The victim’s family came to the decision that the University’s admission policies was to blame. Following a lawsuit, North Carolina’s university system began requiring criminal background checks on any student who raises red flags. North Carolina is not alone. Other states are considering following suit.

The question of student background checks is the subject of controversy. Vice President and Dean of Stetson Law School in Gulfport, Florida, Darby Dickerson, warns criminal background checks is a “legal and policy jigsaw puzzle” of campus safety, vs legal risk and individual rights. “Implementing background checks as part of the admissions process is not a panacea.” There is no easy answer.

Director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, Barmak Nassirian said he does not see background checks as very effective at improving campus safety. He sees this is as a form of “active discrimination.” There is no way to determine if somebody with a criminal record is likely to offend again. Colleges and Universities should serve students who are working to overcome a criminal past and turn their lives around. “Educating people and putting them on the right path is a social responsibility,” he says.

For example, in 1996, Congressman & Chairman of House Ways & Means Committee, Dan Rostenkowski served 17 months in prison for mail fraud. He even plead guilty! 2 years later, he’s hired by Fox Affiliate WFLD as a political commentator.

2008, City Clerk, James Laski is convicted of corruption, and does a year in the slammer. Shortly after getting out, he’s in business with a brand new radio show on WGN, Chicago.

“I sat down with the Daleys and the Blagojeviches and the Madigans…I’ve been there and done the good and bad. Here’s the thing: It’s time to move forward.”

It’s bad enough people are having a hard time finding work as it is, but this only makes it worse for them. Employers are digging deeper into people’s pasts. Even after the courts purged or expunged arrest information, and criminal records, offender’s pasts can still haunt them. Records can still appear in newspaper archives and data mining companies.

Getting criminal records expunged or sealed doesn’t come cheap and not everybody is eligible. Besides that, in the digital age, this is not a cure-all. Even if arrest records and criminal information are purged by the Clerk of the Court, or law enforcement agency, offenders’ pasts can still haunt them. Background information may still exist in private data mining companies. This raises the question, is it really possible to erase your digital criminal past? Unfortunately, this is the result of a growing information broker industry. Most of these private firms are unregulated, except for credit checks.

Unfortunately, private data companies have no legal obligation to remove criminal records from their database, so they can often provide more complete information to employers, hence many simply turn to private database firms to dig up the information.

Your employer is going to run a background check on you. Find out what your employer is going to see about you, whether the records contain falsehoods or errors, and whether you can or should have them expunged or sealed…

All’s not lost. Depending on the state, with a bit of legwork, state public records may be of some help and most have some type of assistance available. If you wish to investigate what might be available to you.

The Web has fortunately been a Godsent for streamlining the reunion of many an adoptee and their birth parents. There are lots of adoption related search sites both national and international you can find via Google search. These sites generally function by keeping registrations of adoptees & birth parents where each may meet online and post a messages about themselves. Unfortunately this method is only successful if both people are searching for each other and usually find each other “by accident.” Some people turn to private investigators for help. Where a person is on the Federal Witness Protection Program, finding them is essentially impossible, until they are released from the program.

adoptionregistry.com is a good place to begin.

County Jail Links | Dept of Corrections

Centinela Prison

Our mission is to provide long-term confinement of men convicted of felonies and incarcerated with the California Dept. of Corrections.

Ohio prison inmates

Ohio prison search

Inmate data updated weekly, photos updated periodically.

Florida Dept of Corrections offender search

Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office – Search for Who’s in Jail

Texas prison inmates – main site

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Illinois dept of corrections inmate search page

Cook County Jail

Florida inmate search page

Pelican Bay

This case reminds us that you never know who could be a criminal, and for this reason, background checks and a thorough appraisal of potential employees is critical.   In the case of Lazarus, there were critical things ignored because no one wanted to consider the possibility that she was a killer.

As a parent, it is hard to send your child off to school for the first time. They have been by your side for so long, it may be hard to part with them because you know it is the first steps of growing up. Some of you may feel it is really easy to send your kids off to school but I deep down somewhere inside of you, you feel some kind of discomfort letting go of your child’s hand on the first day of school.

So should you worry about whose care your putting your child into? Who is watching them now that you are not around? You might have met the teacher but how much do you know about them? And what about other teachers or employees of the school that may come in contact with your child? Who are they exactly?

One question you should ask is “Does my child’s school do background checks?” Not just on teachers but cafeteria workers, custodians and maintenance men. And if they don’t, why not? If the school does not know the history of its employees, how can you stay at home and feel comfortable knowing your child is with a stranger?

As a mother, father, or guardian, married, single, or divorced, it should not matter. You are trusting someone with the care of your child, physically and mentally. If the school doesn’t run background checks, the parent should. You may not run into anyone bad with a background check and that is the best news you can have. But it is important to make sure. It’s easy to do. A few simple clicks and a couple minutes of time and the information you need to put your mind at peace is in front of you. Click here and make sure you child is in good hands.

The most common scenario is where the imposter will give the victim’s identity to an officer-of-the-law say during a traffic citation, or misdemeanor arrest, often in the form of a phony or stolen ID, or “borrow” the victim’s name an alias, then skip town, failing to pay the fine or make his required court appearance. Occasionally, serious offenses such as DUI and even felonies were committed in the victim’s name. Nearly always, the imposter is known to the victim, usually a friend or relative. Often, the two will be close in age and physical appearance.

You might be out driving on road one night, then find yourself being tailed then pulled over by a cop “Woooop!!! wooooop!!!” then getting arrested for outstanding warrants, booked at the county jail, strip searched, fingerprinted, and maybe spent the weekend in the slammer. When go before the judge, you’re told you’re free to go, all charges dropped because it turns out you’re not the person they were looking for.

Unfortunately, the criminal justice system does not yet have a decent contingency plan in place to clear an innocent person’s name. The burdon of clearing one’s name lies mostly with the accused, sometimes with steep attorney’s fees.

Procedures to clear your name from criminal databases varies according to state, or even individual counties. Some states already have special procedures in place for victims of criminal identity theft. Ask your state Attorney General’s office.

If wrongful criminal offenses are linked to your name, first contact the original arresting police/sheriff’s department who originally arrested the impostor, or else the court who issued the arrest warrant and file an impersonation report with them, and confirm your identity. Ask the police department to take your fingerprints, photograph you, and make official copies of your photo IDs, I.e.: driver’s license, passport, etc.. To claim your innocence, ask the police to compare your fingerprints and photos with the imposter’s.

Maintain a detailed log of all your phone conversions, paperwork, email messages, contacts, etc.. Keep a detailed record of all your expenses incurred. When writing the authorities you should always use certified mail with return receipt. Email is generally not considered secure for sending confidential private information, so it’s not recommended if you can avoid it. The rule is never send out something via email that would not want to share with the public. Changing your social security number is rarely recommended as that usually causes more problems than it solves.

If the arrest warrant is from another state or county, ask your local police dept. to forward your impersonation report to the agency of the jurisdiction where the arrest warrant, traffic citation, or criminal conviction originated.

The police/sheriff’s dept should recall any arrest warrants and issue you a clearance letter or certificate of release in the event you were arrested and booked. It’s essential to keep this document with you at all times in case you might be falsely arrested again. Have official copies made at the courthouse, in case it gets lost. Ask the agency to file the record of the follow-up investigation establishing your innocence at the D.A’s office and/or the court in the jurisdiction where the crime occurred. This will result in an amended complaint. Unfortunately once your name ends up in a criminal database, it’s difficult to get it completely removed. Ask that the key name or primary name be changed from yours to the imposter’s name, or else to “John Doe” if the imposter’s true identity is unknown, with your name noted as an alias.

You will also want to clear your name within the court records. Determine which state law(s) will help you with this and how. If your state has no formal procedure for clearing your record, contact the D.A.’s office in the county where the case was originally prosecuted. Ask the D.A.’s office for the appropriate court records needed to clear your name. Unfortunately in some situations, you may have no choice but to hire an attorney to help you clear your good name. You may want to ask your state DMV if your driver’s license was used by the imposter. Ask them to flag your files for possible fraud.

Your best defense is to pick your friends carefully and safeguard your drivers license, other licenses, passport and of course any other personal information that would be attractive to an identity thief.

Question: I have been looking for computer programming work for over the past year, but nobody’s hiring. At first I blamed in on “the Bush recession,” age discrimination, and outsourcing to India, but now I think it’s my wife’s felony conviction that’s could be the problem. I have an impressive resume and and NO criminal record, although my wife has one. So what’s the problem?

What’s the nature of your wife’s conviction?

“Mailing foot powder (fake anthrax powder) to the local water dept., (a 2nd degree Felony in the State of Florida). John Ellis “FIB” Bush put this G**damn law in place. She’s now a convicted ‘terrorist.’”

Answer: That can most definitely be your problem right there. Unfortunately, in the software engineering / programming field, employers are requiring security clearances and so are not just running security checks, and criminal background checks on you, the job seeker, but on your wife as well. Private companies in the software computer programming field today are very concerned about security because of growing concern about “cyber terrorism” and identify theft. Much of the work of programmers and software engineers intails working with encryption technology, and security.

Answer: That’s pretty bad. There’s 2 strikes against you already. We’re not just talking about a felony conviction here, but one that’s terrorist-related on top of that. Not good! You may want to look into self-employment as an option.

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.