Ohio Attorney General Audit Finds Criminal Background Check System Unreliable

Written By ESR News Blog Editor Thomas Ahearn

An audit by the office of Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine found that some Ohio courts are failing to follow a state law requiring them to report criminal convictions to the Bureau of Criminal Identification (BCI) resulting in “a technologically unreliable” criminal background check system, according to a report from The Columbus Dispatch.

The Columbus Dispatch reports that under current law neither the Ohio Attorney General nor the Ohio Supreme Court can force the court clerks to comply with law requiring them to report criminal convictions to the BCI. As a result, “thousands of convictions” are missing from the state criminal record database used by police and employers for background checks.

The May 1 audit found that dozens common pleas, municipal, and juvenile court clerks as well as Ohio mayors’ courts failed to report criminal convictions to the BCI. Instead, BCI employees have to check publicly available court websites and contact the clerks of court to find missing convictions to place in the criminal background check system, The Columbus Dispatch reports.

An investigation by The Columbus Dispatch and WBNS-TV (Channel 10) “discovered major flaws in a criminal background check system that periodically reports that felons have clean records.” The full report about the audit is at http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2015/05/10/law-enforcement-stymied-when-clerks-dont-report-convictions.html.

Criminal Background Check Databases Can Be Unreliable

For more information about how criminal background check system can be unreliable, please visit https://www.esrcheck.com/wordpress/tag/criminal-databases/. For more information about Employment Screening Resources (ESR) – ‘The Background Check Authority’ – please call toll free 888.999.4474 or visit https://www.esrcheck.com.

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