Can running criminal background checks help reduce elder abuse in nursing homes?

There is much discussion about whether criminal background checks should be allowed or whether they violate an individual’s right to privacy, how they should be used, whether the information in them should prevent employment of anyone with a criminal record forever or for a set period of time.

I think once a person has committed a crime and has been convicted, the record should always be available so that employers can determine whether they want to hire the employee for the particular position if they have committed a particular kind of crime. Forensic psychologist Vern Quincey agrees with me. He thinks employers should have this information available when making hiring decisions. In order to ensure the quality of the care that nursing home residents will receive, we must hire employees who are capable of working with elderly residents—although it is difficult to predict who can and who shouldn’t work with the elderly. One measure to determine whether someone should be employed is their prior criminal history—wouldn’t you want to know if a potential employee was guilty of abusing an elderly person within the last year? Of course, that is the very clear case. Apparently what is less clear, although I don’t agree, is whether a conviction unrelated to elder abuse which occurred 20 years ago should be considered in the employer’s decision to hire this person. I personally think all criminal convictions and information about a potential employee should be available. If more information is available to the employer, a more informed decision can be made. Bryan Robinson proposes that all potential employees should have a criminal background check if they want to work in a nursing home, including janitors and maintenance workers. I agree. If a nursing home is considering hiring an employee with a criminal record, then some kind of psychological profiling should be conducted to determine whether this individual will potentially abuse the elderly he/she is working with. Also, according to Vern Quincy, all arrest records should be available since they are more complete than the conviction record which would be obtained after a plea bargain.

Since there is a shortage of workers which will only get worse with an increasing population of elderly, there may be times when a nursing home must hire someone who has a criminal record. But under no circumstances should a person be hired who has committed elder abuse previously. Some of the “rules of thumb” proposed by Vern Quincy for hiring employees with a past criminal record are: conduct a clinical assessment (using the history and diagnostic tests) and an actuarial assessment (statistically determine if the offender is likely to commit the same crime, to determine whether they will commit elder abuse). One important consideration according to Quincy is to determine if any prior crime is committed against “a vulnerable population of people.”

According to Vern Quincy, psychopaths have usually committed more crimes (a larger variety of crimes), and have started at an earlier age. Psychopaths are more likely to commit another crime and be abusive if they are repeat offenders. Likewise, if someone has not committed another offense in more than five years since the original offense, that should be considered. The bottom line is that before any potential employees with a criminal record are hired, serious consideration should be given to what was the original crime, when did it occur, what was the nature of the crime, who was involved, was the crime against a vulnerable population and therefore is there a likelihood of another crime being committed by this same person.

Basically, I understand that there may be a shortage of workers at nursing homes; however, I don’t think we should sacrifice the health and well being of our nursing home population. I think the nursing home owners should pay more money for salaries and therefore entice more employees to work in nursing homes. I think the laws of supply and demand work—higher pay for nursing home workers when there is a shortage and lower pay when there are too many available workers.


What Can we learn from Criminal Background Checks. An Interview with Forensic Psychologist Vern Quinsey
http://www.preventelderabuse.org/nexus/bgchecks

Roboinson, Bryan. ABC News “He Choked Me:’ Why Some Elderly Attacks Go Unnoticed. March 7, 2002. http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=91848

Update On Conviction of Cesar Ulloa: He was found guilty of all 8 counts of torture and elder abuse

My last blog discussed the trial of Cesar Ulloa, a former employee of a very upscale retirement home, Silverado Senior Living in Calabasas, who was charged with elder abuse for physically assaulting and abusing residents of the retirement home. Here is the update- the trial has ended and he was convicted!

Jurors only deliberated for five hours to find that Cesar Ulloa was guilty of all eight counts against him. Cesar could get life in prison when he is sentenced. They didn’t need to deliberate any longer after hearing that he laughed as he abused the residents. Because many of the residents had dementia, they couldn’t understand what was happening and couldn’t get help.
Rita Kittower, who was the widow of one of the victims cried thru the trial, and said, "My husband can now rest in peace, and I can live in peace." Rita is the one who had received an anonymous phone call after her husband’s funeral telling her about the abuse. When they started looking into the allegations and started to get suspicious about Cesar, they found that there were other victims. The families of the victims felt that the jury verdict was fair and “justice was served.”

Silverado Senior Living in Calabasas is supposed to be a very upscale and posh retirement home which costs more than $70,000 a year to live there. One would assume for that kind of money that residents would get the best care possible and would be treated gently and caringly.

I think that Silverado should be help accountable for the abuse of their employees. The victims should bring an action against Silverado and ask for damages for their suffering and abuse. Unless the retirement home is held accountable for this kind of elder abuse, we will never see any change. Cesar was just a low level employee who was not properly trained or supervised. It was the responsibility of the retirement home and its owners to make sure that they supervise, train and teach their employees how to do their jobs in a caring and loving manner. The fact that they didn’t have cameras in the rooms shows that they couldn’t ever see how these patients were being treated when they were being changed, bathed or fed. How was Silverado supervising if the patients had dementia and could not communicate with any supervisors?



The Los Angeles Times. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-elder-abuse9-2010apr09,0,7841577,print.story