There is a number of reasons why someone would need to run a background check on an individual: a prospective employee, a new volunteer for the school, a parent coach for a soccer team, a potential nanny, etc. Any time you are putting your business, your loved ones, or yourself into the hands of another person it is critical that you can know who you are dealing with.
Many organizations or families would look up a background screening company on the internet and find that they can get criminal background and sex offender registry checks for a lot less than they thought it was going to cost. They may find that they can get an instant national criminal background check, an instant state criminal background check, and a sex offender registry check all for under $20. While these checks have their place, they should never, ever be counted on as the only background check that gets run.
The core of any background check should always be live county searches based on counties where an individual has lived and worked. Counties can be pulled for all addresses lived in by running a social security number-name-address trace. Then counties for places worked can be pulled from an employment application or from references. Once counties have been run, then add the sex offender registry, national instant, state instant, and state repository checks as an extra set of eyes in the event that the individual has committed a crime outside of the county or state they have lived and worked in.
Running only instant database checks is incredibly dangerous because you are at the mercy of how the databases are developed and maintained.
First, in some cases the databases are developed by the use of a "media search" where the search engine looks for published records on an individual. This is rarely accurate because this would require that every conviction and arrest be published somewhere. Another method is to maintain a database of all previous county searches that have been run through that company. If the individual has never had a county search run on them, they won't show up in the database search.
Secondly, the instant databases are inaccurate due to issues keeping them updated. Some background check companies will tell you that they only update their databases monthly, or in longer intervals, when asked directly. Another issue is that the local municipalities, counties, and states, who feed information into accessible public records, often become backlogged. In 2009, a study in the State of Texas found that only 25% of arrests were submitted to the Department of Public Safety Computerized Criminal History System.
A background check should always be as complete as possible because the cost of a negligent hiring lawsuit could go into the millions of dollars and the damage to the morale of a workforce where a major crime has taken place could be irreparable. A jury will not be considering what an employer knew at the time of the incident, but what the employer should have known. In the event that the individual is a volunteer, coach, or nanny, the consequences could be catastrophic. During this tough economy, everyone is looking for cost reductions and this is one area that needs to be recession-proof.
Ten percent of all applicants have a criminal record and forty percent of all resumes and applications contain material lies. Companies, organizations, and families need to do their due diligence to determine precisely who they are letting into their lives.
Brian J. Crosby is the President and CEO of Crosby Management Resources, Inc. Learn more about him and how you can access affordable and thorough background screening tools and other outsourcing tools at http://www.crosbymgmt.com.
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