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Home > TAKE ACTION > Advocate for Mentoring > Background Checks > Fact Sheet >

Help Protect Vulnerable Americans - Reform the Criminal Background Check System

Overview:

MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership strongly supports a streamlined, more accessible means of conducting nationwide criminal background checks. By making it easier for mentoring programs and other youth-serving organizations to perform comprehensive checks on potential volunteers and employees, children will be better protected from child predators and other people that should not have access to children based on their criminal record. H.R. 5606 & S. 2756 would achieve these goals.

Organizations should understand that background checks are not the sole solution for preventing mistreatment of children, and are just one of many methods to help ensure the safety of children. A robust system of reference checks and interviews of potential volunteers, evaluation of risk, and ongoing monitoring should also be part of an organization's regular procedures.

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THE NEED:

Human service organizations rely on volunteers and employees to provide services and care to children. These individuals coach soccer games, mentor young people, run youth camps, and much more. Approximately 61 million adults currently volunteer, with 27% dedicating their volunteer service to education and youth programs.

By utilizing background checks, human service organizations can prevent hiring or utilizing a person with a criminal past that could endanger a child in their care. A look at crime statistics in the U.S. reveals the need for these types of record checks:

• Assuming recent incarceration rates remain unchanged, an estimated 6.6% of Americans will serve time in prison for a crime during their lifetime.
  
• The FBI maintains fingerprints and criminal histories on more than 47 million individuals who have been previously arrested and/or convicted.
  
• According to a 2002 Bureau of Justice Statistics report, an estimated 67.5% of individuals released from prison across 15 states in 1994 were re-arrested for a felony or serious misdemeanor within three years. Three-quarters of these arrests resulted in convictions.

And, statistics from the existing PROTECT Act Child Safety Pilot testing screening of volunteers demonstrates the importance of a nationwide fingerprint-based FBI criminal background check:

• Of 37,000 background checks performed through the pilot in four years, 6.1% of volunteers were found to have a criminal record of concern – including very serious offenses like sexual abuse of minors, assaults, murder, and serious drug offenses.
• In addition, over 40% of the individuals with criminal records had committed an offense in a state other than where they were applying to volunteer, meaning that a state-only search would not have found relevant criminal records.

THE PROBLEM:

The current system of obtaining a background check is just not working. Just one-third of states allow a range of youth-serving organizations to access FBI searches. And, even when those searches are available, they are often expensive and time-consuming.

Under current law, whether they want a state or FBI records check, organizations must apply through their state-authorized agency. The state agency performs the state check and requests that the FBI to perform the national check. The FBI responds to the state agency, which then passes the results back to the volunteer organization. This system has led to many problems:

• Over 1200 state status govern background checks, resulting in wide variety even within one state as to which agency does the search, the costs and process, and the format of the results. It can be confusing for youth-serving organizations to navigate this system.
• Because each state sets its own eligibility criteria, a youth-serving organization in one state can get a nationwide FBI search, but the same organization in another state cannot. Youth-serving organizations in over 30 states experience difficulty accessing FBI searches.
• Even when state and FBI searches are accessible, the costs can be as high as $99 per volunteer or employee, and the response times can take as long as 42 days.

The current system means that youth-serving organizations are often unable to access these important background checks, and run the risk of using volunteers or employees who should not have access to children.

Congress has previously attempted to ensure that states make FBI criminal history record checks available to organizations seeking to screen employees and volunteers who work with children, the elderly and disabled persons, through the National Child Protection Act and the Volunteers for Children Act. However, according to a report from the Attorney General, these laws “did not have the intended impact of broadening the availability of NCPA checks.”

THE SOLUTION:

Nearly five years ago, Congress created the PROTECT Act Child Safety Pilot. It has demonstrated that FBI fingerprint checks can be made available to organizations that work with children, in a timely manner and at a reasonable cost. Introduced by Senators Biden, Hatch, and Specter and Representatives Schiff and Rogers (MI), the Child Protection Improvements Act of 2008 (S. 2756 / H.R. 5606) would build on the lessons learned from the Child Safety Pilot to create a permanent, nationally-accessible background check solution for youth-serving organizations.

The bill would:

1. Create universal access to nationwide background searches, by establishing an applicant processing center to process background checks on prospective employees and volunteers for youth-serving organizations. The FBI could either create this clearinghouse within its structure, or contract with an outside entity to provide these functions:
   - Approve programs for participation and handle questions and inquiries
   - Receive paper and electronic submissions of fingerprints
   - Transmit fingerprint submissions to the FBI
   - Return fitness determinations/results of the check back to the requesting organization
   - Handle the collection of fees and reimbursement of the FBI
2. Draw upon the expertise of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) to run the fitness determination program. NCMEC would review any criminal records found when conducting a background check, and make a determination as to whether the individual’s criminal record bears upon their fitness to work or volunteer with children.
3. Create a “one-stop” functionality where a local organization could elect to obtain both a state and FBI search through the central clearinghouse. To do this, the applicant processing center would be allowed to negotiate agreements with state agencies to transmit background check requests to them for an additional fee. Participation by the state agencies is optional.
4. Keep the fee as low as possible for non-profit organizations, no more than the actual cost – with a maximum of $25. The bill authorizes $1 million per year in annual appropriations to help keep the nonprofit fee low, with the remaining costs being supported by the background check fee charged to for-profit youth-serving organizations, which shall not exceed $40.
5. Ensures that individuals that are subject to background checks can request their full criminal histories and challenge their accuracy and completeness, and receive a prompt response from the jurisdiction holding the records.

For more information, please contact Margo Pedroso, Senior Vice President of Public Policy, MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership at mpedroso@mentoring.org or 703-224-2221.