Background Screening

CATEGORIES

True Cost of Background Checks

All of Us or None v. Hamrick In May 2021, the appellate court in California ruled in All of Us or None v. Hamrick that trial courts in...

Criminal Record Questions in the Era of “Ban the Box”: Criminal Record Questions

There is very little consistency in how questions about criminal records are asked on job applications, or what information is requested....

The Rise of Criminal Background Screening in Rental Housing

The carceral state works with the private sector to carry out the work of social control, extending risk-based logics far beyond prison...

Survey of State Criminal History Information Systems, 2014

The Bureau of Justice Statistics provides detailed information on how criminal record checks are conducted in the United States and its...

Report of the National Task Force on the Commercial Sale of Criminal Justice Information

This fascinating (though outdated) report from the National Task Force on the Commercial Sale of Criminal Justice Information examines...

The next Pandora’s Box of criminal background checks

To what extent do mandatory checks required by government lead to an overall increase in background checks performed by employers? This...

Do Not (re)enter: The Rise of Criminal Background Tenant Screening as a Violation of the Fair...

More robust and clear guidelines and policies are needed to eliminate discrimination against people with criminal records in housing....

Broken Records Redux: How Errors by Criminal Background Check Companies Continue to Harm...

Because errors in background checks are common and have life-changing consequences, federal and state elected officials should do more...

3 Employment Screening Trends to Know Before You Hire in 2019

Employers are continuing to increase their surveillance of potential and current employees. This article on the Society for Human...

Policing Criminal Justice Data

There is a strong need for oversight and regulation of data compiled and disseminated by the myriad criminal legal systems in the U.S....

Digital Punishment: Privacy, Stigma, and the Harms of Data-Driven Criminal Justice

The stigma of criminalization takes on new meaning and heightened consequence when criminal records are online, easily accessible to all...

The Expanding Scope, Use, and Availability of Criminal Records

The production and use of criminal records has increased dramatically in recent years. This article provides a thorough review of the...

The Eternal Criminal Record

How did criminal records go from decentralized collections of local documents used primarily by police, to nationally integrated...