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Criminal Records – What You Need to Know

Employees are an integral part of a company’s business. And this is why before hiring an individual for a job position; companies deem it important to conduct a thorough background check on that person, which includes his personal history, criminal records, past employment, and the like.

Criminal records, especially, are important pieces of information that any organization, business or otherwise, would like to know about. The information that they get from criminal records helps them judge the character of the person and find out if he is suitable for the job, based on the people he would be involving himself in with such a position. For instance, if the person being considered for a position as a child care assistant has criminal records involving child molestation, then the company will be better off with the forehand knowledge.

Criminal records are often called the central register of police. Most of the time, they only contain prison punishments, or incidents of a crime where the result is imprisonment for a certain period of time. The data contained in criminal records is used for criminal sanctions and also to figure out the reliability of a person. This is where companies needing copies of criminal records come in.

Criminal Justice System Basics

There four different types of federal criminal records, which will be discussed later, and all of them come from different aspects of the criminal justice system.

When Criminal Records Are Established

Criminal records are established when a person gets the following penalty:

•Suspended sentence or unconditional sentence of imprisonment – This often happens when, unless a minimum punishment is prescribed by law, the court has the power to suspend the passing of sentence. Generally, suspension of sentence stretches for a period of three years, during which time the offender is placed on probation.
•Community service – This refers to a service performed by a person for the benefit of his or her local community. Often, community service is performed in connection with projects that members of certain youth organizations, such as the Boy Scouts, perform. However, community service may also be used as an alternative sentencing technique in the justice system.
•Youth Punishment – This happens when the one who committed the crime is a minor. In this case, the offender is sentenced to spend some time in a juvenile correction facility. Also, youth punishments may involve rendering some service for the benefit of his or her local community. In either case, criminal records would still have been established.
•Fine – Instead of spending time in prison, the offender is sentenced to pay a certain amount as set by the court.
•Removal from office
•Mental Disorder – In some cases, the offender is left without punishment for the reason that the court has found him or her not criminally responsible due to a mental disorder.

The Four Types of Federal Criminal Records

There are four different kinds of records that are all referred to as “criminal records.” These are:

•Arrest Records – Law enforcement records of arrests.
•Criminal Court Records – Local, state, or federal records.
•Corrections Records – Prison records.
•State Criminal Repository Records – Statewide records made up of arrest records, criminal court records, and correction records.

During the past few years, a new type of pre-employment background check became available. It is called the National Criminal File or NCF. There are actually three NCF databases which spans the whole public criminal records registries of 38 to 50 states. As of today, NCF contains over 60 million to 133 million public criminal records in its three databases.

The National Criminal File contains four different kinds of records which can all be considered as “public criminal records.”

First on the list are arrest records. These are public criminal records of law enforcement records of arrest. The second type is criminal court records which are public criminal records registered locally, by state or federal. Third are corrections reports. These are public criminal records involving imprisonment for a certain period of time. And the fourth and last type is the state criminal repository records. These are statewide records made up of arrest records, criminal court records, and correction records.

Criminal Records Check: Where Do You Start?

Criminal records check is one step of the procedure involved in due diligence research conducted on individuals. And even though our age today is referred to as “the digital age”, digitized information may not be enough in performing a comprehensive criminal records check. Often, old-fashioned “gum shoe” techniques are required and researchers find that, more often than not, they must rely on less technological means to do a criminal records check.

The “Nationwide” Criminal Records Check

We have heard about the so-called “nationwide” criminal records check and we have seen many ads on Internet touting services where you could search through their “nationwide” database of criminal records. Well, we hate to burst the bubble, but there is no such thing as a nationwide criminal records check.

Only one criminal database in the United States comes pretty close to being considered as “nationwide” and it is the FBI database, which is also known as the NCIC or the National Crime Information Center. Even then, the FBI database is not considered as public record, which further means that no one can legally access the information it contains unless that someone works for criminal justice agencies.

Other Methods of Performing Criminal Records Check

So, what now? If you cannot access the FBI database, does this mean that there’s no way for you to perform your own criminal records check? On the contrary, there are thousands of separate criminal indexes maintained at the county, parish, township, and city levels throughout the United States. Nationwide criminal records check means accessing each individual index. Now, obviously, this would be difficult to achieve. In addition, it would be time-consuming, expensive, and simply not practical.