How to Get a Criminal Background Check on Yourself
Doing a Criminal Background Check on Yourself
If you don’t know how to get a criminal background check on yourself, you won’t know what it says about you in the crime databases across the country. Whenever you apply for a job or a lease, it’s possible that your future employer or landlord will check your arrest record or conviction documents and disqualify you based on the record.
Obtaining your criminal history let’s you know what it is people are saying about you behind your back, so to speak.
Why Do a Criminal Background Check on Yourself?
You might chalk someone who gets a criminal background check on himself or herself is just being paranoid, or being a worrier, since there’s nothing they can do about the report. That’s not the case, though.
People who obtain their list of arrests, indictments and convictions can check to see if everything is correct. If any part of the record isn’t currect, you can challenge it and have it dropped from your record. If information is supposed to drop off you criminal documents in 7 years and it hasn’t, you can have it expunged from the record.
Clerical errors happen all the time in court files, so if you are being turned down for employment or at rental properties, check your criminal record and see if this is the problem. Getting a criminal background check is the fastest and most efficient way to check your personal history, if not the cheapest way. Here’s how you obtain a criminal background check done on yourself.
Choose an Agency to Perform a Criminal Background Check
Select a criminal background check state agency to perform your background check. You’re going to be going through the same process that a potential employer or landlord would go through.
Get all your pertinent personal history, such as full name, date of birth, place of birth, driver’s license number, social security number, any aliases you might have used and any court documents you retained from former court cases. Also, be prepared to pay with a check, money order or credit.
Any records that require a county’s official seal or state seal will need to be obtained by yourself.
Contact the State Agency
Your best bet is to contact the State Department of Justice in whatever state you live in.
The State DoJ will be able to perform an official background check on your behalf. If you have a criminal past in multiple states, you’re going to need to go through this process for each state you have been arrested, charged, indicted or convicted in, or in which you have served time.
If you have a more limited criminal record, with one or two incidents, you might consider obtaining files from the local or county court which handled your case. Consider collecting reports from each, to check if they are accurate and in sync.
For instance, if you were convicted in Austin, Texas, consider getting court files from the Austin municipal or county court, then collecting a criminal record from the Texas Department of Justice.
Be Prepared to Follow Procedure
Be ready to jump through whatever hoops the state or local agency wants you to. Some DoJ’s will want you to submit to a fingerprinting scan. This will require you to go to a state agency which does live scans, which tend to be spread out across each state.
Fingerprints obtained this way usually come at the price of a fee of around $25. If any of this sounds so objectionable that you’re going to flinch at doing it, there’s no reason to continue seeking a full criminal background check. Some states may have different procedures, but know this is a distinct possibility.
Backtrack if Needed
Sometimes, the State Department of Justice won’t have the files you’re requesting. In this case, the city or county court hasn’t provided them with their criminal files. In this case, backtrack to the county records or municipal records and locate the crime background you’re looking for.
In this case, you won’t need nearly as much information, and the court is likely to learn you copy and keep a record of your file. Most of the time, the material fee and court fees for such copies equals around $15 or more.
Getting a Criminal Background Check on Yourself
Most of the time, figuring out how to get a criminal background check on yourself isn’t needed. If you aren’t having trouble getting leases and jobs, you probably don’t want to go through this mess. If you have never been arrested and charged with a crime, it’s bordering on paranoia to go to the trouble of checking out your criminal history. Only get your criminal background check done if you have reason to suspect that something’s not quite right.
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This entry was posted on Saturday, February 13th, 2010 at 4:13 pm and is filed under Background Checks, Criminal Records, Private Investigation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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