Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Parks ok with hiring criminals

From the NY Post:

Advocates say the city Parks Department overlooks the sordid results of its background checks on job applicants — and even puts new hires in the field before the criminal screening is complete. 

“When you go into your public park, you should know if the person working there is a murderer, sexual predator or bank robber,” said Geoffrey Croft of NYC Park Advocates. 

Shockingly, even when the city is aware of an applicant’s violent past, the job seeker is not automatically rejected for work in the parks. 

A criminal record in and of itself does not disqualify an applicant,” agency spokeswoman Vickie Karp said. “If the offenses involve recent behavior, or if an applicant exhibits anti-social or disruptive behavior during the hiring process, we would decline to hire that person.” 

Karp said the city collects fingerprints, which are sent to the state Division of Criminal Justice Services. The state then checks for convictions through an FBI search. 

The background review continues during the term of employment if new details are brought to Parks’ attention, Karp said. She refused to say whether workers are put into the field before background checks are complete — which several Parks employees told The Post was common practice.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

How many jobs finish a criminal background check on someone before hiring them? Not many. Picking up leaves is not rocket science. Ex-cons are free to wander through parks as it is. A non-issue. With fake IDs the only real way to check is sending fingerprints to the FBI and that whole process takes forever.

Anonymous said...

“When you go into your public park, you should know if the person working there is a murderer, sexual predator or bank robber,”

Really - what good would that do? We rarely know the history of the people we encounter on a daily basis - our neighbors, the person sitting next to me on the subway, or on the park bench, the livery car/cab driver.

Queens Crapper said...

Actually, I can't think of a job I've ever had that I was allowed to start without having results from a drug or background check. Some of them even do credit checks.

Anonymous said...

" With fake IDs the only real way to check is sending fingerprints to the FBI and that whole process takes forever."

And that's what the Parks Dept does.

Karp said the city collects fingerprints, which are sent to the state Division of Criminal Justice Services. The state then checks for convictions through an FBI search.


Try reading the article before commenting.

Anonymous said...

We've got a lot of criminals working in NYC.
Some even get to be mayor!

Anonymous said...

They hired Estelle Cooper, so why not?

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
They hired Estelle Cooper, so why not?
------------------------------------------------------

DARN!!! You beat me to it!!!

Anonymous said...

They hired Estelle cooper? What about her daughter and son in law? Estelle wasn't a criminal she became on when she saw how easy it was. Ask yourself why.

Anonymous said...

TSA did the same thing in its early days, allowing people to start screening for terrorists before their background checks were completed.

Anonymous said...

This is news? have you seen the people that work in the parks? I always assumed is was some kind of work-release program.

Anonymous said...

They need to screen their community service workers too.