By Rob Thomson
Instant nationwide criminal database searches are extremely tempting. From the day we are born we appreciate “instant” gratification. “Statewide” and “nationwide” are powerful words and imply something extremely comprehensive. “Low-cost” and “inexpensive” are also words that trigger a Pavlovian response in most of us. Put all of these words in the same sentence and you’ve overcome the arguments of all but the most determined skeptics!
Few hard statistics are provided by those proffering these tools and it is virtually impossible to know exactly what is missed. Not many of us can realistically put perspective around numbers like “millions” and “billions” (frequently used to describe the number of records housed in a typical commercial database) except to say “gosh, that’s a lot.” A million is certainly a lot of SOME things, but if you have 500 million records in your database and there are 5 billion records in existence across the country, would you still believe that to be an accurate and reliable criminal background check?
How big is the universe?
How many criminal records actually exist in the United States? Few of us can declare the exact number of counties that comprise the state we live in or certainly across the entire United States. There is no feasible way to measure or reliably estimate the total number of criminal records in existence, due to terminology and archiving disparities, widely varying records retention policies, and the simple geography of thousands of court jurisdictions (there are over 10,000 court jurisdictions spread among 3,127 counties nationwide). In attempting to gauge the reliability of these databases, it is important to understand what they consist of.
One way to illustrate the risks is to look at the “whole” as the sum of its parts. The “millions” and “billions” of records claimed by database vendors do not adequately describe the sources or usefulness of those records. Take the resource list from one of the most prominent nationwide database vendors as an example. Using a font size of 8.5 (a bit small for comfortable reading), this resource list fills 26 standard-size pages. A pessimist might consider this seemingly endless list of minutiae an attempt to overwhelm the curious and encourage them to simply rely on the fact that “millions” of records must mean it is comprehensive and accurate.
The sources
Dissecting this resource list provides a clearer picture of what this database contains. The “millions” of records all fall into one of the following four categories:
- County Felony/Misdemeanor Criminal Court Records – County-based felony/misdemeanor records are the primary information needed for employment screening. These records require the most effort to obtain and are the least likely to make it into the nationwide databases. County court records are obtained by database vendors either from a statewide court repository, where available, or purchased from individual counties. Individual counties have no mandate whatsoever to provide data to commercial database vendors. Similarly, those that choose to provide data have no responsibility to provide regular or consistent updates. In this particular nationwide criminal database, there are 36 states for which the database either contains no county court records at all, has extremely significant coverage gaps, or the state has suspended updates altogether. Based strictly on this database’s own disclaimers, less than 42% of counties nationwide are covered by this database. Even 42% is an especially generous estimate because for the states without a disclaimer, it assumes full participation by every county in the state, which is widely known to not occur.
- State Department of Corrections Records (DOC) – DOC databases contain records ONLY on persons who have served time in state correctional facilities. Most would consider this important information, but it contains significant gaps that can only be avoided with county court research. Any conviction that did not result in prison time, resulted in a suspended sentence or credit for time served, or resulted in serving time in a municipal, county, or federal correctional facility will be missed. There are 14 states, including California, that provide no DOC information to this database. The probability of identifying an existing criminal record is far greater through direct county research.
- State Sex Offender Registries (SOR) – each state maintains a Sex Offender Registry, virtually all of which are accessible via the internet. This too represents important information, and several industries, including those involving child- and elderly-care, mandate it. While the nationwide database search can be considered an effective tool for checking SORs, the registries themselves are a database tool and subject to the same limitations. Ernie Allen, President and CEO of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, recently stated “Today, there are more than a half million sex offenders that are ‘supposed” to be registered in the United States; however at least 100,000 of these offenders are actually “missing” from the system.”1 Sex offenders are required to register when they move to a new location, but if they fail to do so, county criminal history research based on their address history is the only reliable way to identify this criminal past.
- Proprietary Criminal Data – “proprietary” is another word commonly used to create the illusion of quality. This simply means that if, by chance, a particular individual has previously been screened by this specific database vendor and a record was found, that record will be included in the report. This process ignores the FCRA requirement that a reasonable effort be made to ensure any records reported are accurate, complete, and current.
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