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Sep 24, 2006 1:44 pm US/Central
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Lawmakers Responding To Carnival Investigation
Some Push For Law Requiring Background Checks For Carnival Workers
(Aurora Beacon-News)
A move to protect children from carnival companies who hire workers with dangerous criminal backgrounds including sex offenders is gaining strength with Illinois lawmakers.
A CBS 2/Beacon News investigation exposing the questionable hiring practices revealed how homeless people with criminal records and severe psychiatric disorders were among the people recruited to work at carnivals.
"My initial reaction is one of outrage. I knew we had a problem but I didn't know it was that severe," State Rep. William Black of Danville said.
"I was not aware they were going to homeless shelters and recruiting," Black said.
Prior attempts to pass a law requiring background checks on carnival workers have stalled, but Black believes the CBS 2/Beacon News findings will demand some kind of regulatory action in Springfield.
CBS 2/Beacon News reporters examined police reports and court records and documented the criminal histories of 225 carnival workers who went through background checks by a state task force looking for fugitives and sex offenders at carnivals. The workers had a combined 744 arrests and 184 convictions, including armed robberies, sex offenders and convicted murderers.
The checks were conducted statewide since last year and are just a random look at various carnival staffs.
There is a state law requiring carnival rides to be inspected for safety. There is no law requiring carnival companies to screen employees.
"Illinois has a pretty strong inspection act, they carefully inspect the rides, but we don't seem to give a hoot in hell about the person operating the ride," said Black, who is joined in his efforts by State Rep. Kevin Joyce of Chicago.
"I was infuriated because there is absolutely no responsibility when they do that," Joyce said.
Joyce said the targeting of homeless people and psychiatric patients as form of cheap labor has to be investigated. He said it is disturbing to see someone with serious mental illnesses pulled from treatment and then put in charge of major rides without their medications — "there is no responsibility to the children and the families that they're supposedly entertaining."
Joyce is working on a new bill proposal also requiring carnival workers get trained and certified to operate rides, fingerprinted and then issued state identification badges.
(CBS 2, the Naperville Sun and the Aurora Beacon-News are news partners covering stories in the western suburbs of Chicago.)