Performing a truly comprehensive background check throughout United States can, in actuality, be much more complicated and difficult than most people would assume. Because criminal data and other public records are often fragmented across several sources due to the disconnect amongst state, federal, local courts and corrections departments, a background researcher will need to reassemble the various pieces of information to get an accurate picture of the candidate’s true background. The fact that there are thousands of local courts spread out across the country makes this task more challenging than conventional wisdom would suggest.
Running a People Search SSN validation and address lookup, in addition to a national criminal database report, is an excellent starting point. The People Search allows you to quickly verify that the social security number belongs to the claimed candidate, as well as provides you a list of counties they have resided in over the last decade. This is a vital step towards identifying which counties you will research for criminal records. When used in conjunction with a national criminal database report (NCR), a People Search becomes a powerful one-two combination and an invaluable tool in the vetting process, as it allows for a widespread search which sweeps most of the country for criminal records, and returns a compiled report in a matter of seconds. Unfortunately, while these types of reports cover a broad geography and often return excellent results, they are reliant upon local and state court and agencies to upload records periodically to a centralized state repository (or database), and thus may not give you all of the relevant information possible. Also, some court and department of corrections records may be missed.
At this point, running a manual county (CCR) report may be required to supplement the missing data and to fill in any gaps in the individual’s criminal history. Utilizing the counties identified with the People Search report, now court records can be researched at the county level with ease. The only limitation is the associated turnaround times can vary by county, which can range anywhere from one to ten business days on average. This means critical information can be delayed for weeks, limiting your ability to make an informed decision in a timely manner.
This is where products such as LiveRunner™, Intelifi’s proprietary digital court runner platform, can be a literal lifesaver. LiveRunner allows county courts to be researched remotely in as little as thirty minutes, versus the traditional one to ten business days. Records retrieved via LiveRunner typically provides all relevant information including location of the court, offence and conviction dates, docket numbers, severities of the charges, and other important details, just like the traditional manual county records, only at unprecedentedly quick turnaround times.
Contact Intelifi to speak with a background screening specialist today: 888-409-1819.