What You Can Find In Public Records
When I was interviewing for jobs last summer, I found that there is a lot of information that employers want to find out about people they are considering hiring. During the formal interview, along with the resume and conversation that goes along with that, they had to know if any arrests were on my record. My record is so clean that I do not mind the investigations against me. Naturally, I wouldn't mind if they looked into it since they wouldn't find anything anyway.
It must have been pretty easy for them to look into this considering on the internet you can get a free criminal check, free arrest records, and a free criminal background check from all kinds of different websites. It's a little strange that anyone can get any of this data without paying. You would think, considering the confidentiality of medical records, that criminal records might be confidential as well. If a person has an internet the government interestingly enough wants people protected by this information.
It's really sad to think that someone will find it so difficult to get back into the work force if there's any kind of mark on their record. I think in most respects we live in a fairly forgiving society, but clearly a person with arrests or past crimes is going to be at a huge disadvantage when interviewing against people with clean records. I will be the first to admit that some people don't care and shouldn't get decent employment, but remember that there are other people out there who made one single error and want to make up for that isolated mistake.
They know they did the wrong thing and just want to atone for it. It's the reason I support programs that help companies with tax incentives and such when they're willing to employ those who at one time were arrested for criminal activity. Most frequently, you do have to at least try them to see if they're good.
Tags: background checks, crime, law, Public Records