The University of Virginia plans to begin screening all students against a state law-enforcement database before each semester, The Washington Post reports. The university’s president, John T. Casteen III, told the Post that he was concerned by campus officials’ lack of knowledge of a prior arrest, 70 miles away, of a student who was charged this week with first-degree murder in the death of another student. Virginia’s student code requires self-disclosures of any arrests or convictions, Mr. Casteen told the Post, but the alleged killer apparently did not report his prior arrest. Colleges generally ask applicants to disclose any convictions, but regular background checks of enrolled students would be highly unusual.
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7 Responses to U. of Virginia Plans Background Checks of All Students
bdr8y - May 7, 2010 at 7:56 am
What will the criminal litmus be? What about situations where victims of intimate partner violence might be co-arrested when versions of the events conflict? I am simply suggesting that this could get messy and complicated.
rick1952 - May 7, 2010 at 9:15 am
While conducting criminal background checks may sound good initially, I believe it will less effective than expected. Given first-hand experience, I have learned that the background check companies and processes they use are less accurate than the general public is led to believe. Our institution has had background checks on applicants fail to turn up criminal convictions that students self-reported on their applications as part of the required disclosure process. Our institution had a student enrolled who had a felony conviction that involved a weapons charge but the student did not have to disclose that conviction because it was part of a sealed record given that the conviction occured when the student was a minor and a background check would not reveal that. We discovered the situation when the student’s probation officer sought access to the residence hall in which the student lived.The level of background check requested will determine the thoroughness of the check (e.g., just your home state, all 50 states, all convictions, just felonies, etc.) Even a comprehensive background check will not guarantee discovery or confirmation of criminal convictions. Of course, the more thorough the background check, the more expensive the charge for it. So, who will bear the cost of the background check? The students (the vast majority of whom are conviction-free) or the institution (which ultimately will pass the cost on to the student indirectly through higher tuition and fees)?Given the nature of the tragic death at the University of Virginia, I think it might be more helpful and cost-effective to allocate resources (time, budget and staff) to more comprehensive initiatives that address dating violence, mental health counseling and social norms campaigns that challenge peer-on-peer violence and other measures that could reduce the risk of this type of violence. Not every student who will be harmed (that is, injured or killed) on campus will be the victim of a peer with a prior criminal conviction; it is more likely that the student who harms another student will be one with no previous criminal conviction. There are agencies in our communities that have developed programs for education, counseling and legal responses to dating/domestic violence. We (higher education) should work more extensively with these agencies to do more prevention-related work and rely less on the criminal justice system if we want to create safer campuses.
22280998 - May 7, 2010 at 10:11 am
This is just CYA for administrators. Since juvenile records are sealed, very little information will actually be found. Prior to instituting our system, the backgrounds of those few students who had “proven to be problems” was examined. None of them had anything on their records. Given the risk adverse nature of corporate university administration, this will also result in rejecting everyone with anything in their background (just to be on the safe side).
ais23 - May 7, 2010 at 2:14 pm
Will faculty and staff also have repeated background checks every 6 months? What about independent contractors who work on campus? What about neighbors who live adjacent to the campus? This seems like a knee-jerk reaction that doesn’t have thought-out policies and procedures to set out the logistics.
backfull - May 7, 2010 at 2:41 pm
In response to 3, “sealed” records are an anachronism these days. Arrest records and court appearances can now be found via routine online searches, even for cases involving juveniles that result in expungement. Ironically, information on the expungement of records do not appear, perhaps by definition. How will Virginia deal with records that are incomplete in that they show only the accusations and not the final disposition?
11126724 - May 9, 2010 at 10:32 am
One more step towards a police state…and how much will it cost? Hooray for academic fascism! Students, are you ready to pay tuition and fee increases to cover background checks? And will university administrators be subject to background checks as well? They have much greater influence over many more students than a student does.
traneman - May 10, 2010 at 5:17 pm
The problem with disclosing any arrests is that many arrests never result in a conviction or admission of guilt. In other words, many innocent people are arrested and then released every year. Any kid on the street can be arrested for just about anything he or she may be suspected of, but later exonerated.And that is why employment applications were changed a few decades ago to ask only is a person has been “CONVICTED” of a crime. I have seen young people arrested for disorderly conduct or harassment, interferring with police, etc., solely as a means of harassment by an officer with a chip on his shoulder. The officer then never shows up in court because he never planned to, but he has inconvenienced someone by having them locked up, pay bail, and then have to go to court–sometimes with a a paid lawyer, only to have the case dismissed. That “teaches those young wise-asses a lesson,” as one of my police officer neighbors have said on more than one occasion. So why should such a thing haunt a student when he or she applies to U. of Virginia? And anyone can sign a complaint/counter complaint against anyone. And it will be eventually dismissed–but the record of the arrest remains.