18May
Is Your Employee Background Screening Process Illegal?
SecurityInfoWatch.com (05/08/12) Pritchard, Eric
Ninety-two percent of employers subject job candidates to criminal backgrounds investigations in order to combat theft and fraud, address concerns about workplace violence, and meet state and local laws, like licensing requirements or those requiring background checks for particular positions. However, whether employers can make personnel decisions based on a criminal record often presents a complicated legal issue that implicates state and federal law. A new set of guidelines issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) indicates that an employer’s good reason to employ criminal background checks may not be enough. The EEOC’s new guidance clarifies the agency’s long-standing policy on employers’ use of criminal background checks in hiring decisions. Hiring decisions that treat criminal history information differently for different applicants based on their race or national origin is obviously discriminatory, but the report makes clear that even general hiring policies related to criminal history may be discriminatory. The EEOC ultimately says that hiring policies that exclude candidates based on criminal history should be job related and a business necessity. The guidelines offer employers some best practices for using criminal background checks and information about criminal history in hiring policies and hiring decisions. They will need to treat arrests and convictions differently, as well as eliminate general hiring policies or practices that exclude candidates from employment based on any criminal record and replace them with narrowly tailored written screening practices that consider the nature of the job, the nature and gravity of the criminal conduct, and the time elapsed since the conduct. This kind of individualized assessment in the hiring process allows candidates the chance to explain a criminal history report before they are rejected outright. The guidance explicitly states that federal law trumps state and local laws, which may create a conflict for employer depending on a state’s specific licensing or permitting laws for electronic security providers.
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Editor’s Note:
Get your own legal opinion but what this means is: Allow them a chance to explain–then you can reject them.
11May
Rethinking High-Rise Evacuations
Security Management (05/01/12) P. 38 Spadanuta, Laura
Nearly all of the occupants of the Twin Towers who were below the floors where the planes struck on Sept. 11, 2001, were able to evacuate the buildings before the collapse. The National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) says that this is partly due to planning and drills implemented after the attack in 1993, and partly because of structural factors. However, additional analysis shows that there is much room for improvement in high-rise evacuations. The NIST, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), and other groups have made efforts to improve evacuations in these buildings. Two ongoing developments include the use of elevators and the appropriateness of partial evacuations. Adjustments to the NFPA’s 2012 Life Safety code may begin to change the use of elevators in emergency evacuations. Buildings that want the option of using elevators for emergencies must meet certain requirements, some of which may be too difficult for buildings with older elevators. Newer high-rise structures, however, may incorporate new designs in their elevators to allow for their use in an emergency. Although 9/11 needed the buildings to be completely emptied, most fires or other emergencies do not require such an extensive evacuation. Only partial evacuation may be necessary in a fire, such as the actual fire floor and the floors immediately above and below. As newer buildings are built to withstand fires better, building occupants must also change their thinking, that full evacuations are not always necessary.
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04May
Arrests Made in Lilly Heist
Wall Street Journal (05/03/12) Rockoff, Jonathan D.
Authorities said Thursday that they have broken up a group that was allegedly involved in the theft of more than $70 million in prescription drugs from an Eli Lilly warehouse in Connecticut in March 2010. That announcement came after Amaury and Amed Villa were arrested in connection with their involvement in the theft and indicted on federal conspiracy and theft charges. Amaury Villa and 10 other men were also indicted on other charges stemming from the theft, including conspiracy to sell stolen medicines and other goods. During the theft at the Eli Lilly warehouse, thieves cut a hole into the roof of the building and used a rope to slide down to the floor. The thieves then stole 49 pallets of anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, and other types of prescription medicines. The drugs were eventually recovered. Following the theft, Eli Lilly and other pharmaceutical companies stepped up security of their warehouses and tractor trailers that were being used to haul prescription drugs. These security measures included surveillance cameras on the roofs of warehouses, bars under skylights, and using two drivers in tractor trailers so that medicines are not left unattended. Those security measures have helped bring the number of prescription drugs thefts down to 36 last year, while the value of those thefts declined as well to roughly $21 million.
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04May
In National Archives Thefts, a Radio Detective Gets His Man
Washington Post (05/03/12) P. A1 Wilber, Del Quentin
A retired National Archives official is scheduled to be sentenced in federal court on Thursday on charges of stealing thousands of historical radio recordings from the agency. Some of the recordings that 67-year-old Leslie Waffen of Rockville, Md., has admitted to stealing from the Archives are rare, including a recording of the 1937 Hindenburg tragedy. Prosecutors say that Waffen stole more than 2,100 recordings from the Archives and kept some in his home, while more than 1,000 others were sold. A total of 6,153 recordings were seized from Waffen’s home. Waffen faces between a year and a half to two years in prison after being convicted on charges of stealing federal government property. Authorities were able to track down Waffen with the help of a Connecticut radio historian named J. David Goldin, who had donated some of the radio recordings to the National Archives that were later stolen and sold by Waffen. Goldin was able to alert authorities to the theft on 2010 after he recognized a recording on eBay as one of the items that he donated to the National Archives in 1976. Goldin purchased an item from the person who sold the recording on eBay and traced the seller’s address back to Waffen, who was the very same person at the National Archives who accepted Goldin’s donated recordings in the mid-’70s.
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