Criminal Background Check – A Comparison

Criminal Background Check – A Comparison

When is a criminal background check not a criminal background check?  When it doesn’t deliver accurate results in a timely manner.  The search for criminal records always begins at the local courthouse level in the county where the applicant resides, or has lived, gone to school, or been employed.  The public records contained here follow a criminal action from arrest to conviction or acquittal, and all the steps in between.  Records that come from the county level are generally obtained from retrievers, individuals whose job it is to go to the local courthouse and look up and report records to interested parties, maybe a background check company or an attorney or insurance company.

A step broader that the county search is the statewide repository.  These are provided by state law enforcement entities that maintain them and are made available to the public from some, but not all states.  The states receive the information from law enforcement and court agencies in that state.  The problem with state repositories is that not all agencies consistently report activity to them.  Another is that they are frequently expensive, slow to obtain, and the information is more likely to be restricted than a criminal background check that comes from the county courthouse.  The advantage is that is covers a much broader area than a county search.  Your background company will advise you which states are dependable and economical and which ones aren’t.

A step above the statewide search is the National Crime Information Center, which maintains information gathered from jurisdictions all over the country.  Access to this information is severely restricted and unavailable to the public for employment purposes, and the reporting error and missing record rate is high.

Frequently represented as a National Criminal Background Check are records that are offered by a background check company that (there are several of them) maintains its own commercial database, containing millions of records.  These records are purchased from jurisdictions that make them available electronically in bulk.  They are periodically uploaded to the computer equipment of the background check company and resold to companies as National Background Checks.  These are not usually current and can’t be considered comprehensive in any way, as so many jurisdictions are not included.  An employer should never depend on a commercial database to make a hiring decision, as most background check experts do not consider them compliant with current federal laws regulating the background check industry.

Finally, there is the Federal Court System, which houses the records of those that have violated federal statutes, everything from littering a national park to the RICOH Act.  These records are generally obtained by a retriever.

Need help with your criminal background check?  Call background check experts at 770-426-0547 or click Background Checks.