Using Locator Devices to Enhance a Criminal Record Search

PLEASE NOTE: The following is presented as general educational information. It is not legal advice, either express or implied. Consultation with your legal counsel is recommended for all employment law matters.

Criminal history checks are a routine component of the employment screening process. Unfortunately, a variety of obstacles limit the effectiveness of a criminal record search, including:

There is no single, comprehensive source of accurate and up-to-date criminal records available for employment screening purposes. Most criminal records in the U.S. are actually found in one of three different places - county court records, state sexual offender registries and federal district courts. Because records are decentralized, thorough investigations will typically include searches at various data repositories.
Criminal records are generally kept by name and date of birth, not Social Security Number. Therefore, it is important to check records based on all names used by the applicant in recent years, such as maiden name or AKAs (also known as). Because an applicant may not provide all AKAs, search methods should be used to uncover AKAs.

It doesn't help that criminal records are located in thousands of counties and nearly 100 Federal districts throughout the U.S. Performing a nationwide search by accessing the records at all jurisdictions is inefficient, costly and impractical, if not impossible. To streamline a criminal investigation and reduce costs, employers limit the scope of the search, in many cases to jurisdictions where an applicant lived, worked and attended school during a specific time period. Field researchers are dispatched to the applicable jurisdictions to search for criminal records.

Unfortunately, limiting the scope of the criminal record search also means a criminal violation may not be found. For example, if an applicant has only lived, worked and attended school in a handful of Minnesota counties, yet was convicted of assault while on vacation in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the assault record will not be found during the course of a traditional "lived, worked or attended school" search.

Verifications' National Criminal Record Locator (NCRL) can help. The NCRL database contains more than 275 million criminal records from throughout the U.S. The records comprising the database are obtained from county, state, and federal entities as well as incarceration and law enforcement records. In addition, the database includes Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) lists, Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) Most Wanted, Fugitive Lists from ten federal agencies (such as US Marshals, US Secret Service, US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)), and fugitive lists from numerous state and local law enforcement agencies. A search of the NCRL database may find the Florida record from the example above.

Because an NCRL search may have found the assault conviction in Florida, on the surface the NCRL seems like an excellent replacement for a traditional county, statewide or Federal criminal record search. In reality, the NCRL or any other national criminal database should not replace a traditional criminal record search because:

National is a misnomer: Although it does contain more than 275 million records, the NCRL only includes records from select government and law enforcement entities.
Data accuracy and completeness is unknown: Records in the NCRL database may be outdated due to infrequent updates. The database may be updated sporadically or not at all.
Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) regulations must be considered: The FCRA imposes requirements on providers and users of "consumer reports." Under the FCRA, background checks for employment purposes are defined as consumer reports if provided by a third party. As a Consumer Reporting Agency, Verifications must "maintain strict procedures" to ensure that information reported is "complete and up to date" and "shall be considered up to date if the current public record status of the item at the time of the report is reported."

Because the data in the NCRL database may be incomplete and/or outdated, Verifications does not provide detail of any record found during the course of an NCRL source.

Although NCRL record details can't be provided, checking the NCRL database still serves a valuable purpose. Instead of using the NCRL database to report records, Verifications uses it as a locator device to uncover additional jurisdictions in which an individual potentially has a criminal record. If we find a criminal record for an applicant in Broward County, FL, using the NCRL database, a researcher is dispatched to Broward County to perform a search of the county records. If the record is found by the researcher at the county level, it will be reported on the background investigation report and indicate that it was "Developed from the NCRL."

When used as a locator device, the NCRL search can help find criminal records that may go unnoticed using a traditional search scope.

A Sample Verifications Report Showing a County Developed as a Result of an NCRL Search

The NCRL can help you identify additional jurisdictions where an individual may have a criminal record, but what if the criminal record is filed under an applicant's previous name, a name that was not included on the application? What if the applicant didn't report an address in a jurisdiction where a criminal record exists? In both cases, a record may not be found because the criminal record search didn't include the previous address' jurisdiction and/or didn't use the AKA.

Another locator device, the Social Security Number (SSN) Trace, may resolve these issues. The SSN Trace uses "header records" from a credit bureau to provide a list of previous addresses and names used by an applicant when applying for credit (no actual credit information is accessed). If any unreported addresses or names are found during the course of an SSN trace, the jurisdiction or address may be added to the search parameters.

For example, imagine Betty Smith applied for a job and didn't include her maiden name, Johnson, on the application. Before she was married, she was convicted of armed robbery and the conviction records were filed under her maiden name, Betty Johnson. After conducting an SSN Trace, her maiden name, Betty Johnson, was added as an AKA to the criminal record search and the armed robbery conviction was found. Had the SSN Trace not been performed, the conviction would have gone unreported.

The same holds true for John Smith, who was convicted of assault while he lived at 111 Maple Lane in St. Cloud, FL. When he applied for a job, he neglected to list the St. Cloud address on his application. However, when an SSN Trace was performed on John Smith, 111 Maple Lane, St. Cloud, FL, was shown as a previous address and Osceola County, FL, was added to the criminal record search. As a result, a researcher found the assault conviction.

Finding a criminal record is not always easy. Decentralized records and nonspecific identifiers make it possible for a criminal record to go unreported using traditional search methods. The use of locator devices such as the National Criminal Record Locator and Social Security Number Trace can help overcome these obstacles and result in a more comprehensive criminal record search.

For more information about National Criminal Databases, please request the "National Criminal Databases and Background Screening" white paper from Verifications. To learn more about FCRA requirements and background screening, please request "The FCRA and Compliance" white paper.