The criminal records of some juveniles could become public record under legislation passed by a Senate committee. Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Norman said parents and school officials are often at a disadvantage, not knowing the history of juvenile delinquents in their neighborhoods and schools.

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If you are an employer, you want the best employment background check that money can buy, unless your budget does not allow it. As a Human Resource manager, you search the internet for the background check that offers the most coverage, provides the most detail and will still fit within the budget set forth by management. This typically leads you to looking for a “nationwide” criminal background check, because after all, if it is nationwide then it must be the best! Sadly, these checks are far from the best, and in many cases may cause employers to hire an applicant with a record and place their company at a higher risk for lawsuits. Read more…

The best possible source for verification of general information about any person is his or her civil records.

Civil records are credible. With increased pressure on checking antecedents or getting the background checks conducted before employing or even engaging a professional, civil record morgues are now put to use more frequently than ever before.

What information can civil records provide? Read more…

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.

Hi Folks,

It’s time again to answer some of the most commonly asked questions about background checks and pre-employment screening. This one is a bit of a long one so we are only answering one today. Read more…

Hi Folks!
I initially started writing the article below to make into an e-book. Well as things progressed and I started getting more and more in-depth, I thought it might be a good article for my blog. As you may or may not know I work for an employment screening company and they have given me their blessing to go ahead and publish articles that discuss how to conduct free background checks. Read more…

In our last installment we discussed how to obtain criminal records and how to conduct a thorough search in the areas the subject lives.

Now we are going to discuss how to obtain driving records on your subject. For the most part these records cost money but they cost less than if you had to purchase them from a background check company or some other source.

First of all you can’t just go around obtaining driving records for no reason. Most states consider them “private” records as opposed to public records like criminal or civil records are. The federal government also has a governing document called the DPPA or the Drivers Privacy Protection Act that sets forth rules on how when and for what purposes you can obtain driving and motor vehicle record information. If you are conducting this background check for employment purposes then the FCRA applies as well. In addition many states have laws and rules that govern these types of searches as well.

For the most part you can obtain motor vehicle records if:

1) It is a requirement of employment. For example if the person is going to be a delivery driver or will be transporting materials for your company.

2) An attorney that requires the record to defend his client.

3) Insurance companies that need to determine the risk factor in insuring a client.

5) Obtaining your own record to make sure of its accuracy or defending yourself in a court case.

There are certainly other reason for obtaining motor vehicle or driving records many of them dealing with a need to determine a persons identity for legal purposes. You can read more about them in the DPPA. Of course different states may have different laws so you will have to determine those laws individually.

To obtain our record I am going to give an example on how to obtain one from Washington State.
The first thing you need to do is to determine where to write and what documents you will need.
I found the website for Washington State Department of Motor Vehicles by Going to Google and typing exactly that.

Washington State has a nice search function on their site and I then typed in “Driving Records”.
The first result was the one I needed. Each state’s website may be different so you may have to navigate around a little to determine what you need.

Washington State has a good setup that explains how, when and why you can obtain these records.

From The Site: How to get another person’s driving record
The process depends on the type of record you want. The steps for requesting a copy of a driving record are listed with each type of record below. For more information about driving records, please see Frequently asked questions

You will need to download the request form and fill it out and send in the appropriate fees.

In most cases in most states you will need to have a signed release from the subject that you are conducting the check on. As stated previously you will need a permissible purpose to conduct the check.

Now granted because of the fees these checks aren’t exactly free but it could save you some money.

Thanks for putting up with my rambling and stay tuned for our next installment on how to verify someones previous employment.

Yes, criminal records are public records. The reason I bring this up is because over the weekend I was reading a blog called Ask Bob Rankin. In it he received a question about background checks. Read more…

These are the top 10 information sources on the web that I have found to be invaluable when conducting investigations. They range from free public records to search engines. Read more…

Kroll Risk Consulting has released it’s “hit ratio” report and trends seem to be pointing upward when finding discrepancies in employment screening. For instance criminal record hits are up from 8.5% to 9.1% from last year. Is it because more people are committing crimes? That could be part of it. It could also be that from year to year better and more information becomes available. It also seems that driving record and employment verification hits are up as well. Nearly 50% of all applicants had at least one discrepancy on their previous employment list. This just goes to show you can never be too careful.