It isn’t realistic to expect that anyone who may come into contact with children could be - or should be - subjected to background checks. But those working in certain jobs should be checked to avoid placing youngsters in contact with those who have criminal records of offenses against children. Read more…

It is always a great idea to conduct a background check on an employee, especially one who is going to work around children, as in the case of an Ice Cream Truck driver. This story indicates that the Bureau of Criminal Identification will conduct a check for $20-$30.00, however, be warned that their database is flawed. Not every county in Ohio reports to BCI. It is recommended that you conduct a residential history of the applicant and contact every county they have resided in to determine any crimes. In addition, you should conduct a nationwide sexual offender search through the Department of Justice.

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I wanted to give you guys a short primer on how our court system works as far as criminal records are concerned. Below is a generalization of all records across the United States, but of course there are exceptions. As always if you have any questions or comments please feel free to email me at crimcheck@gmail.com

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County Court Houses: Most of the time across all states the county court houses store records and hold trials for felonies. When we search for felony records these are the court houses we go to. For instance if someone were to hire an employee and we wanted to check for felony records and we knew the subject lived in Cleveland we would search the Cuyahoga County Court because Cleveland is located in Cuyahoga County. The same goes for any city located within Cuyahoga County. Now let’s say our subject lived in a city that was located in Lorain County we would then check Lorain County Court House for felony records.

City or Municipal Courts: For the most part these are smaller courts and handle misdemeanor trials and records. For instance if a subject committed a misdemeanor offence in Berea, Ohio they would most likely go to Berea Municipal Court. The trial and records would be held there. Same thing goes for just about anywhere in the country.

Federal Courts: Federal records are kept at the United States Federal District Courts. Each state has multiple federal district courts. Federal courts handle federal crimes such as interstate crime, bank robbery, mail fraud, etc. If we were looking for records on a subject that lived in Cleveland we would check the Northern Ohio Federal District Court. If they lived in Cincinnati we would check the Southern Ohio Federal District Court.

Here is where it can get complicated. Most states have what are called criminal record repositories. As in our previous examples Ohio’s repository is kept by BCI or bureau of criminal identification. Most states have something similar and are usually run by the state police or by the state’s attorney generals office. The problem lies in the fact that the court houses and police agencies are supposed to send there records to these state repositories. Many of these agencies just don’t have the manpower or money to keep up with sending the records in and it can cause big gaps in the state databases. The state databases are notoriously inaccurate and out of date.

NCIC or FBI Records: These records are maintained by the U.S. Department of Justice and are supposed to be the most comprehensive available. Unfortunately the problems that plague the state record repositories also happen to the NCIC database. The records are outdated, inaccurate and many times just plain missing. If you were able to get a NCIC record check, be careful as it is most likely inaccurate. You would be better off checking county and city court records.

Ok, many people on the Internet search for "free background checks". Most places that offer free background checks make you pay at some point. I am going to explain how you can do a check for free (for the most part) on yourself or someone else.

Let’s clear the air here, if you are going to be running a background check then please follow all state and federal laws pertaining to them. For example if you are conducting the check for employment purposes then please follow the guidelines of the FCRA. Do not take this lightly as you can get into a whole heap of trouble.

Let’s start with the criminal record check. The best way to do this, as I have said before, is to go through the county courts where the person has lived. If you have the persons last address then check that county and the surrounding counties in that area I will give an example. Let’s say I want to conduct a criminal record check on my daughters new boyfriend and I know that he is from Cleveland, Ohio. I went to http://www.ask.com/ and typed in Ohio County Maps. I happen to know that Cleveland, Ohio is located in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Ask.com gave me a good county map of Ohio and from there I can determine the closest counties around Cuyahoga. Check out a copy of the map here http://www.dot.state.oh.us/map1/cntymap.asp .

The reason I want the closest counties to Cuyahoga is because I am going to be checking them for criminal records on our subject as well. Why, you ask? Well because most people that commit crimes tend to do so within their comfort zone, meaning within a certain distance of their house.

So from our example we can see that Lake, Geauga, Summit, Medina and Lorain Counties all surround our target county.

Next we need to figure out what court house we are either going to call or check online. Most courthouses are online these days and you can find a good list of them here http://www.crimcheck.com/freerecords.htm .

Ok, I now have My subjects name, the county he lives in and the surrounding counties of the county he lives in and a list to find the court houses in those counties. Now we need to find out if he has a criminal record. In this instance I used the name Michael Smith. Click the image at the top of this post for the example. As you can see the results all have addresses by them, that is one way to determine that you have the right subject.

Now you can go to all of the other counties on your list and do the same thing. Warning: As you can see from our example there is more than one Michael Smith. Make sure that you have the right subject before you start making accusations or using the results as evidence.

You can even go one step further and check for misdemeanors within the city courts of the counties that your are checking. I would normally just check the city where the subject lives and the county seats of the surrounding counties. If you have comments or questions please feel free to post them here.

I will be covering motor vehicle records and driving records in my next article so stay tuned!

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Criminal records hard for public to access
A violent thief and rapist fresh from an Ohio prison rolled into Kanawha City last week.
While he was sitting in a car that had been reported stolen from a Braceville, Ohio, home in which a woman was tied up and shot in the arm, Brett Hanick shot a city police officer twice before the officer shot and killed him.