A Connecticut state bill would allow state jobs to omit the “Have you ever been convicted of a felony?” question on state job applications but not for the private sector.

If passed into law, Connecticut would join Minnesota, Kansas and New Mexico in restricting state background checks. In Minnesota, private businesses are also restricted until a job offer has been made in asking the question.

Story here

Should this law be made at the national, state, and private levels? Let me know what you think below.

With the 2010 US Census in full force the FBI has begun to process 484,000 census employees criminal background check. Well as a result all 50 states that need national background checks completed by the FBI are being put on hold for the higher priority of the U.S Census workers.

Full story here:

http://www.kltv.com/Global/story.asp?S=12226703

At a time when our economy is at it’s lowest, employers have decided to start including a new criteria when deciding who to hire for their companies. Want to know what it is?, well ts your FICO score yep if you haven’t been a good steward of your money, you may have a harder time making any. In a AP survey of companies who use this new criteria 60% of the companies include the applicants credit score as a validity to the person’s character.

Do you think people change and should be penalized and not given job oppurtunities because of poor money management skills? What do you think leave a comment below.

So apparently what happens is that airports are responsible for the control of security badges issued to those with access to secure areas of their airport. Richmond International Airport (RIC) is not issuing a security badge to a TSA (Transportation Security Administration) TSO (Transportation Security Officer) employee.

TSA recently hired a person who at the age of 17 had committed felony robbery, but was not convicted until he was 18 hence he was tried as an adult. TSA is arguing that the crime was committed when the employee was a minor and should not be held against them or in TSA terms a “disqualifying crime”.

However the break down comes I believe in the fact that the employee didn’t disclose the fact they had a felony conviction within the last 10 years which is required of anyone applying for a TSA job. Once it came to light about the employee’s felony history through a Capital Region Airport Commission criminal background check TSA still demanded a security badge be issued to this employee.

From the original story

1) RIC’s security badging policy is a Transportation Security Administration approved security program. This program expressly prohibits issuing security badges to people convicted of any disqualifying crimes.

2) The TSA policy for criminal background checks at time of employment, as dictated by FAR 108.33 (c)(5) leaves holes for felons to slip through. In this policy, those applying for jobs must disclose felony convictions in the past 10 years, however criminal background checks are only conducted if there are specific deficiencies in the applicants employment history. This means someone can easily create a faux job history to cover their felony convictions and be hired by the TSA.

What do you think, should TSA keep pushing the issue to get this employee a badge or should this employee be denied a job and TSA issue an apology? Let me know in the comments.

Sandra

So everybody has a little dubious past, and even more so in college mybackgroundcheck.com conducted a study on 13,859 college students at 125 universities and what so happened to come back was interesting to say the least.

Driving violations topped the charts at a whopping 60 percent, followed by disorderly conduct (9.5 percent), theft (8.8 percent), drug possession (7.4 percent), sexual abuse (5.2 percent), assault (4 percent), fraud (2.7 percent), and child molestation (2.4 percent).

While having a felony conviction does not prevent you from being admitted to college depending on the circumstances of the crime.
Should certain crimes prevent someone from getting a higher education? let me know in the comments.

Read the whole story here

Sandra

So the concerns and conditions for Haitians in Port-Au-Prince are growing worse, many Haitians coming to America are finding it hard to put the pieces back together. About a week after the earthquake, the United States extended temporary protective status to Haitians who were already in the United States on the day of the quake, allowing them to stay legally and to work.

But hundreds of Haitians who were allowed to come here after the earthquake as escorts for American citizens who are minors, are not eligible for that status. They also are not eligible for a status known as humanitarian parole, which would allow them to apply for permission to work, and to renew their status in one-year increments.

In the aftermath of the earthquake, temporary protected status was made available only to Haitians already in the United States because officials were seeking to deter Haitians from trying to get into the United States by boat. Applicants are being asked to scrape together nearly $500 in government fees.

Applicants pay $50 for temporary protected status, $80 for a background check and $340 for permission to work. Matthew Chandler, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, said that the fees were set by Congress and that only Congress could allow a blanket fee waiver, it is not clear exactly what it takes to qualify.

As of Monday morning, 15,666 people had been evacuated from Haiti to the United States. Of those, 12,497 were American citizens, according to State Department figures.

So do you think that in this time of need for Haitians that the fees are warranted, or is there a need to protect are homeland?
You can read the article in full here

What do you think? Leave your thoughts below

Take Care till tommorrow
Sandra