Is Criminal Record Screening Ethical?

In some work field a criminal record screening is required by law. For instance if you want to work as a teacher, a day care worker, an elderly care facility, or an adult day care facility, you will be required by law to take a criminal record screening. The objective is to keep people that are vulnerable to crime safe.

Although those are the only fields that require criminal record screening by law. Most employers practice employer screening for their safety and the safety of their employees. If they don't provide criminal record screening for their other employees, they may be liable for negligent hiring practices at some point in the future.

Negligent hiring suits can be very costly to accompany, and this type of lawsuit has grown considerably in the last ten to twenty years.

Because of world globalization and the growth of the internet, companies hire more transitory people. The crime rate within this group of people has increased dramatically, that is why a company wants to be safe and keep their other employees safe too. So his has become another important reason for companies to perform criminal record screening.

Since the fiasco of 9/11 people are worried about infiltration of terrorists in their midst. The last thing a company wants is to have a company hostage situation, or a kidnapping situation, or any type of terrorist activity on their premises. The best way they can think of to avoid such situations is to perform criminal record screening on each of their employee applications.

Is this discriminatory? Many civil liberties groups would say yes, but the practice is not meant to be discriminatory. Criminal record screening applications are set into place to keep the workplace safe. That is the main goal.

Companies are said to have lost over 36 million dollars last year alone because of embezzlement, and theft by employees. They need to stop or control this from happening and the easiest and most efficient means of doing this, at least for now is through criminal record screening checks.

Are applicants who have some minor type of criminal record discriminated against? This is a hard question to answer. The truth is that, they shouldn't be. There are certain regulations that are put into place regarding criminal records. Certain minor infractions should be disregarded. The question is: Are they? The truth is that most people that are in the personnel hiring department are judgmental. They want to avoid problems at all costs, and usually just discard an applicant who has any kind of criminal record, no matter what it is.

This of course is unfair to the applicant, the applicant may well be very qualified for the job, but his early criminal record will interfere with his ability to get a job. This is the problem we as a society need to work on. What kind of a life are we relegating this human being to have?

Criminal Record