Criminal Background Check Increased for Foster Parents

Criminal Background Check Increased for Foster Parents
By : Bryan Nash

Criminal background check of greater depth will now be required of new Minnesota foster parents and of those renewing their licenses. One of the requisites includes fingerprints to be entered into a national database and will be submitted for a larger amount of criminal background checks. The new proposal was a $1.2 million-a-year overhaul helping to catch applicants slipping through cracks in the system.

Background check in Minnesota will be done at a state level, which will hopefully prevent sexual offenders preying on society’s most vulnerable children through exploiting blind spots in the system. In Wisconsin we see similar changes and the changes comply with a national shift with new federal standards.

A good example of excluding foster parents with a criminal record by performing criminal background checks is foster parent Perry Wayne Pfitzer. He was charged with sexually abusing his two foster daughters, ages 4 and 6, last summer in his home. Had a proper criminal background check been performed, records would have revealed that he had a 1982 conviction of indecent exposure “involving a minor” in a Blaine department store.

However, one of the problems involved in Pfitzer’s background check was that his misdemeanor was so old that it didn’t show up on his record. This is because Minnesota laws make it hard to not grant a license on a misdemeanor so old.

Anoka County’s director of community social services and mental health states that this will clearly give greater breadth to the background checks. He states that the proposal was meant to catch the blind spots and there are definitely blind spots.

The proposed bill, under the changes proposed by Tim Pawlenty, Gov. of Minnesota, would do criminal background check not only in the area of residence for the applicant, however, in the surrounding areas as well. Minnesota laws currently do not check in surrounding areas and state wide. Also, new applicants for foster care and those renewing license will be required to undergo fingerprint checks which would be compared to a national database.

The deeper check routine may in fact help catch molesters slipping through the cracks of the foster care system. An estimated $1.3 million dollars will be spent for Minnesota’s system overhaul. As the assistant commissioner for operations in Minnesota’s Department of Human Services puts it “it’s just simply a better way to do it.”
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