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National Background Check System Vital To Nation's Security
By Bill Whitmore, President & CEO, AlliedBarton Security Services
The most significant issue facing the security officer sector today is background
check standardization. Our country has no national background check system
to ensure all private security officer personnel can be quickly vetted and
screened.
Information about arrests and convictions are available in the National Crime
Information Center (NCIC), but those computerized records are only available
to law enforcement except in select states such as Florida and Arizona. State-wide
background checking information does not go far enough. We need a clearinghouse
similar to the banking industry. The reality is that this system is broken,
and it’s time for a radical change.
Private security officers provide a primary line of defense for much of the
country, securing countless lives and tens of thousands of important sites
each and every
day. As the largest American owned security officer services’ firm, our
company was called to testify by the United States House of Representatives’ Subcommittee
on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security. We were queried on our experience
using the criminal history database of the FBI to help screen applicants as well
as our views on the Attorney General’s June 2006 Report on Criminal History
Background Checks.
Today, when we seek to hire security personnel, we have to conduct state-wide
or county by county and court by court criminal record checks. In our global
world, where anyone can jump on a plane or drive five states away in a few
hours, statewide information is of very limited value. Without timely access
to the
records of the Criminal Justice Information Services Division of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, no investigation of security personnel can be considered
complete.
The Attorney General’s Report concluded that a comprehensive and reliable
criminal history background check cannot be accomplished without timely access
to the records of the Criminal Justice Information Services Division of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation. I agree whole heartedly with that statement.
Our experience
has proved that to be true.
Without access to federal records, the only records available to an employer
are those in the states and their political subdivisions, where the records
are typically kept at the courthouse in each county. Since there is no practical
way to check all the counties for every employee, employers usually request
a
record check in the counties in which the applicant says they have recently
lived or worked. This leaves the employer blind to any criminal history records
in
states for which the applicant failed to disclose.
There are commercial databases that aggregate criminal history information
from multiple states but these are not truly national because not all states,
courts,
or agencies make their records available. Moreover, these databases are only
updated periodically and, thus, may lack current data. These commercial databases
are not adequate substitutes for information contained in the FBI-maintained
database.
Congress with the support of many individuals in the industry acted in good
faith to provide private security officer employers with access to that federal
database
in 2004. Unfortunately, in doing so, Congress required that the employers always
go through the state identification bureaus in order to get that access. In
other words, we must submit the employee information to the state bureau, which
then
forwards the request to the federal level. If the FBI record check is completed,
the results come back to the state, which then notifies the employer.
Significant delays in getting responses to criminal history record requests
are unfair to employers and applicants, and present potential security risks.
To
address this problem, private sector employers should be able to screen job
applicants against the FBI’s criminal history records, with the states serving as
the employers’ primary access point for criminal background checks only
if they can meet the Attorney General standard. If a state cannot provide timely
background check results that incorporate both state and FBI data, employers
should be able to make direct requests to the FBI for criminal history records
utilizing digitized fingerprints.
A national background screening protocol will elevate the security officer
sector and revolutionize the industry. Our government needs to work with the
private
security sector and place a high priority on establishing a clearinghouse where
we can electronically submit applicant fingerprints and review the background
of applicants across the country, immediately uncovering criminal records and
other liabilities that may exist. By implementing these recommendations for
the private security industry - specifically by insuring employers’ timely
access to FBI criminal records while preserving employee rights - we will make
our nation safer and ensure that the hard-working men and women in the physical
security sector can benefit from the increased professionalism and standardization
that is vital to our sector.
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