Criminal History Bar to Employment, Even in Boom Town

In the small town of Williston, North Dakota, it’s as if the recession that’s hit the rest of the country has never touched it. Williston, along with the surrounding area, is undergoing a big transformation thanks to a large oil field now being extracted. This oil boom has launched many high paying jobs, and new people moving to town every day to take advantage of the opportunities. One of those people is Epifanio Rodriguez Jr., a 49-year-old unemployed truck driver who arrived from Philadelphia with just a few hundred dollars in his pocket.

Rodriguez saw news reports and read online about the ease of finding jobs in Williston, and decided to move there after getting laid off of his job back home. Due to the demand for workers, and his experience driving dump trucks and tractor-trailers, he expected to have no problem finding a job. What he didn’t expect was that his over 20-year-old conviction would keep him from getting hired. Rodriguez said he was involved in drugs during his 20s, and served seven years in prison for drug charges and aggravated assault. However, he said he is now reformed, and doesn’t want to go back to being involved with drugs. When he was released from prison in 2000, he took up truck driving. Now, because he is upfront about his convictions, he is so far out of luck in Williston. The guidelines for pre-employment background checks are regulated by the Federal Trade Commission’s Fair Credit Reporting Act.

In a lot of states employers can still ask potential employees if they’ve “ever” been arrested. But unless like Rodriguez, they answer honestly, it is hard to find out about criminal backgrounds beyond seven years. If a job-seeker agrees to a background check, then employers can look up such records as driving reports, credit reports, verify education, civil and criminal court cases, incarceration records, and more. But according to privacyrights.org, after seven years, records of arrest from date of entry, are not allowed at all to factor into the decision making.

Rodriguez said he has met others like him in Williston, who are out of luck because of criminal histories, even from long ago. He just wants to find a job driving trucks, live an honest life, and earn enough money to put his daughter through college.

You can’t always expect to find a potential employee as forthcoming about their past as Epifanio Rodriguez Jr. Do you know the laws when it comes to giving pre-employment background checks? Know who you can rely on. A company like backgroundchecks.com has this expertise and will guide you through this process. backgroundchecks.com has access to countless criminal databases nationwide, and provides several options for instant results. Their Ongoing Criminal Monitoring tool allows you to automatically run a continuous criminal background check against a name and date of birth, and they will notify you via email of any new information that may appear on the record. Or try their popular US OneSEARCH. This option provides information from more than 355 million criminal records from counties, Department of Corrections (DOC), Administration of Courts (AOC) and State Sex Offender Registries covering 49 states plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and Guam. Also included are national and international terrorism sources, more than 4.1 million photos, and their proprietary database of previously completed reports.

About backgroundchecks.com -

backgroundchecks.com - a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS®) - serves thousands of customers nationwide, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies by providing comprehensive screening services. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with an Eastern Operations Center in Chapin, S.C., backgroundchecks.com is home to one of the largest online criminal conviction databases in the industry. For more information about backgroundchecks’ offerings, please visit www.backgroundchecks.com.

Source:http://www.willistonherald.com/news/crime-and-punishment-those-with-a-criminal-history-have-a/article_f12e991a-a206-11e1-af6a-001a4bcf887a.html