The nationwide criminal database search (NCS) locates potential criminal records that maybe outside the employee’s county or state. A NCS is comprised of 64 jurisdictions and draws from over 600 million records including counties, department of corrections (DOC), administrative office of courts (AOC) and sex offender registries from all 50 states, plus Washington, D.C., Guam, and Puerto Rico. The nationwide criminal database search (NCS) is a supplemental search that should only be used in conjunction with a statewide or county search. If a record is returned, we automatically confirm its accuracy with the originating source at the county or state level.
Advantages of a Nationwide Criminal Database Search:
✓ Identify jurisdictions where a person may have a criminal record outside their state or county.
✓ Search beyond states and counties where a candidate has worked, lived or attended school
✓ Criminal records from state record repositories and some county courts
✓ Departments of correction and probation
✓ Sex offender registries from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Guam
✓ Information from state-level agencies, Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
✓ Local, state and federal fugitive lists
A nationwide criminal database search should never be used as the only criminal background search on a potential employee. While this search is a great supplemental tool and is good at locating records outside the state or county jurisdictions, it does have its flaws. Some of these databases are not updated on a regular basis and can have a false match with common names. It must also be known that not all jurisdictions across the United States participate in providing criminal record information to the databases.
