Adoptive Parents With Criminal Records

Well, as a new adoptive mother I am shocked. We adopted via a state agency and no we were not allowed to have a felony record. We were told especially assault, domestic violence , or child molestation, rape any such charges would hinder us from adopting. I have a friend that tried to adopt her own nephew and she could not adopt him because her and her husband had domestic violence charges, which was a felony. I feel convicted felons should not be able to adopt not even their own relatives. I don't feel you are being to harsh. Both my husband and I had clean criminal records. With our agency they did a nationwide criminal record check and in pursuing adoption during our initial research process I realized that some private agencies only did a local check on prospective adoptive parents which is very dangerous, because if that person committed a felony in another state the agency would not be able to confirm it. I only found this to be true with private agencies. The state agencies are alot stricter.