A bill that would expand the background check access of summer camps beyond state records has been re-introduced by Sen. Charles Schumer of New York. Schumer aims to give summer camps access to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)'s sex offender registry.
"Right now, there is a serious gap in federal law that is making it harder for summer camps, day cares and other child-serving organizations to fully screen their paid and volunteer applicants," Schumer said, as per Syracuse. Schumer's bill is called the Child Protection Improvement and Electronic Life and Safety Security Systems Act.
Schumer pushes for summer camp access to federal sex offender list https://t.co/pV9pFFaCTk
— The Post-Star (@poststar) June 8, 2016
What The Bill Is
Under the bill, summer camps and other youth-serving groups would be notified about background check results regarding violent or sex crimes about prospective employees or volunteers from the FBI. The summer camps and youth-serving groups would be paying a small amount for the check.
In New York, The Post Star reported that summer camps and other organizations can only do background checks based on limited state records or choose to pay large amounts of money for private background checks. "This critical information that is being withheld could allow sex offenders to work with children," Schumer said.
FBI Access Long Time Coming
According to CBS New York, the American Camping Association has been pushing Congress for full affordable access to the FBI's crime records for their background checks of new employees. At present, it was reported that privacy laws place restrictions as to who can access the FBI's crime records.
"I think all camp directors would welcome the ability to do quick, thorough search and it would only help all of our kids," said Camp Coleman Owner Ross Coleman. Schumer's proposed bill has support from both Democrats and Republicans.
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