Criminal record: investigation of the process of carrying out a criminal check
How often do you turn on the news, hoping to catch the weather report, only to hear another “real life crime” story? It seems like everywhere we look today, from TV to newspaper to radio; we are subject to these tales of horror. Except, unlike a fascinating book that we can’t put down, these stories happen all around us. From global headlines to our own community, we are being targeted by criminals in every way imaginable.
We have all been well aware that we are living in dangerous times. Suspecting the worst in people until we know better is the norm in our world. Unfortunately, even the most cautious can get ripped off by a con artist, trust an unfit babysitter to care for their children, or even hire a dishonest employee. One of the measures used to help protect against these types of crimes is a seemingly simple background search that focuses on an individual’s criminal record.
There are many reasons why someone would want to run a criminal record on someone else; however, they all focus on one universal theme: security. Protecting ourselves, our families, our businesses and our finances are our main concerns. Whether your company has regularly conducted a criminal records search or is just beginning this process, whether or not you have personally conducted such a search before; there is specific information you need to know.
So what is a criminal record and what exactly does it contain? In general, a criminal history record contains identifying information, arrest history, conviction history, incarceration information, and any other possible criminal facts about the individual in question. You could find anything from petty crimes on up; however, there are some things to clarify in the explanation of criminal records. The breakdown is as follows:
Arrest records include various police arrest records. Even this has a broad meaning: some will only report arrests that lead to convictions, while others will report any and all arrests.
Criminal court records include criminal records from local, state, and federal courts.
Correctional records include prison records detailing periods of incarceration.
State criminal repository records include state records which are a compilation of arrest records, criminal court records, and correction records.
The biggest misconception, and many people hold to this belief, is that the United States has a national database that is a compilation of all criminal records everywhere, from the local level to the federal level. This is simply not true.
The closest thing the US has to a nationwide crime database is the Interstate Identification Index, or “Triple-I.”
This compilation is managed through the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Triple-I will include criminal events such as: open warrants, arrests, stolen property, missing persons, and felony and serious misdemeanor provisions (defined as any crime that could result in a year or more in jail). However, there are two things you need to understand about this database.
Only law enforcement personnel and agencies can access the Triple-I database. There is no nationwide criminal database available to the normal layman.
If a county, city or state does not report a crime for entry into this database, it will not be found there. This means that many crimes that did not result in incarceration in federal prison will not be found in Triple-I.
Triple-I is used by law enforcement for a variety of reasons, from compiling a list of suspects in an unsolved crime to prosecuting an accused person. That’s great for them, but where does this leave the average American who needs to run a criminal records search? There are a few options, none of which are perfect on their own, but combined they can, and will, give a pretty accurate picture of the person you’re investigating, if done correctly. So how, or rather where, do you start?
Collect identifying information from the person you are investigating. You will need, at a minimum, their full name, any previous last names they may have had, and their date of birth. Be 100% sure that you have your name spelled correctly. If you only have his name, you’ll have to do a bit of investigative work to get at least his date of birth. Otherwise, you could end up with inaccurate criminal records that may not actually belong to the person in question.
Ideas for locating additional information:
Talk to neighbors, co-workers, family members, or even the person in question’s previous employers.
Look up phone directories online, as they often have the middle name, or at least the middle initial, listed with the address and phone number.
Use other online sources to try to collect identifying information, such as your date of birth and other possibly used names.
If possible, just ask the person in question!
Obtain residential information about the person you are investigating. You will need to know where they lived for the previous seven years. The cities and states at least, but again, the more comprehensive data you have, the better.
Ideas for locating previous addresses:
o Search for one of the many free online services, often every instance of the name that appears in their database will come up. This means that if the person in question has moved, it is likely that every address associated with their name is in the database.
o If you know the previous cities and states of their residences; You can look in past phone books, cross-linked directories (also called city directories and home directories), at the appropriate local libraries, and in some cases, online, to get complete addresses from when the person lived in that area.
o And again, if possible, you can always ask the person you are investigating.
Use free sources online to locate criminal records. Once you know the identifying information and jurisdiction of the person you are investigating, you can find the appropriate county, city, and state sites to access their public records. Keep in mind that each state determines what is considered a “public” record, so you’ll need to review the laws of the places you’re researching.
Additionally, it is important to realize that only 25-35% of crime data is available online, and this includes public data. So while it’s a great place to start, it can’t be the basis of a full investigation of your criminal history. Please also note that many of the records will be missing key identifying information such as date of birth, middle name, and/or social security numbers.
Pay to have an online investigative company run a criminal check. Most, if not all, online investigative organizations use the National Criminal File (NCF) as the database they search against. This file is also the most commonly researched database for pre-employment background checks.
As you know, this file is not really national; however, most US states are included. Keep in mind, however, that almost all of the information that makes up the NCF comes solely from correction records. So there are many potential holes for missing criminal activity, from county criminal records to state repositories. Anything that is considered a misdemeanor (a less serious crime than a felony) probably won’t be included either. This means that you could receive a clean report on a person who does, in fact, have a criminal record.
Another drawback of the National Criminal Archive is the constant lack of identifying information, just as with the online public records mentioned above. It is rare to find social security numbers or dates of birth to verify that you definitely have the correct criminal record for your individual. The more common the name, the more unlikely it is that you will receive data that does not need to be confirmed.
There are very few names in our country unique enough for this not to be a problem. Keep this in mind, as you’ll need to dig deeper once you’ve received the report the NCF generated or the data you personally retrieved in your public criminal record search.
Deeper how? Go to the source of the report. That is, you will need to query the original data source from which the build came. You can request a manual search from a fee-based research company, or you can do it yourself. However, it is the only sure way to verify that the information you have is correct. This means that you will have to search for civil records in the correct jurisdictions and although you can do some of this online, as mentioned above; you may need to request the records in writing or go to the actual county that stores the data.
This is where you will be able to use the identifying information you have collected. You can compare the person’s date of birth, social security number, full name, and complete addresses at this point. By doing this, you can eliminate the probability of error inherent with a common name.
One last thing to mention. If you discover information that leads you not to hire the person in question, you will need to comply with the FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act). The FCRA requires that when you pass someone over because of a criminal history report, it is your right by law to see the report on which you based your decision. Be sure to follow this law or it could come back to haunt you in the form of a lawsuit.
Criminal background checks are an important facet of determining whether a person has a history of criminal activity. As with anything, getting an accurate crime report largely depends on what you put into it. Tenacious in acquiring full identifying information, conducting a fair and lawful search, confirming any criminal data found; you will have an informative and accurate report at the end.
After all, the bottom line is ensuring that those you seek to protect (yourself, your family, your business) are safe from the criminal element.
