Know Who You Are Hiring
Even the seemingly perfect candidate can have a criminal record. Protect yourself with a comprehensive criminal record check, which can help guard against potential issues with theft, threats, violence and other criminal activity in your workplace. Time to create a safer, more productive workplace for your business.
Our Services for Criminal Record Checks:
Federal Court Records
A federal court records search is integral to the background check service. The United States is divided into 94 federal districts, with each district maintaining its own courts, judges, clerks, and indexes that handle cases in which the crime occurred on federal property and/or a federal law was violated.
Benefits:
Federal Court searches uncover crimes such as:
- Drug Charges
- Terrorism
- Bank Robbery
- Child Pornography
- Fraud
Our Process:
Justifacts’ criminal search at the federal level includes a search of the courts’ nationwide index of federal criminal information for a minimum period of the last seven years. Once potential cases are identified, Justifacts will examine available court records for at least two pieces of identifying information to ensure accuracy and connect a specific case to the specific applicant.
National Criminal Database
The National Criminal Database Search serves as a valuable tool and provides nationwide information that has been compiled by state courts, departments of correction, and statewide sex offender registries.
Benefits:
Justifacts’ National Criminal Database offers benefits that are not seen in a typical county or state criminal record check.
- Quick Turnaround Time: usually available within a day.
- Wide Geographic Area: contains records from many states in a single search.
- Cost-Effective – helps to direct additional searches.
Our Process:
This database has been compiled from a variety of sources, including state court information, department of correction information, and statewide sex offender registries. Offering a broad range of information that is not available from an individual county or state search, our National Criminal Database search is a highly effective tool in locating criminal record information throughout the country.
National Criminal Database Searches include:
- County court records
- Department of Corrections records
- All 50 states sex offender registries
- Various police arrest record databases
When record information is returned, Justifacts automatically verifies the case information with the originating jurisdiction. Our in-house staff screens all case information found in a database search and provides only the legally reportable information that can be matched to your applicant.
County Court Records
County court records are an essential component of comprehensive criminal record checks. Records are searched back a minimum of seven years, however, the majority of court indexes go back much further. County court record searches contain all legally reportable information found during the course of the search- subject to any limitations set on a client-specific basis.
Benefits:
- Contains the most accurate, timely and complete data available
- Includes information on open cases, convictions, dismissals, and diversions
- Case records are matched with a minimum of two identifiers to ensure any found case information is accurately connected to the applicant.
Our Process:
Criminal background check service requests are conducted using the Predominately Used Index in the specified jurisdiction’s Primary Court. This index is typically accessed via the public access computer terminal, either online (if available) or by utilizing our highly developed network of public record retrievers to obtain records directly from the court.
State Criminal Records
Statewide criminal record checks can be a cost-effective alternative to conducting multiple county searches within the same state. Statewide criminal background checks are available in most states, and Justifacts performs searches in the states that have this information available to the public. These records are typically located in a repository maintained by the State Police or by the Department of Public Safety. Each state has its own requirements regarding the availability of its criminal records and the type of information released. As a result, some states provide extensive criminal record information while others are more limited.
Benefits:
- Where available, provide statewide criminal information
- Individual state waivers are built into our Applicant Portal process providing ease of use for applicants
- May be required to fulfill legal requirements for certain industries
- Case records are matched with a minimum of two identifiers to ensure any found case information is accurately connected to the applicant.
Our Process:
Access to state criminal information varies and may run the gamut from mail requests, in person requests, or by online access.
Unified Court Record Search
As technology advances, many states are implementing a unified court system – a valuable resource which maintains uniformity among the counties of a particular state. Typically, this system is created and maintained by the state’s Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) and consists of a single database that is used by all of the counties in the state. In general, the information in the unified court system is in real time, with updates made as soon as court personnel enters data into the system.
Benefits:
- Provides statewide criminal record information
- Typically provides much faster turnaround time than traditional Statewide Criminal Searches
- Case records are matched with a minimum of two identifiers to ensure any found case information is accurately connected to the applicant.
Our Process:
Statewide Unified Court Records are obtained online by accessing a unified court system that is typically created and maintained by the state’s Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC). This unified court system is a single database that is used by all the counties in the state. Justifacts’ researchers possess extensive knowledge of these different systems, including understanding how the information is indexed, knowing how to access the information by using the proper input parameters, and accurately identifying the acronyms and abbreviations used in a particular system.
Sex Offender Registry Search
With the passage of a variety of legislation, particularly the 1996 “Megan’s Law” and the 1997 “Jacob Wetterling Improvements Act,” all 50 states have created and maintained sex offender registries. These registries are used to track the whereabouts of offenders required to be registered as part of their sentence. Each state has its own guidelines for accessibility and release of information from its registry. Many states release to the public only information on the most serious or “high risk” offenders, while others have all registered offenders on the public registry. Due to the nature of the registries, as an offender moves from state to state, the offender’s name is removed from the previous registry and added to the registry reflecting the new address.
In addition to the state registries, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) maintains the “Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Website”. NSOPW is a partnership between the U.S. Department of Justice and state, territorial, and tribal governments that allows a single national query to determine in which states a person is registered.
Benefits:
- Provides information about individuals who have committed a sexual offense and have been required to register their whereabouts with their state as a part of their sentence
- Quick turnaround time: usually available the same day
Our Process:
Justifacts searches all publicly available sex offender registries as well as the DOJ National Registry. If an entry is found on a sex offender list, you can request a follow-up search with county court records to determine whether reportable case information exists on any registered sex offender. Since the states of California and Nevada limit the use of sex offender registry information for employment purposes, we report only applicable information to our clients, in compliance with the law.