If hiring a convicted rapist once proves embarrassing and leaves you vulnerable to all sorts of liability issues, then hiring the same rapist a second time, must certainly be the charm. According to the Los Angeles Times, the County of Los Angeles, just hired the same X-Ray technologist who had been previously convicted for rape. The first transgression on the part of thsi employee cost Los Angeles $290,000 in 1990’s money. What this might have amounted to, had he committed new transgressions while on the job, is anybody’s guess.
You have to wonder about the type of background checks, and if there are in fact updated criminal background checks being conducted on employment candidates. I realize with the economic downturn there have been budget cuts and loss of municipal personnel who screen job candidates. But still, considering the liability issues and the huge amounts of cash the County has paid out in settlements already, you would think a city the size of Los Angeles would retain a sufficient preemployment screening program. Guess not. Now certainly there are rules about hiring convicted felons. And certainly there are issues about hiring rapists for hospital work. When you think of the hundred so patients lying helpless in their beds, it is practically the happy hunting ground for sexual deviants. But yet here we are with another embarrassing situation.
If this is not a cautionary note to conduct background searches on all of your employment candidates, I really don’t know what is. Yet, it is one thing to have a preemployment screening policy. It is quite another to be sure you retain an effective preemployment screening policy. For that you need both a good outsourcing background checking service and in-house human resource people who have something on the ball. Without that, headlines that made the LA Times could be about your company.
We at Corra Group will be most interested to see how this case plays out.
