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Criminal RCMP Background Checks Taking Forever' In Canada
With the holidays coming up, Janet Adams was looking to supplement her income from her part-time job. So she landed a second gig driving a taxi.
Or so she thought.
Ms. Adams learned that the criminal information request she had to have processed by Durham police to qualify for the job would take several weeks to complete, meaning she'll miss out on the potentially lucrative opportunity.
"I thought I'd supplement my income over the holidays, but guess what? I can't start working until January," she said.
"The criminal checks are taking forever."
Ms. Adams isn't alone. Enhanced criminal record checks implemented by the RCMP mean the waiting time for clearance has increased from two weeks to five weeks and more in Durham. People who need the checks done to start jobs or do volunteer work are in some cases finding themselves in a bind.
It's an issue Durham police are aware of and are working to address, said spokesman Dave Selby.
"We feel badly about the people being caught up in this," he said. "We're doing a lot of things to try and bring that length of time down."
Improvements can't come quickly enough for Roy Williams, whose Blue Line Taxi company is short drivers because new employees are held up waiting for the checks, which are required by the City of Oshawa.
Mr. Williams, Ms. Adams and just about anybody you could talk to agree that the premise behind the checks is sound: They're designed to identify people with criminal records that would make them unsuitable for positions of trust, including working with vulnerable people such as seniors, the handicapped and children.
Durham police search data banks for prior criminal charges and convictions listed on the Canadian Police Information Centre system, and if an applicant has lived in the region for less than five years, will make an inquiry with police in the jurisdiction the subject has moved from.
But the process has become significantly more cumbersome with changes implemented by the RCMP and imposed on municipal forces such as Durham police. Local police forces are now required to flag an applicant in the event there are matches to a list of the nation's 14,000 pardoned sex offenders, said Susan Cardwell, records manager with Durham police. A match could occur in two ways: if the applicant's name and date of birth match someone on the list, or if their gender and birthdate are a match.
Should there be a match, the applicant must have fingerprints taken by local police and sent to the RCMP for analysis before a clean record can be confirmed.
That added layer of security means the number of people having to go through the second step has increased greatly, from fewer than 100 a year to as many as 3,000, Ms. Cardwell said.
Another new RCMP rule -- that applicants must have their search done in the municipality in which they live -- has increased the number of CIRs coming in to Durham police. People in Durham had previously been able to go to other jurisdictions, such as Port Hope, where the system was less burdened and the checks could be completed within days.
"Within the first week, we realized there were going to be difficulties," Ms. Cardwell said.
While the days of two-week turnarounds for the checks are probably gone for good, Durham police are moving to trim the amount of time the process takes, Ms. Cardwell said. She hopes enhanced technology, including real-time checks of criminal records -- doing checks while applicants wait and identifying any potential issues right away -- will help. There may also be opportunities to electronically obtain and send off fingerprints to the RCMP for quicker comparisons.
In the meantime, Ms. Cardwell urges people requiring checks to be cognizant of the time they may require. And she urges organizations to consider whether or not criminal records checks are necessary for all workers or volunteers.
"This is affecting police services from coast to coast," Ms. Cardwell said.
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