplace. Not only can it lower the productivity and revenue of a business, but it can also place employees at risk. In fact, depending on the line of work, the drug abuse of an employee could have fatal consequences. Luckily, employers these days are able to test for illicit drug use and implement strategies to pursue drug-free workplaces. Today we’re discussing why drug testing is important and how to employ it effectively. Why Drug Testing Is Important Safety. Drug use can impair a person’s judgment and increase safety risks. This is especially concerning in certain industries, such as construction, in which using drugs or alcohol at work could cause an injury or even a fatality. As employee drug abuse causes as much as 50% of all on-the-job accidents (source), this is not a matter to be taken...
Post a Comment
Read more

An uptick in Hiring, Importance of Background Screening

An uptick in Hiring, Importance of Background Screening -KG April 9, 2015 Although some states have changed their laws around medical and recreational marijuana use, more than half of 3,119 HR professionals surveyed said their organizations do not accommodate marijuana use in the workplace or plan to do so in the next year. That is among the findings of HR 2015 Employee Background Screening Benchmark Report, conducted in October and November 2014 with HR professionals responsible for employment screening and recruiting. “This is going to be one of the hottest topics of the year in terms of background screening: drug screening,” said Rachel Trindade, vice president of marketing at HR, a provider of employment background checks, drug and health screenings, and Form I-9 employment verification. Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia have legalized the possession of marijuana for medical use, and four states and the District of Columbia have legaliz...
Post a Comment
Read more
Employment Background Checks May Sharpen Your Recruitment Efforts 08/14/2018 Employment background checks were once considered a luxury among small business owners — a practice worth pursuing, but not essential to the recruiting and hiring process. In today's heated battle for talent, pre-employment background checks have taken on a new urgency. Background checks offer clear benefits to employers, which may include: Hiring high-caliber candidates. Seeing reduced employee turnover (along with related expenses). Limiting exposure to claims of negligent hiring practices. "A thorough background check helps employers find quality talent, while flagging issues that could cost the company money or their reputation," notes Catherine Aldrich, vice president of operations, a leading provider of background screening services. "Landing top talent quickly is critical in a competitive job market, but it is just as important to ensure that t...
Post a Comment
Read more