Free Public Access to Criminal Records
Pre-employment background checks are one of the main reasons why an individual or a business entity would need free public access to criminal records. This is to help them establish the propensity of a prospective hire to commit a crime and avoid that as much as possible. Companies today are investing lots of money on research firms who use free public access to criminal records in order to check the background of a subject. Aside from free public access to criminal records, these research firms also have other methods of looking for information relevant to the background check they are making.
Free Public Access to Criminal Records - Nationwide Databases
Most of the time free public access to criminal records is not enough to develop a comprehensive background report on a subject. Only very few nationwide databases are available and most of them cannot even be considered as nationwide. The FBI is the only entity that has a database large enough to be considered as nationwide but even then, it only contains records of convictions and not simple misdemeanors. Plus, the criminal records contained in the FBI database do not allow free public access. In fact, they are not public at all and the extraction of information for purposes other than criminal justice uses may result in a huge fine or penalty.
Aside from the FBI database, there are other indexes that contain a huge bulk of criminal records for free public access. Foremost of these databases are the three NCF (National Criminal File) databases. There are 38 to 50 states included and the number of criminal records for free public access in these three NCF databases ranges from 60 million to as many as 133 million.
The number is quite impressive but companies who wish to use the free public access to criminal records provided by the NCF databases should read the fine print.
The Four Types of Criminal Records for Free Public Access
There are four different kinds of criminal records which belong to the free public access category. These are the arrest records, criminal court records, corrections records, and state criminal repository records.
The arrest records are criminal records of arrests done by the local law enforcement agencies. Most states require their law enforcement agencies to accomplish an arrest report when they arrest someone. The report soon becomes an arrest record and is sent to the criminal courts for arraignment, in which case, the record becomes known as a criminal court record. After the trial, if the defendant is convicted, the punishment may vary. The defendant may be sentenced to incarceration, during which time, he may be sent to jail for a misdemeanor or to state prison for a felony. Records of imprisonment become known as corrections records while the arrest records, criminal court records, and correction records are sent to the state criminal records repository for free public access.
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