Net Detective blog

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, […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]