Confusion over CORI
For years, Bruce and Laurie Bender, owners of Home Instead Senior Care of Northboro, relied on the state’s Criminal Offender Record Information system to screen out people with relevant criminal records from the many employees it hires for its in-home elderly care service. The CORI checks, state mandated for the elderly care business, worked. The Benders prided themselves on their company’s service and their franchise was growing steadily - until one day last July. That’s when Home Instead got a call from Ashland police saying that they were about to arrest one of its caregivers for running up some $30,000 in purchases on the elderly client’s charge card.
Ronald Ernenwein, president of AA Transportation Co. in Shrewsbury, which provides school bus, limousine and trucking services, shares an opposite CORI perspective. An area school district secretary called him one day to say Ernenwein had to fire a bus driver that had been a model employee for him for five years because of the CORI the district had gotten. As it turned out, Ernenwein says, the report listed an arrest on a charge of disturbing the peace, that was dismissed 20 years ago.
These two CORI experiences underscore a debate over what many contend is a system out of control. Critics charge that further restrictions on access to CORI information could exacerbate problems with a system that is already not providing information needed by the agencies and companies that use it for employee background checks, to protect their customers, clients or the public. But ex-prisoners’ rights advocates and other CORI users say it’s used unfairly by some employers to bar qualified perspective employees from the workforce, preventing them from being productive members of society.
The issue of CORI reform, a subject of debate in the recent gubernatorial election, is expected to be a focus of Gov. Deval Patrick’s administration and state lawmakers in the months ahead.
CORI out of control?
CORI was started in 1972 as a centralized data base of criminal records for law enforcement and government agencies that were required to do criminal checks before hiring or licensing certain people, notes Ernest Winsor, staff attorney for the non-profit Massachusetts Law Reform Institute. In 1977, following the arrest of a school bus driver on pornography charges, CORI was made accessible to a third category of users - any agency or individual "where it has been determined that the public interest in disseminating such information" outweighed the privacy rights of the CORI subjects. The board overseeing CORI, the Criminal History Systems Board, decided which applicants were certified to have CORI access and how much access they have.
Over the past several decades, access to CORI has been steadily expanding to provide access, and increasingly mandated checks, by entities serving elderly, children and disabled; state health and human service providers; nursing homes, school districts and more, Winsor says. For example, the CORI website lists towing companies with police contracts, legislative committee, commercial ground carriers and body art practitioners (providers of tattoos and body piercings), insurance companies and fuel suppliers among those with access. The number of businesses and agencies certified has mushroomed to more than 10,000, requesting some 1.5 million CORI reports each year. That amounts to about 5,000 CORI reports each working day, Winsor says.
Since in Massachusetts, anyone arraigned in a criminal court – even those acquitted or with cases dismissed – has a criminal record, the CORI database has also ballooned over the years. State procedures for individuals to have such records sealed, corrected or removed are cumbersome, Winsor and other critics charge. The records not only include felony and misdemeanor charges and convictions, but also arraignments and pending case information. Thus, Winsor says, in a state with a population of under 6 million, the CORI database contains records on 2.8 million people. Much of it, he terms "junk CORI" that he says is senselessly used to keep people from pursuing employment and education.
Just what information CORI requesters receive is determined by their certification and can include dismissals, not guilty findings and pending procedures. Records date back as far as the individual’s record goes. The general public can obtain recent felony convictions on an individual from CORI by sending in a request with the required fee.
The Mass. Law Reform Institute and other CORI critics, including the Worcester-based non-profit EPOCA (Ex-Prisoners and Prisoners Organizing for Community Advancement), contend that far too many entities now have access to an out-of-control CORI system riddled with outdated and, sometimes inaccurate, information. What’s more, critics say, many of those receiving CORI reports – still in the format designed for law enforcement users – don’t understand what they’re getting on such documents. The result, they say, is that many agencies and businesses use any kind of CORI record to reject applicants out of hand.
Ronald Ernenwein, president of AA Transportation Co., says CORI users should use common sense in considering the criminal records it supplies.More screening options
Against the backdrop of the CORI debate, employers are faced with weighing options for screening employees at a time when there are more tools than ever at their disposal, as well as more liability threats regarding their hiring decisions. A recent survey of 196 Boston-area businesses found that 80 percent of them have a formal policy for background checks compared with 71 percent two years ago, according to Waltham Attorney Robert Shea, who recently provided guidance on the subject to the Smaller Business Association of New England. He notes that, thanks to the Internet, background checks on prospective employees are easier to conduct than ever and private background check services are more affordable.
Area companies agree that there is more pressure than ever to screen applicants for criminal history. They acknowledge that an ongoing lawsuit by the family of murdered fashion writer Christa Worthington against the trash company whose driver was convicted of killing her, reinforces the need for employers to be cautious.
Most business people who talked to WBJ also say they considered any criminal history of applicants on a case-by-case basis and sympathized with the struggle people trying to overcome a criminal history face in the job market. However, only one company, which asked not to be named, was considering changing its hiring policy to consider convicted felons - only through a training program being launched by EPOCA. All other employers we talked with said they would likely not hire a convicted felon, though, they added, they had not faced that decision.
"I want to know that my clients are safe," says Ernenwein, at AA Transportation. He does CORI checks on not just school bus drivers, but limo and truck drivers as well. But, Ernenwein says, he uses common sense to guide hiring decisions.
The Charlton-based Masonic Health System, which operates a nursing home and visiting nurses agency, also relies on CORI, which it is mandated to check. Thomas Leckrone, vice president of human resources there, says thus far his company hasn’t had any "surprises" with workers that checked out with CORI. However, he says, he can see where, based on the information the CORI process specifies for its search, there could be aliases missed as in the Home Instead case.
Offering a different tack, as a non-mandated business, is Stephen Buchalter, president of Worcester-based Enterprise Cleaning Corp. He prefers to rely on an intensive interview process and tight supervision of his company’s 90-person staff rather than CORI. Some of his company’s clients, such as banks or municipalities, do CORI checks on Enterprise’s applicants to meet their requirements, he says.
Atlas Distributing Inc. in Auburn, distributor of beer and soda, uses outside services to do background checks for its staff of 120. Jack Lepore, vice president of finance and operations, says Atlas is required to do background checks for the Department of Transportation and for its insurers. Atlas has used Worcester Record Search Inc. of Shrewsbury for more than five years to check criminal records, including searching area courts for pending cases. At $50 to $75 per check, Lepore says the process gives him "confidence" in hiring decisions.
As for the Benders, they now use a private firm to do social security traces on all applicants for Home Instead’s 150-member staff, to get a list of all people using a given social security number. While that doesn’t give criminal background on each name received, Laurie Bender says her company tells applicants up front they will not be hired if the search turns up any names the applicant didn’t supply them with.
Barry LaCroix, executive director of the Criminal History Systems Board, wouldn’t comment on specifics of the Home Instead case, beyond saying the board’s staff did have a conference call with the Benders at the request of State Sen. Harriett Chandler. He says there has been no change to the CORI system in the past two years and that, while the board doesn’t require a social security number be submitted by a CORI user, if it was, it would be used in the CORI search.
LaCroix won’t say whether he thinks CORI needs overhauling. He does say the board is selective in which companies are given access to what information. Because of the skyrocketing demand for reports, from 100,000 in 1993 to 1.5 million in 1996 (the most recent year for which information is available), he says, CORI has been able to keep up due to automation. The board not only does trainings to help CORI users understand reports, but also provides a guide to CORI codes on the website, LaCroix adds.
EPOCA Executive Director Stephen O∈Neill says too many employers use any CORI record to unfairly shut applicants out of the workforce.A second chance
Steven O’Neill, executive director of EPOCA, counters that "just about everyone" who applies for CORI certification gets it. And, he says, EPOCA’s clients report that prospective employers face few, if any, limits on the CORI data they receive. While state law requires employers to give applicants the chance to review their CORI report and prohibits them from using such records as the sole reason for not hiring, O’Neill contends that oftentimes applicants with CORI records are just passed over for the job.
O’Neill says that in 1994, 56 percent of businesses in the state checked CORI. By 2004, he says, that number had climbed to 80 percent. The increased use of CORI by employers has meant that more and more people with criminal records - even those far in their past or not relevant to the job they are seeking - are being shut out from the workforce, he says.
EPOCA joined with the Workforce Central Career Center last November to launch the New Leaf Program, which works with people with past criminal records to prepare them for the business world as well as with companies that have agreed to consider hiring workers who complete the program. Thus far, O’Neill notes, New Leaf has linked up with nine area companies. The program, in turn, helps employers take advantage of government training and tax incentives and bonding programs associated with such hiring practices.
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