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.

A January 14th convening of the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control board (DHEC) revealed that individuals who apply for a license to run a state-approved home for elderly and disadvantaged persons do not require criminal background checks. Even worse, if a check did uncover a felony record, that individual is still entitled to obtain a license.

“This is lunacy” remarked DHEC chairman Paul Aughtry. “If you look back at the history of this industry going back many years, it has people who shouldn’t be there.”

Board members found themselves blown away by the revelation that there could exist a giant loophole permitting convicted criminals to work alongside individuals barely able to care for themselves.

Pam Dukes, Deputy Commissioner of the DHEC, said existing state laws don’t allow the Department the authority to require background screening for individuals seeking a license to run a residential care facility. Well, how about taking some steps to make that a requirement before a tragedy occurs?

The Executive Director of Protection and Advocacy for People with Diabilities, Gloria Prevost, said “This is absolutely critical. We are dealing with extraordinarily vulnerable people.”

DHEC staff members have been tasked by the board to report back by September with the best manner in which to tackle the lack of background checks in the license application process. (At this point we would like to make the following suggestion: push to make them mandatory as part of state law!)

It’s a little disconcerting overall, if you ask me. Consider how different this situation would be if it were individuals seeking licenses that would allow them to work with children and no background check was required? There would be a mob battering down the gates of the state legislature demanding immediate change to the law.

What needs to be recognized is that the elderly and disabled are just as vulnerable to the predation of unscreened individuals as children are. Crimes committed against them are just as serious and hopefully nothing serious results from this faulty state licensing system in between now and whenever a solution is instituted.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 1st, 2010 at 5:36 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.