NCJ Number
236468
Date Published
August 2011
Length
32 pages
Annotation
The U.S. General Accountability Office (GAO) presents an overview of Federal and State laws related to the employment of sex offenders at child-care facilities, and it examines cases in which individuals who were convicted of serious sexual offenses were subsequently employed or were present at child-care facilities.
Abstract
GAO found that Federal laws regulate the employment of sex offenders at Federal child-care facilities; federally operated facilities are required to conduct criminal-history checks on employees, as are facilities that receive grants from the Department of Health and Human Services' Head Start program. At the State level, laws vary widely; although all 50 States require criminal-history checks for owners and employees of licensed child-care facilities, many State laws exempt facilities from licensing if they do not exceed certain thresholds, such as a minimum number of children. Penalties for violating licensing requirements can range from a $5.00 administrative fine to imprisonment for a term of years. The cases GAO examined provide examples of individuals convicted of serious sexual offenses who gained access to child-care facilities as maintenance workers, spouses or friends of providers, a cafeteria worker, and a cook. At least seven of these cases involved offenders who previously targeted children; and in three of the cases, the offenders used their access to children at the facilities to reoffend. GAO found instances of providers who knowingly hired offenders and did not perform a pre-employment criminal-history check. GAO also found examples of facilities operating without licenses, as well as facilities that employed offenders while receiving Federal funds. The report does not offer any recommendations. Where applicable, GAO referred its cases for further investigation. The cases GAO examined involved only individuals who were convicted of serious sexual offenses, so the findings cannot be generalized to encompass all child-care facilities. 2 tables