Today’s post is the last of our three part series on criminal records. In case this is the first you’re hearing of it, the past two days we have published posts focused around criminal records. Tuesday’s post started with criminal record searches at a county level, yesterday’s post covered statewide searches and today’s focus is national records. In each post our Director of Compliance, Benton Mobley lends his expertise by providing our readers with his best insight and advice on the subject matter. Our hope for this series is that by the end employers will be able to make better and smarter hiring decisions.
National (Multi-State) Records
The national criminal record search is the most popular of the three; this is because it is vast. If you are hiring in Florida but a crime was committed North Carolina, the hope is that a national search will pick it up. This is the case a majority of the time but the national search is similar to the state search as there is no central database of criminal records. Counties must report to states and states must in turn report records nationally. With no database available to the public, private companies usually take it upon themselves to gather the information and create their own database.
What does this mean?
Although this search is the most appealing, the results rendered by it may not be. When relying on a national search you are also relying on a few other things such as: the state accuracy, reporting and private companies. The private companies aren’t your biggest worry here; they usually share their databases with background screeners, employers and the general public for a small fee. The biggest gamble here is how well the individual states report. In the first post we related this to passing something up the ladder. The counties must first get the records to the states and then the states have to make them available to the FBI and the public. Granted this almost always happens but it is not as timely as county searches. By the time the information reaches the national level you may have already hired a convict.
Expert Advice
Each type of search has its downside. A national search is still a smart idea for all employers because if there is a record available from another state you will get it. The best advice Mobley could give us is to stay educated on your state and let someone help. In the first post I quoted Benton saying, “We are the experts for our clients”, he applied this to all three searches. The searches are complicated and state laws vary; by letting a CRA, like Active Screening be the expert for you, you will get the best results possible.
Part Three of the Criminal Record Presentation
If you haven’t yet check out the presentation included in each post from Benton Mobley, all three parts are also available on our YouTube channel. This concludes our blog series on criminal records. Below is a quick reference of take always from the series.
County Searches
- The most Accurate
- Results come directly from the Source
- Counties are limited
Statewide Searches
- Unique systems – vary state to state
- Covers all counties
National Searches
- No central database
- Multi-state search
- Not as timely as other searches
Have any comments about the presentation or criminal record searches? Please share below!