Criminal Defense

crime is so prevalent in our society today and we only must switch on the television or read the morning newspaper to be bombarded with crime news. It makes sense in our each day fundamental interaction with our community that we should be vigilant with humans with criminal records, specially with the alarming recidivism rate in the united states.

according to james henslin in his book eligible “social troubles: a down-to-earth approach. ” (2008), he found that the recidivism or re-offending rate in united states for prisoners freed from prison within the basic year is 44. 1%. This rate escalates to a staggering figure of 67. 5% within three years after the prisoners are freed from prison. And the most disturbing aspect of his study shows that 67% of ex-convicts who were rearrested were charged with 750,000 new crimes of which over 100,000 of these crimes were classified as violent crimes, 2,871 were for murder and 2,444 for severe sex crimes.

these staggering results are of concern specially if you’re an employer, parents, landlords or humans sharing accommodation. As an employer you may not wish to utilize somebody who has criminal past specially one who has been convicted of violent crimes or rape. Parents with children unquestionably don’t want a sexual predator or pedophile as their neighbor while landlords are always concerned with regards to renting out their properties to tenants with previous conviction for fear that their properties are going to be utilized for illicit activities. And if you’re getting a new housemate, you unquestionably don’t want to portion your home with somebody with a shady past.

with high levels of ex-convicts re-offending, it’s only prudent that you run a background check on humans in circumstances cited earlier. However, running a background check may not be as easy as it sounds. You may attempt the federal bureau of prisons’ site which provides inmate locator service for a nominal fee and it’s capable to provide info of federal inmates incarcerated in the federal prisons since 1982. However, when using the inmate locater service, be aware that somebody may have a record in the federal bureau of prisons’ database but never serve a sentence of incarceration. For example, the individual may have been detained during pre-trial but charges were later dismissed. For state and local inmates, you may check someone’s criminal records from the public records departments at your local county but such search is only limited within each various county or city. Criminal conviction records from a different county, city or state will not be available from your local public records departments.

another hurdle faced when conducting a background check is that in certain states, you need the person’s date of birth and social security number before you’re permitted to carry out a search. Whereas for employers, due to red tape and legislative restriction, an employer can’t check a person’s criminal records unless permission is obtained from the prospective employee.

how do you keep away from the red tape or obstacles and check on someone’s background. The resolution is by using an online background check. There are a number of companies that provide nationwide public records databases online in which you may conduct online criminal records check. Obviously you need a great deal of basic info of the individual you’re checking on. The accuracy and reliability of criminal records extracted from these databases depend on the basic info you input into the databases. If the name of the individual you check reveals that he or she had a criminal record, don’t jump to conclusion and assure you double check the info to assure that it’s the correct individual.