Accuracy in Employment Screening: a background check is a background check, right? |
Accuracy in employment background screening is something every background check vendor preaches, but alarmingly few understand or truly accomplish. It really begins with the understanding that "complete accuracy", in terms of 100% absolute certainty that you have found everything that may be out there, is not achievable. However, read on to find out how you can minimize risk and be able to defend your staffing decisions against negligent hiring accusations.
There are over 3,200 county court jurisdictions across the country and many more municipal, town, and village courts, that process, store, and archive criminal records. The only way to achieve 100% certainty that an individual either does or does not have a criminal record, you would have to send an experienced researcher into every one of these court jurisdictions to conduct a search of their public records. Clearly this is not feasible from either practical or financial perspectives.
Statewide and nationwide criminal databases are fast and cheap, but significant research holds that the largest 'nationwide' criminal history databases actually cover less than 50% of county court systems nationwide. Statewide criminal history databases have similar challenges in that to be 100% accurate they would have to be updated daily with complete information on all cases from every county court jurisdiction within the state. Research has shown some statewide criminal repositories correctly identify as few as 20% of known criminal hits randomly sampled from counties around the state.
Thus, the term "Risk Management" enters the conversation. Industry best practices dictate that criminal history research be conducted in each county an individual has lived, worked, or attended school for the past seven years. The seven year address history is obtained through the credit bureaus via Social Security Number Trace, which also will reveal any alias names that have been associated with that SSN. The only thing you can reasonably do beyond this is order a nationwide criminal database check in an effort to identify any "vacation" criminal records that may exist, with the understanding that there is a significant chance that an existing record located outside a county of residence may be missed anyway.
Having said all that, be wary of any employment pre-screening vendor that attempts to oversimplify the process, or claims they have 'proprietary' computer networks with direct access to criminal court records. In the vast majority of cases, these vendors are simply using online databases that lack oversight and create risk of missing records or attributing records to the wrong person (often they don't include the necessary multiple identifiers such as DOB or SSN).
There are a very few areas around the country where direct county criminal research is prohibited (New York Office of Court Administration, State of Colorado are a few examples), and in those areas a reputable company must use whatever tools are available. However, in all cases where available, ensuring accuracy and FCRA compliance requires a trained court researcher visiting the court directly and requesting additional case and docket information whenever necessary to positively identify the individual and current status of the complete record.
Again, be wary of oversimplifications. There are few quotes more applicable to the employment screening industry than that of Bill Jordan, famed police gun instructor: "Speed is fine, but accuracy is final." |
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