I would like to know how other organizations conduct background checks. We use an agency and only check on Felonies for administrative staff. We rely on the applicant to disclose where they may have lived and then we search those counties or states as appropriate.  This process is dependent on the applicant disclosing all places lived which may not always happen. Is there a central database that could be searched? 

First, you state that you are only checking for Felonies. That’s a problem because there are many Misdemeanors that you are missing. As a general guideline, the only difference between a Felony and a Misdemeanor, is the amount of drugs, merchandise or money stolen, or what type of weapon was used in the criminal act. Misdemeanors can be violent, such as Simple Assault, Sex Offenses, Weapons Violations, Child Abuse or Domestic Violence. Or Misdemeanors can be classified as non-violent, such as charges of Fraud, Theft, Gambling, Drug Possession, DUI, and Prostitution. Additionally, many defendants are arrested on a Felony charge, but if they have a half-decent public defender or attorney, the Felony can be pleaded down to a Misdemeanor. Again, if you are searching for Felonies only, you are missing out on a lot of important criminal case information.

Secondly, you are relying on the applicant to be truthful as to where he lived or worked in the past, that would be sufficient, if all applicants told the truth, but we know that that is not the case, conservatively 1/3 of all job applications and resumes are falsified. I sense that you already know that, and you would like to verify that the applicant is being truthful on where he lived in the past, so you can search all applicable jurisdictions. My recommendation would be to do a social security number and previous address verification. This SSN screening inquiry serves as a good locator tool and is helpful in pointing out all jurisdictions to search for Criminal records.

Finally, you ask is there a central database that you can search. I would need to know a little bit more about the type of organization that you represent, but I will make the assumption that you are a private employer and you, like most companies, cannot access the central database of the FBI or National Criminal Information Center (NCIC), which are only available to law enforcement, or other industries regulated by the Federal Government, such as banks. The only database that you could search, is what is called a National Criminal File, which is a database complied by private companies into a private database, which is a good search to supplement your current criminal record search, but not as a stand alone search. The database is good when primarily used as a locator tool, similar to the SSN Inquiry, because it may point out to you other jurisdictions that the applicant has been arrested or convicted of a crime in the past. Whether you add this service or not is up to you, but at a bare minimum, you would want to do a Criminal Records check either on a county by county basis, or state by state, or a combination of the two, going back the past 7 years, and searching those jurisdictions that the applicant has lived or worked.

Kevin Connell
CEO of AccuScreen.com