Background Checks - How To Avoid Criminal Record Mistakes And Lawsuits

I'd say it's getting out of hand.

I've never seen so many lawsuits filed against pre-employment screening companies at one time.

And the reasons are ridiculous to begin with.

Not the plaintiff's reasons.

The reason the lawsuits are proliferating are the many errors in reporting criminal records.

Simple, needless errors. That only a little thought put behind the work could prevent.

Mistakes of DOB? Come on. Give me a break.

The inability to correct a mistaken record in the allotted time?

Spelling discrepancies, name only matches that aren't the name?

What - are we frozen in time?

There is a saying that goes "all criminal records are created equal."

That doesn't go for common sense.

Surely that can't be equal looking at the mistakes going around causing these lawsuits.

Is it the criminal record retriever in the field or your office help?

Is it the fast paced 'got to get the result out' to the customer ethic that we have established in our effort to differentiate ourselves from the competition?

Is it poorly trained, poorly paid line staff at your company that do not know how to read or write a criminal record?

Is it the records retriever that reports anything and everything remotely close for fear of losing business?

Either way, it's in the reporting.

It's in theirs and it's in ours.

It's time to turn the switch on and the lawsuits off.

Do Record Retrievers Falsify Cook County Criminal Record Searches

There was a lot of cheating going on doing Cook County criminal record searches in the early 1990's.

I don't know if this still continues today. I would think not because most Cook County criminal records are now inputted with dates of birth.

 And it was the lack of identifiers that led the unsrupulous to cheat.

There was a fellow named Ron, or Juhn, Jose..I care not to repeat his full name. He or she might still be checking names for you at the Cook County Courthouse.

I always remember him working out at the Washington Street,10th Floor, Chicago Municipal Court Records Dept.

Back in the 1990's the names were entered into the Cook County database but if it wasn't a felony or from one of the suburban branches dates of birth were omitted from the data entry.

That meant if you had a name match and there was no DOB showing on the computer index you had to order the file from the clerk and search the folder for a document that would have an identifier - a DOB.

And of course wouldn't it be Chicago cases that didn't have the DOB's entered. The busiest court (at least then) in the USA?

So you would have to make a list of all the files you wanted to search and present it to the clerk, who being a government worker, didn't appreciate that he would now have work to do.

If the name wasn't too common usually there would be only a few files to order and everyone was happy.

But get the last name Smith, Brown, Jones, Williams, you know, a very common last name and add a common first name - John, James, Robert, Michael, etc..  the files that needed to browsed through could reach the hundreds.

Plusit was around then that the Clerk's office decided to 'limit' the amount of single name cases that could be ordered at one time - I think it was set at 25.

That took care of their 'work overload.'

But tt all added up to a catastrophe of runaway turn around time.

And  a lot of unhappy pre-employemnt screening company customers who couldn't understand what was taking so long even if you explained it a hundred times.

So I'd see this 'John' character order a few files on a common name and then that would be it.

He'd clear it out.

And the pre-employment screening services were happy because their turn around time was so good.

But that riled me up. Here we all were competing for business and this yahoo is clearing names without doing the search.

And some of the background check companies would rave about this guy.

UNBELIEVABLE!

I asked him one day why he did that - clear them out.

And he just looked at me and said that the number of misses that he had didn't add up to all the work he had to do to clear a name. If there was a missed record he would just tell the screening company he 'd check the name again and that would be that.

I imagine he lost a few accounts that way.

But I wasn't imaging it when I recently saw him at the courthouse still checking or clearing names at the Cook County Courthouse.

Michigan Announces Wayne County 3rd Circuit Court Now Online But...

A recent press release from The wayne County (Detroit) Michigan 3rd Circuit Court announced that it has made online access available for record checks.

Of course, there is a disclaimer. No telling how many errors there are?

But the real problem is how many pre-employment screeners are going to use this sytem and bypass the 36th District Court - the REAL COURT - with the real information needed for searches to be properly done in Detroit.

The 3rd Circuit is the felony court.

And I think we all know that using the 'we return serious misdemeanors' doesn't hold up anymore. In fact by not doing the 36th District you're missing a lot of those 'serious misdemeanors' that never get to Circuit Court.

Note: 'Serious misdemeanors' at Circuit Court are usually lesser included offenses attached to felony charges, whether added, pleaded, or reduced
.
Did you know that that the 36th District processes more then a half a million cases a year?

Not as many as Cook County. But you still have to go to the courthouse to get a misdemeanor search done.

So even though the press release touted the accessibility to the court, we're still a long way off before we can start saying that that Detroit (wayne County) is online.

Keep hanging in there.

Aside from Steven Brownstein, What Courts Has Your International Court Record Retriever Visited?

Steven Brownstein is probably the most traveled to courts and judiciaries in history.
If you're not using Straightline International you are taking a chance, with your customer's and your business.
It is a fact that most international criminal record retrievers have never been to a court clerk's office - whether
overseas or even in the USA.
They have always used third party vendors - such as Straightline.
"So why not try a few phone calls?" they ask themselves.
And maybe they do.
But where are they calling? What are they doing. They don't know.
Maybe they read about it on the Internet. Certainly not in school or in a book.
One marketing trick that seems to work in this business of pre-employment screening is to cheapen pricing.
I do not mean good quality at low prices.
I mean junk. Like Japanese products after WWII. One week after you buy it - Kaboom! It's broken or worn out.
 Steven Brownstein has made an effort to learn and then educate the pre-employment screening community in first, domestic
searches, and the last several decades the international search.
He has seen a lot of opinion come and go but has never seen a concerted effort such as he's done to map the world and its
judicial systems and availability.
The Background Investigator is now in its 13th year.
Before that it was the Pre-Employment Screener.
Over 200 photos have appeared, each a different court from a different part of the world.
He's been there. And more places. He has a larger catalgue of court photos just waiting to be published.
When the going gets rough, he'll take the time and effort to go to that country to get what's needed to solve the problem
at whatever cost - and you never paid a cent more than the standard price.
He knows many instances when a USA vendor would not spend $5 to get more information from a domestic USA court without
giving the customer a head ache or refusing to do it.
And he knows that when the international vendor gets in trouble somehow that search ends up on his desk, even from the
vendor or another third party he sent it to complete.
In this litigious age how can you as a conscientious criminal records buyer even dream of buying a service that can't be
backed up by action?
Buy Straightline.. or buy a lot of E&O insurance!

Why 'Made In Japan' And Recent Criminal Record Researchers' Lower Prices Mean The Same

Lower prices mean less quality when the price cuts are meaningless; that is, when there is no new technology or technique that would precipitate such action.



 

Race Does Play A Part In Background Checks

In a recent news release, www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2012/12/prweb10220527.htm, Nick Fishman,  EmployeeScreenIQ, testified that when a criminal record is revealed, the background report does not include race, religion, sexual orientation or other protected class information.

That presents an exciting new twist for the defense of pre-employment screening companies when they get sued by applicants who had not been hired because of a an erroneous criminal record report that wasn't theirs.

Many times the non-hired's complaint includes the fact that the background check company erred in its ways because the person named in the criminal complaint was of a different race than the job applicant.

As if  (and here's the kicker) the EEOC wanst the employer to know the race?

Now,  I'm not quoting law but I think that adding race to a person's application just might violate some EEOC regulation.

So in fact then, criminal record reporting for pre-employment purposes is blind. The race identifier can not be use for criminal record identification.

It remains up to the job applicant to prove the criminal record is not his or hers.

Thanks, Nick.


 

NBV TV Doesn't Meet NAPBS Expectations

Maybe they should do background checks on themselves.

One lawsuit Against NBC,  "To Catch A Pevert, (Oops Predator)," claimed NBC fired a producer for questioning MBC's ethics - for insisting on 'ethical and accurate reporting on the Predator series.'

Apparently the plaintiff claimed NBC came up short on ethics and accuracy.

Still, NBC replied it was proud of their reporting.

No surprise there. Dazzle them with PR. Also,  who would want to publish a story demeaning themselves?

Meanwhile the lawsuit was dismissed for reasons other than innocence and we will never find out if NBC really did those bad things.

Tsk, tsk tsk.  Bad NBC.

Test Your Chicago Criminal Record's Knowledge

Theses courts are foreign if you are from ouside of the USA.

Unfortunately, they are foreign to most of the criminal record retievers that work in Chicago.

Do you know where in Chicago they are?

India Criminal Record Retrievers Know Squat About India

Here in the USA we are tested to the limit to get criminal records right.
Seems like in India , no one cares.

Even USA companies don't care how they get their criminal records searched in India.

I'm sorry the consumer has to pay the price of this ineptitude.

India HR sre smarter. They don't even buy criminal records from India vendors anymore.

Because India record researchers don't have a clue how to do them.

I say they do no not know otherwise I would have to accuse them of outright fraud.

Here's the latest word on "India searches I received from a company that advertises they're the largest..or maybe that they're the best..whatever.

I asked them to get me city wide police clearances.

Here is their response (they added in their redress ..see below.. to me that I said I couldn't get city wide certifcates. How little they know. That's my specialty. Guess it makes them feel good to think they are not alone!)

I talked with --------- ---------, our Head of India Operations and you are right there cannot be a source to give a city-wide police clearance with a certificate. She said, "No one can get it unless there is a legal case going on. Indian Police Stations validate verbally with nothing in writing." We do city-wide searches but as a rule cannot get a certificate.

I don't think they do anything but call the local police station. That's a big maybe. I imagine you would be hard pressed to actually get a verified statement of their phone bill with the suppossed telephone number they dialed.

Just like police certificates. they probably can't get phone bills, either.

I rate this and most other India criminal record retrievers a 0. A fat goose-egg.

Flawed Criminal Record Record Checks

An interesting set of circumstances occurred recently.

A court database had a glitch (bug, virus, flaw, etc....).

It went like this:

We ran the name ... it came back clear.

We sent the result as clear.

The customer called and said that the applicant admitted he had a criminal record.

So we ran the name again and got a hit.

We ran the name again to double check the result and got the hit again.

What's interesting is at my company we prepare for just this type of happenstance.

Believe me, it doesn't occur often, but....

As part of our quality control program, we save copies where and when we can of search results from courts, police, government entities, etc.

This was a case where we had the backup.

There in black and white, the glitch, flaw, whatever it is, showed up on the different result pages we had; both dated, one clear, one a record from the same court.

And that reminds me of a story when I was a court record retriever in DuPage County, IL.

I would check hundreds of names daily. This was when they first computerized the records in the early 1990's.

There would always be hits. Every day. At least, there should have been.

But one day I ran all hundred some names and they all were clear.

I became a little bit suspicious. Actually, I became quite paranoid.

That's when I remembered an old friend, Professional Ex- World Heavyweight Championship Boxer, Leon Spinks.

I knew, as well as everyone else in Chicagoland, that Leon had moved to the Chicago area from St. Louis and had several DUI cases in DuPage County.

It then struck me to check his name on the database.

And he came back clear - I mean, no record.

That meant all 100 plus name results were flawed. I'd have to run them again.

For this instance though, I paused and asked the clerk what, if anything, they knew about a problem with their database.

To which the she replied that yes they were aware of it.

It was something their IT department was working on.

That was it, non - chalantly , they're working on it.

So that day I had her manually check on 'their' system, not the public access system, the list of names.

She did all of them that day for me.

I had her check Leon Spinks' name first.

The record was present.

And from that day forward every time I did names in DuPage, which was daily, I always, and I mean ALWAYS, checked Leon Spink's name first to make sure that the computer system was working.

And it was never completely fixed; at least back then it wasn't.

I had forgotten that story until today.

This is a problem that is not well understood in our industry.

It is not widely publicized in governmental data processing circles, either.
I am not even sure if anyone is working on it.

What I can say is that the lesson I learned then, we still practice today.
At least at my company we do.

We take into consideration as many flaws that we are aware of and offset them with various means of search types.

We might check multiple sources; adding or refining methods combining to get you the best result.

Real results. Higher hit rates. Less problems down the road.

That's what our XR2 Puerto Rico Search does.

We try to eliminate as many flaws as possible

And like I wrote, earlier, we keep the result data as backup.

Lessons might be forgotten. That's why we practice improvement-  to remember, even while others might not even be aware.

That's why I believe you should know, be sure of,  that your research company is not just a source  that's maybe a few dollars cheaper, maybe a few hours quicker - but someone that you can count on and trust for the utmost service and quality day in and day out.

You can reach me,Steven Brownstein at The Background Investigator or Straightline International.  Call Steven Brownstein directly at 1-670-256-7000 or E-mail me at steveb@search4crime.com