After a criminal charge is dismissed, you might assume you would have a clean record, but in a routine criminal background check by an employer, the arrest shows up. Years later, the arrest still shows up. How can this be? How is this possible? It’s because the arrest was never expunged. Hypothetically, you are arrested, and booked, but the State dismissed the charges because you are innocent. You don’t need a lawyer (except maybe to sue for false arrest). Think again!

There is still a record of your arrest. This is what expungement is for. Expungement is nothing more than a lawsuit against government agencies for keeping a record of your arrest, demanding that it be destroyed. Why is this necessary? Unfortunately, for most people who have to work for an employer, an old arrest record can be a big problem.

If you’re like most people, you probably were required to be fingerprinted at one time or another, for the purposes of a criminal background check, if you ever applied for a professional license. Teachers, Nurses, Foster Parents, Insurance Agents, Adjusters, Title Agents, HAZMAT drivers, and even college students are a few examples. In some states, even bums may be required to submit fingerprints to buy a bottle of MD 20/20. While nudist resorts always run criminal background checks on new members, they don’t ask for fingerprints.

It seems about the only people not required to submit fingerprints for criminal background checks are politicians.

Never since Vietnam, our US Army is staining to the breaking point to keep up with unsustainable demands. Gen. Colin Powell once declared the Army is “about broken.”

The Army is relaxing it’s admissions standards, allowing new recruits previously unfit to join. First the Army raised it’s max recruiting age from 35 to 40, then to 42. The number of high school dropouts is up, as are potential recruits who scored low on the military’s aptitude test. The most disturbing trend is the growing number of moral waivers, issued to new recruits with criminal records. The number of waivers issued to convicted felons jumped by 30%.

A common growing complaint of hiring managers is the quality of job applicants just isn’t what it used to be. When a criminal background check turns up something, that comes as little surprise.

Almost every category of background check turned up more hits in 2006 than previous years. Criminal records checks yielded 9.1% hits, up from 8.5% the previous year. Almost 10% of people applying for work have a criminal record. Every industry is different, but the biggest increase in hits are in construction and retail sales. Financial services, healthcare, and education had much fewer hits, but this is little consilation since a criminal hire in these industries would have much worse impact.

Private security guards poor pay and lack of training and background checks poses security risk. Private security guards who are guarding many critical high-security sites throughout the US are paid little more than minimum wage and have little or no terrorist training according to an AP investigation.

9-11 has transformed the nation’s force of “rent-a-cops” into guardians of the homeland, but competition in the security industry for cheap bid contracts keeps wages low and proper training virtually nonexistent. Most security guards work for less than $11/hr and receive little training, and many are hired without any criminal background check. A Congressional investigation revealed that almost 90 guards working on military bases had criminal records.

According to a 2005 DHS report, 15% - 20% of US private security guards guard US Government critical infrastructure sites. Ie: nuclear power plants, military bases, Federal buildings, utility plants, chemical plants.

Kids who sexually abuse other kids often get little or no attention and go unreported.

Many parents worry about adult sexual predators in their neighborhood, but never give it much thought that other kids might be sexual predators. One mother was completely unaware the 16-yr old babysitter she trusted, was sexually abusing her 3-year old daughter while her 5-year old son was watching. The babysitter was treating it like a game. Most people don’t realize how big this problem is. This goes on more often than people realize. Easily a third of child victims were victimized by an older child. 11-year olds have been known to commit rape.

If a juvenile is in the juvenile court system, their records are sealed, so schools have no access to them. However there is one caveot. A person under 18 can be tried as an adult for rape and sexual battery, and if found guilty, they are required to register as sex offenders in most states.

Years before the Virginia Tech shootings, there were early warning signs. In 2005, a court order was issued to Seung Hui Cho. “Cho is mentally ill and in need of hospitalization, and presents an imminent danger to self or others as a result of mental illness.”

Federal law prohibits anyone whom a judge has adjudicated mentally defective, or anyone involuntarily committed to a mental institution from buying a gun. As of 2007, only 22 states (Ie: Kansas) submit mental health records to the Federal background check database. The problem is many states do not require the gun buyer to undergo any any state criminal background check, and rely soley on a federal background check alone. The problem here is all too often, the federal records are incomplete and not up-to-date as state records.

Amazingly, in this post 9-11 era, US Military bases were rarely doing criminal background checks on civilians who routinely access military bases. Had checks been performed, the 6 Islamic militants who plotted their terrorist attack on Ft Dix NJ, would have been arrested long ago, instead of more recently from a lucky tip-off.

3 of the men where in the Country illegally and had prior troubles with the law. One of them worked as a pizza delivery driver who frequently worked on the base.

A new bill was introduced in Congress to require mandatory criminal background checks to help prevent possible future attacks on military bases.

In America, convicted criminals are not supposed to be able to buy guns, but many fall through the cracks during the required criminal background checks and are ok’d to buy a gun. According to a report by the US Dept of Justice titled “Broken Records” this is a real problem. 22 states received failing grades for maintaining inadequate criminal, domestic violence, and mental records. Interestingly, North Carolina got the highest mark - a B+, while Indiana got the worst grade.

Each state is responsible for compiling their own records of felonies, domestic violence, and mental illnesses, but even today in the 21st Century, many have failed to computerize many records.

Almost 10,000 disqualified gun buyers were able to buy a gun because of flawed background checks. This is a conservative estimate because it does not account for thousands of other gun buyers who have serious mental illnesses or domestic violence records, since many of these records are nonexistent in many states.

Computerized records are making criminal records expungment more difficult to accomplish. Criminal records that used to be kept on paper file, have gone digital, and reports show are being sold to the private sector.

An important ethical question often asked is should this be legal? Should the needs of employers to run criminal background checks take precident over the individual’s right to privacy and a clean history?