If you are considering a criminal records search, perhaps you think that there is some central records office that deals with all jurisdictions of criminal records-with the responsibility of compiling, organizing, and preparing as a records reference for all who seek the criminal records information. Unfortunately, this could not be further from the truth. The Criminal Records Bureau-that you may have heard of-only exists in the United Kingdom. While the U.S. and the U.K. both have means of approaching the recording and storing of criminal records in their respective countries, the U.K.’s records system varies quite demonstratively from that of the U.S. In the following discussion, we take a much closer look at the Criminal Records Bureau of the United Kingdom: how it is defined, how it relates to criminal records access, as well as how it compares and contrasts to the United States system of criminal records.
The CRB of the United Kingdom is a government records office that serves what is called the Home Office in the U.K, and maintains all records activity regarding criminal records. The main purpose of this criminal records executive office is to help non-criminal justice agencies and businesses “make safer recruitment decisions” as regards “positions of trust”, with invaluable criminal information records gained through criminal records information. Their two main objects of criminal records protection are “children and vulnerable adults”, as noted in their governmental mission statement.
The records department began in 2002, and works to safeguard citizens of “public, private, and voluntary” organizations by offering them records services of criminal records disclosure on potentially criminal individuals in the organization’s criminal records inquiry. They ensure that those with criminal records backgrounds do not gain employment or relationship with organizations that relate to children or “vulnerable adults”-which is basically any group of individuals that are at a disadvantage in means of protecting themselves; such as the elderly, handicapped, etc.
You may wonder how exactly the Bureau of Criminal Records works to locate and disclose the criminal records information that could be invaluable to the private and public organizations it works for. Basically, the department of criminal records offers two different types of records disclosure or criminal records check services for a fee: Standard and Enhanced Disclosures. The Standard Disclosure in the U.K. is a standard criminal records search for organizations that “work with children or vulnerable adults”, and offers criminal background records on past and present “convictions, cautions, reprimands, and warnings”. The Enhanced Disclosure is a more involved criminal background records check than the former, serving the same types of organizations and employees; with all the same background records information as the Standard Disclosure, but also with the records access to police records and documentation. To ensure that the records information is being used in a manner that is morally acceptable and less susceptible to lawsuits, the CRB offers a published policy and procedures code book for the organizations that use their records services. Moreover, the CRB works in conjunction with the U.K.’s Police National Computer-with “partial access” to their records database. This database is similar to what we have in the U.S.-the FBI’s National Crime Information Center.
Since it is a fee-based service, the government does not allow public entities to access their criminal records information-only private and public organizations that may have a relation to children and “vulnerable adults”. To gain access to this information, the public must ensure they have the subject’s express consent to do so, prior to applying to the CRB. This-while helpful-is in direct conflict with the way this country considers criminal information and accessibility.
In the U.S., the organization and accessibility of criminal records information is structured a lot differently. The most glaring distinction is in regards to the fact that access to all criminal information is for the most part, unrestricted. This is due to the instituting of the Freedom of Information Act in 1966. This act made all government information-which was previously only accessible to criminal justice agencies and departments-accessible to the public and non-criminal justice agencies. So, all actions that have been reported by all jurisdictions of law enforcement, court systems, corrections facilities, and probation officers are publicly available. When we say, “all”, it should be understood that most of this information is available, but there are some restrictions that each state have imposed according to various criminal factors. For example, some states consider juvenile records, misdemeanors, first time offenses, arrests without convictions and/or convictions that have occurred more than 3 years ago not important to criminal record search purposes, and therefore, they expunge or restrict these pertaining records from public access.
In the U.S., criminal records are reported and organized according to the jurisdiction that has processed the crime, at the local, county, state, and federal level. Local courts and information repositories process minor offenses such as misdemeanors. County and state departments deal with felonies, misdemeanors, and appeals. Lastly, federal district courts deal with federal offenses, and are typically stored in that respective district or the FBI database-depending on the severity of the crime. Which brings us to the topic of a national database of information of this nature. There is no one national database of criminal records information for the public. The only comparable criminal records database-as referenced earlier-is the FBI’s NCIC or National Crime Information Center, which is a national database of the most severe of crimes, and only FBI employees and criminal justice agencies are authorized to use this classified criminal records resource.