Employers, more than ever before, need to protect themselves against accidents and crimes committed by their employees. With negligent hiring, lawsuits, training costs, workplace violence and theft on the rise, pre-employment screening as well as taking the correct pre-employment screening steps are no longer an option, but rather a necessity for businesses.

The Census Bureau may soon be operating under a new hiring policy if Utah’s Republican Representative Jason Chaffetz has his way. Representative Chaffertz has written and introduced a bill that will effectively ban anyone with a criminal record from operating as a Census Bureau enumerator.

Chaffetz’s concerns are that hiring the wrong people to handle the sensitive task of approaching individuals at their homes could undermine confidence in the census as a whole. The perception that the federal government is hiring criminals to perform a portion of the census is something, Chaffetz argues, that shouldn’t be given a firm basis in reality.

“Allowing individuals with criminal records to be enumerators, who go out into public and walk up to people’s homes and knock on doors, can have serious detrimental effects on the American people’s confidence in the census.”

The specific position in question requires Census Bureau employees to interview people face-to-face to obtain information for a census or survey questionnaire. Enumerators can also be put to work updating address registers and Census Bureau maps.

The Republican Representative’s issues with the Census Bureau go back to October after a Government Accountability Report revealed the Census had hired 200 criminals by accident. The reasoning was due to incomplete background checks due to unclassifiable fingerprints. The individuals in question were set to task verifying addresses to which census forms will be mailed within the year.

Chaffetz has made his mark in the sand and wants to see his bill put through. “The safety and security of Americans in their homes are at stake. Moreover, integrity in the process is vital to successful completion of the census.”

The Census Bureau has verbally informed Chaffetz and his staff that serious crimes such as murder, rape, armed robbery, sex offenses, drug dealing, etc, would be obvious disqualifiers for employment. However, minor arrests for DUI’s, peeping-toms, and prostitution for example wouldn’t generally disqualify someone from an employment position.

Concerns that putting convicted criminals in a face-to-face role with daily citizens are well-grounded and even one incident could mar public trust in the census process making an already difficult job that much harder. The Census Bureau does need to send its best and brightest out to interact with America.

I agree completely that someone convicted of serious crimes shouldn’t be permitted a job as an enumerator. However, there should be a place for those looking to turn their life around for which their work in an auxiliary position at the Census Bureau would be a great opportunity and this is something Republican Chaffetz should take into consideration before fully purging the ranks.

In the meantime, the Utah Representative has penned a request to the Census Bureau seeking a firm commitment not to hire enumerators with a criminal history in addition to a clearly outlined policy stating which crimes would be disqualifiers for employment. Witch hunt or preemptive strike? You make the call.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 at 5:45 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.