Background Check News

After years of telling children, “Don’t talk to strangers� we all too often essentially invite “strangers� into our homes to watch our children without really finding out who they are.  With horrifying headlines like, “Babysitter Convicted of Child Abuse�, “Babysitter Molested Child in Park�, “Babysitter Convicted of Murdering Child� and “Babysitter Arrested, Accused of Running Molestation Ring� no parent should feel that their neighborhood or home is immune to such a tragedy, but should know that by taking the time to look into not only the past but present criminal and social status of their potential sitter they can help protect their child.  The dangers associated with allowing a stranger into their house were all too real for the couple of a two year old girl in Minnesota, who posted an ad seeking a babysitter on Craigslist and hired respondent twenty three year old Aaron Jay Lemon.  While the parents were out Lemon assaulted the child and produced a pornographic video of the incident, to which he ultimately plead guilty in Federal Court to coercing a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct.

Should the sitter be watching the child at their own residence, the screening of the home’s occupants and its neighbors are just as important.  While the sitter themselves may not have arise any concerns, learning that their spouse, child or neighbor may be a registered sex offender or have a criminal background would be a red flag to say the least.  Tragically this was the case for at least twelve young children, ranging from fifteen years old to infancy, who were under the care of Coretta Jackson at her in home babysitting service in Pennsylvania when she knowingly allowed her live in boyfriend John Worman, who had a lengthy criminal history, to molest and rape them over a period of nine years, which he documented in over 1,100 pornographic images and videos.

Investing the time and resources into having professional investigators not only perform criminal background checks but through independent reference screening you can turn up information which would otherwise have gone unknown.  While your potential sitter may not have criminal convictions, arrests which are not referred for prosecution or have been expunged, are still available through court and police records, and could alert you to potentially alarming information, all of which experienced investigators have to knowledge needed to obtain.

In this high tech, high speed world, computers and software technology are replacing much of what trained human beings have done for years. Pre-employment screening and pre-employment background checks are no different in this regard. Many software companies and date brokers have found that through the use of complex software programs they are able to search multiple sources of publically available, online information at once. These sources of data often include state incarceration records, online court information, public government databases and annually purchased “batch information� from various information vendors. The searches that are then offered by these Data Brokers are usually labeled as “National Criminal History Searches� or “National Criminal Database�. The problem is that these “National Searches� only include limited information from select states, counties and cities. There is no guarantee that the county, city or even state that your applicant resides in was searches. On top of the drawbacks of not knowing what sources were actually searched; applicants and employees with common names often fall victim to false positive criminal records. This is also the result of having computers do the thinking for you.

With private investigators on the other hand, applicants are screened by qualified, trained and experienced private investigators. The information that is searched is “direct source� information, meaning that is comes directly from the court, city or state where the data originated. This minimizes the chances that there are data entry errors and also cuts down on processing time and costs. Additional benefits include the ability to feel certain that an experienced investigator has personally conducted the searches and reviewed the incoming information. During this process, we are able to catch false positives and make certain that the results that are being reported are accurate and pertain to your applicant and not someone else.

Background investigation companies have known about Facebook, MySpace and the dozens of other social networking sites for years. We often use these sites to look into an applicant’s personal life and make an estimation of what type of character that applicant has. Employers appear to be getting in on the action as well. Numerous news reports have documented the struggle between an individual’s privacy rights and the public availability of online information. Employers and background investigation companies argue that if an applicant puts themselves online for all to see, that there is no reason they should not be able to view that information and potentially use it to make hiring decisions.

Whether you agree or disagree with the use of social networking sites as a hiring tool, you should be aware that information available online can and will be viewed by people outside of your group of friends. Included in the list of major social networking sites that are often used are Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Xanga, Frendster, LiveJournal and Flickr.

If you are an investigator, background screening company or employer, these sites are invaluable in determining if you are about to hire a class act or a class clown.