Peeling Back the Criminal Onion

The Onion

There is a misconception between employers and their Human Resource professionals that a National or Nationwide criminal inquiry yields all criminal history information on a subject. Those that only utilize these search methods are potentially lacking key criminal data on their prospective employees. Therefore, it’s imperative for employers to peel back the four layers of criminal information available for each subject. County, State, Federal, and International each provide different levels of detail and information about an individual’s criminal history.

County and State Criminal

County criminal searches are the most common level of inquiry; however, they only cover a specific jurisdiction within a state, and therefore, may not capture all convictions. For example, in New York, misdemeanor cases are heard at the local, town, or city court level, which means that a County criminal inquiry in New York only provides information on felony convictions, and the vast majority of misdemeanors are not captured. While employers may believe that obtaining information on felonies is enough, some convictions such as operating under the influence, endangering a child, criminal possession of a weapon, and more are classified as misdemeanors, and these may not be captured by a County criminal search. Therefore, employers need to be aware of their State’s court record system to determine if a County criminal search is adequate.

A Statewide criminal search is a better alternative, but is only available in New York, New Jersey, Vermont, and North Carolina. State criminal searches capture both misdemeanors and felonies, however, in some states like New York, the NYS Office of Court Administration (OCA) fee can be too expensive to pay for each name. This is why Commercial Investigations LLC developed Cursory Indicator New York, a proprietary New York State criminal search. Cursory Indicator New York is a cursory view of a subject’s criminal history, and if there is no adverse information found, the search is compliant, and there is no need to run the NYS OCA search or incur additional costs. To capture New York State criminal history for the most valuable price, Cursory Indicator NY is the best possible method. Of course, the criminal onion doesn’t stop at County and State criminal inquiries either.

Federal and International Criminal

While underutilized by most employers, Federal criminal inquiries are an important component for job positions that deal with crossing state lines or those that require a genuine level of trust. Federal criminal inquiries cover Federal jurisdictions and of course, search for Federal offenses. Upper level positions, those dealing with children, and anything crossing state lines, should have a Federal criminal inquiry included in their background investigation.

International criminal inquiries get complicated rapidly. Each country has their own set of laws for how data is obtained, in addition to the different court fees. Therefore, it is best practice to have a professional background investigation provider complete these inquiries on behalf of the employer.

Each of these levels searches for different information, in a variety of different places. Not knowing where your data comes from can be the difference between hiring a career-long employee, or having a PR disaster. Protect your business by continuing to educate yourself on the layers of criminal records available in a background investigation.

Want to learn more? Watch our What You DON’T Know webinars.