Getting ready to hire a new employee can be a stressful process because it has the potential to affect your company’s morale and efficiency. Employee turnover is a real problem when the wrong person is hired because of this. Do you know that there are more than 780,000 registered sex offenders in the United States? Using a sex offender background check in conjunction with other pre-employment background checks like employment verification, educational verification, and criminal history searches can help you make sure that your new employees are a good fit for your business. To ensure the safety of your employees and customers, you can conduct sex offender background checks to find out if a potential employee has been convicted of a sex crime. Laws governing the use of information from the Sex Offenders’ Registry are important to keep in mind.
Why Are Sex Offender Background Checks Performed by Employers?
Sex offender registry checks are not required by all businesses, but those that serve children, have employees in direct contact with the public, or provide health care services should inquire about sex offender background checks. Work restrictions for sex offenders exist in some industries, and some employers require that applicants have no prior convictions for a sex offense.
Sex offender background checks may be necessary for companies that hire people for the following positions:
- Education positions
- Daycare positions
- Coaches
- Health care services for positions providing direct patient care
- Businesses providing services to disabled people
- Companies providing in-home care
- Recreation positions
- Legal or management positions
- Financial positions
- Communications
You may also want to consider screening your volunteers if your company has employees who regularly give their time to the cause. Screening volunteers can protect your business or nonprofit from liability and keep your workplace safe.
On a Sex Offender Background Check, What Is Included?
As part of your pre-employment background check through a consumer reporting agency (CRA) like AO Services, you can request a sex offender registry check as well as a variety of other background reports. Searches of the sex offender registry are conducted in several jurisdictions. Over 150 States, Territories, and Indian Nations are included in the scope of a sex offender registry search. To find out if an applicant has been registered as a sex offender in a different state, you may need to search outside of your company’s or the applicant’s home state.AO Services sex offender registry search may reveal a person’s previous sex offense convictions when you run a report on them.
The sex offender registry searches and the county criminal history report, for example, will usually include the sex offense in the criminal history information as long as it can be reported in compliance with local, state, and federal law. If you’ve been convicted of a crime in the last seven years, you may not be able to report it on your criminal record. Conviction records can only be reported back to a certain point in time in some states, so an offense committed before that date will not appear in the criminal history section of your company’s application.
A sex offender background check does not reveal information about the risk level of a sex offender, but crimes are assigned a risk level from one to three. Assessing the reoffending risk of a sex offender is a state-mandated process that looks at the crime’s severity, the offender’s prior criminal history, and other factors.
sex offender risk levels:
- Level 1 – Considered the lowest risk to the public and of re-offending
- Level 2 – Considered to have a moderate risk of re-offending and a moderate risk to the public
- Level 3 – Considered to pose the highest risk to the public and for re-offending
If you have access to this kind of information, you can make an informed decision about whether or not to hire a particular candidate. When it comes to hiring, you shouldn’t automatically reject a candidate because of their status as a sexual offender. Before making a decision, think about the crime for which a conviction is sought and the position for which you are seeking a new employee. Make sure to follow the FCRA’s two-step adverse action process if you use a background check report to make an adverse decision.
Pre-employment background checks are an excellent way to safeguard your business while also attracting top-tier employees. Including a search of the sex offender registry as part of your comprehensive background screening process may be beneficial depending on your business. Employer background checks are performed at AO Services using the most advanced technology and extensive databases in every state. Our clients can expect to receive their reports within a few hours to a few days, depending on the scope of the project. We conduct nationwide sex offender registry searches as part of your background check services.
Make an appointment with AO Services today for a complimentary consultation and a free quote.