国内一些城市正在采取措施充分保护公民。例如，宾夕法尼亚州科茨维尔市正在考虑对消防部门的员工和志愿者进行全面的犯罪背景调查。在科茨维尔，目前有全职和志愿消防员。新政策如果获得通过，将只适用于新的志愿者和员工，而不适用于已经在服务的人。该市考虑这一变化的主要原因之一是全职员工和志愿者在背景调查方面将经历相同的过程。
虽然这个想法肯定存在，但该市目前正在组建一个探索委员会，以决定将要检查的内容以及这些背景调查的范围。在检查所有员工和志愿者的背景时，重要的是他们都经历了相同的过程。
科茨维尔市表示，没有单一事件导致这一想法扎根，但在消防部门和缺乏背景调查方面存在问题的历史。一个例子是罗伯特·特雷西的案例，他是一名志愿消防员。 当一系列纵火事件发生时，他正在担任该市的助理消防队长。特蕾西被判纵火罪。在他被捕后，发现他有纵火史以及两项开空头支票罪和两项盗窃罪。在被捕之前，他从未接受过背景调查。消防部门从来没有说过这起案件是进行背景调查的原因，他们只是说他们希望朝着积极的方向前进。
通过使用 GOOHO等第三方公司的服务，在背景调查方面，像宾夕法尼亚州科茨维尔消防部门这样的公司可以继续朝着积极的方向前进。公司 GOOHO 有很多不同的产品，比如持续犯罪监控，这对消防部门来说是一个好主意，因为他们只计划对新员工进行背景调查。如果他们的任何雇员或志愿者被起诉或被判犯有任何罪行，这将允许部门得到通知。 让科茨维尔的居民远离火灾是消防部门的一项工作，现在他们也在努力保护他们免受犯罪分子的侵害。
Some cities in the nation are taking steps in order to fully protect citizens. For example, the city of Coatesville, PA is considering putting employees and volunteers from their fire department through full criminal background checks. In Coatesville, there are currently both full time and volunteer firefighters. The new policy, if passed, would only apply to new volunteers and employees, not those who are already serving. One of the main reason the city is considering this change is so full time employees and volunteers will be going through the same process when it comes to background checks.
Though the idea is certainly out there, the city is currently forming an exploratory committee as to decide what will be checked and how extensive these background checks would be. It is important when checking the backgrounds of all employees and volunteers that all of them go through the same process.
The city of Coatesville states that there was no single event that caused this idea to take hold, but there is a history of issues when it comes to the fire department and their lack of background checks. One example is the case of Robert Tracey, who was a volunteer fire fighter. He was serving as the assistant Fire Chief of the city when a series of arsons took place. Tracey was convicted of the arsons. After his arrest it was found that he had a history of arson as well as two counts of writing bad checks and two counts of theft. He had never been subject to a background check until he was arrested. The fire department has never said that this case is the cause of the move towards background checks, they only say they wish to move in a positive direction.
Companies like the Coatesville, PA fire department can continue to move in a positive direction when it comes to background checks by using the services of third party companies like backgroundchecks.com. The company backgroundchecks.com have a lot of different products, like Ongoing Criminal Monitoring which would be a great idea for the fire department since they are only planning on performing background checks on those who are new hires. This would allow the department to be notified if any of their employees or volunteers are indicted or convicted of any crime. Keeping the residents of Coatesville safe from fires is one job of the fire department and now they are also moving towards keeping them safe from criminals.
