Usage of LifeWay background check program is up 100%
The number of churches signing up for LifeWay Christian Resources' background check program increased by 100 percent over the last year.
Jennie Taylor, marketing coordinator in LifeWay's direct marketing department, said the dramatic increase "shows how serious churches and organizations are about protecting their children, students, employees and congregations."
According to records for the program, nearly 2,800 churches and organizations conducted more than 55,000 background checks in the past year. Of those, 35 percent (18,753) returned a criminal hit, "which is any kind of incident ranging from minor traffic violations to felony convictions," Taylor said. More than 33 percent of the 18,753 criminal hits, or 12 percent of the overall 55,000 checks, returned records with misdemeanor or felony offenses....
Personally, I would not trust LifeWay exclusively. Not saying I would listen to what they had but I would certainly do some other checks to verify what they did or did not find.
What bothers me about this is how a third-party corporation with no accountability is doing background checks, but the people they are checking on have no idea where their information comes from or how it is compiled, and have no way to correct or challenge it. What about false positives? You have no recourse at all, even though this information can affect your employment and livelihood. Most of the databases I've seen about people have a lot of junk information in them. I would not believe anything in these databases.
LifeWay doesn't disclose on its web site (that I can find) who they outsource their background checks to.
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