Recent Pre-employment Screening News

January/February 2007

• NASA to Review Screening Process



• Dinner, Movie (And a Background Check) for Online Daters



• Background Checks for House Calls: Killing of Cable Customers Spurs Proposed Law

NASA to Review Screening Process (2/7/09) - theeagle.com


CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA said Wednesday it will examine its psychological screening process for astronauts in light of the bizarre behavior by shuttle astronaut Lisa Nowak, who is charged with attempted murder.

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Dinner, Movie (And a Background Check) for Online Daters (1/30/07) - Post-Trib.com


WASHINGTON--Kimberly Hall was twice betrayed by men she met dating online. Both turned out to be married.

So she started doing background checks on her dates using a Web site called Intelius. Now, the 33-year-old from Laurel, Md., is engaged to a man she met on Blackplanet.com, but even he had to undergo record checks.

"He wasn't happy'' about doing it, Hall said of her fiancé. But eventually he turned over his Social Security number.

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Background Checks for House Calls: Killing of Cable Customers Spurs Proposed Law (1/11/07) - Suntimes.com


Chicago businesses and their subcontractors would be required to conduct criminal background checks on employees who make house calls -- and bar home entry by those convicted of sex crimes -- under a crackdown advanced by a City Council committee Wednesday in response to two recent murders.

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• DMV to Give Random Bus Driver Checks



• Backing Background Checks



• DMV Again Misses the Bus



• Info Gap for New Citizens



• Criminal Background Checks Boost Black Employmen

DMV to Give Random Bus Driver Checks (12/13/06) - Westport News


In light of a recent fatal bus accident in Bloomfield, Gov. M. Jodi Rell has ordered the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to run random background checks on school bus drivers and overhaul the state's screening process.

According to the Hartford Courant, a 48-year-old school bus driver from Bloomfield tested positive for cocaine shortly after a school bus he was operating on Oct. 20 ran over and killed a substance abuse counselor as he crossed a street in downtown Bloomfield.

The Courant reported the DMV failed to conduct a background check on the driver when an employee forgot to hit "send" on the computer to activate the search.

A press release from the Governor's Office states that the driver's background was not discovered until he had been granted a license -- which Rell called "entirely unacceptable" -- by failing to disclose his background on his application.

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Backing Background Checks (12/5/06) - Daily Free Press


Soon it will become a little harder for the few abusive bouncers to strong-arm bar and restaurant patrons in Boston, if the City Council gets its way.

City Council President Michael Flaherty has proposed a law requiring bouncers, doormen and staff to undergo background checks and training before being hired.

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DMV Again Misses the Bus (12/3/06) - Courant.com


The [Connecticut] state Department of Motor Vehicles failed at every turn, every signal, every fork in the road, to get a dangerous school bus driver off the road.

The DMV didn't revoke Robert B. Fountain's bus license when the FBI reported his criminal history in September. It took the state agency five days to suspend Mr. Fountain's bus license after he killed a pedestrian on his West Hartford bus route in October - and tested positive for cocaine.

A DMV hearing officer later reissued Mr. Fountain's bus license anyway.

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Info Gap for New Citizens (11/30/06) - Sbsun.com


Tens of thousands of foreign applicants were granted naturalized status in the United States in 2005 despite their background files being missing during the citizenship screening process, according to a Government Accountability Office report released this week.

Citing concerns about terrorist access to the U.S., politicians and immigration watchers seized on the report to renew their call for improved screening and oversight of the immigration benefits process.

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Criminal Background Checks Boost Black Employment (11/29/06) - Forbes.com


As more and more employers conduct criminal background checks on applicants, critics have charged that such screening is unfair to blacks, who are more likely to have criminal records.

But a new study published in The Journal of Law and Economics argues just the opposite. In fact, employers who perform criminal background checks "are in general more likely to hire African-Americans," say the authors, Harry J. Holzer of the Georgetown Public Policy Institute, Steven Raphael of the University of California, Berkeley, and Michael A. Stoll of the University of California, Los Angeles.

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