Background Screening: Is Your Search Missing Dangerous Convictions?

Most hiring managers understand the importance of performing a criminal records search during the background check process. However, simply ordering a one county search, or only utilizing a nationwide criminal database search can leave you with an incomplete picture about the candidate. Not having all the information could open your company up to a variety of risks, and hiring a dangerous employee is at the top of that list. 

This is why it is imperative to understand and implement the Federal Criminal Search into your hiring process. 

What is it?
Federal Court is an entirely different animal than county or state courts, AND federal information is not included in any of the nationwide databases.

These records contain the crimes logged in the U.S. Federal District Court for criminal charges in a specific US district.

The US is divided into 90 federal judicial districts. Each district is divided by boundaries. Federal criminal charges are initiated by the government, usually through the U.S. attorney's office in coordination with a law enforcement agency.
This is the “Martha Stewart” court. The arrest and conviction of Martha Stewart would not show up in the county or state of NY files, because she was arrested and convicted in the Federal courts.
Examples of federal crimes are

• mail fraud
• drug trafficking
• civil rights violations
• credit card fraud
• bank robbery
• immigration issues
• kidnapping
• embezzlement

Why is it important?

Federal charges can only be found with a federal criminal search; they will not show up anywhere else. These are convictions that a company does not want to miss!

According the the US Attorney's Annual Report for 2012, there were over 80,000 defendents who either pled guilty or were found guilty. 22% of these were drug related, and 18% of these were violent crimes.

Hiring managers who do not perform a Federal Criminal Search would most likely NEVER uncover these convictions!

It is advisable to add a federal criminal search into your hiring process. Missing dangerous convictions could increase a company’s risk of hiring a candidate who is dangerous to the security of the workplace.

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