Criminal Background Investigations

PM · July 2003

We hire approximately 100 seasonal employees to work in parks, pools, and public works. Does anyone do criminal background investigations for seasonal positions? What resources do you use for criminal background investigations? We already pay $28 per employee for drug screens and health evaluations, in addition to checking driving records. What agencies would check to see if this person had ever been arrested for sexual assult, theft, etc?

Thank you for your help.

CCH1400 · July 2003

I work for a non-profit residential treatment facility in CT and we do our background checks through a private vendor because the turnaround time is faster. However, we could use the State Police Bureau of Identification if we had to. I don't think there is a charge but you could wait anywhere from 4 to 6 weeks for an answer, from what I have been told.

Cheryl · July 2003

I'm in WA State and we are on-line with WA and OR State police. The cost is $10.00 per person. Results in WA are pretty much instant and we get a rap sheet. OR emails me that same day. If there is any type of an infraction those results are mailed and it takes 4 to 6 weeks. This has worked very well!

Crout · July 2003

We use the same kind of system here in PA that Cheryl does in WA. We do the background checks online here from the office, and PA bills us $10 per request at the end of the month. We do not need a third party to do the background checks because as a non-profit human services corporation we are required by law to conduct the checks and obeying the law shields us from privacy issues.

Nat · July 2003

I would do criminal background checks especially since it sounds like these employees work around and/or with the public. We are non-profit and do our criminal background checks through a private company. We usually have results back within an hour if it's an in-state check and within 24 hours if it's any other state. Since these are seasonal employees, you would want to get results as fast as possible. We don't let the employee begin work until we have the results. We are also required to do fingerprinting in some instances because we are long term care. Because these results take about 3 weeks to get, we let the employee begin work because we have done an initial background check. We have used Microfax and their prices are very reasonable. It is worth spending the money to do the checks upfront so you don't pay big time later.

Criminal Background Investigations

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