Given the outsized implications for individuals, to note that criminal record keeping requires accuracy is to note merely the obvious. This is especially true in the employment context where "94% of employers conduct background checks" on job applicants. Growing employer demand for background checks has, in turn, fueled a dramatic increase in private sector service providers in this space. While access to and uses of criminal records have expanded, concerns persist about "serious data quality problems" in various criminal justice databases.
To explore this issue, in a recent paper, The Problem With Criminal Records, Sarah Lageson (Rutgers--crim. just.) & Robert Stewart (Maryland--crim. just.) compare criminal record reports for 101 New Jersey participants, all of whom had at least one criminal change in their history, across three sources: (1) the official state record; (2) a consumer reporting agency; and (3) an open source, public records data aggregator. The researchers then asked each of the 101 participants to review and audit the information retrieved from the three sources.
As the figure above visually implies, what the researchers found includes errors, and lots of them. Among the 2,406 individual charges reported by the three separate sources, only 8.3% of the participants' criminal charges (200/2,406) were accurately reported by all three sources. Moreover, 60% and 50% of participants had at least one false positive error on their regulated and unregulated background checks, and nearly all (90% and 92% of participants, respectively) had at least one false negative error. As this study is limited to individuals with criminal histories, it remains unclear whether errors also implicate those with no criminal history. The paper's abstract follows.
"Criminal records are routinely used by employers and other institutional decision-makers, who rely on their presumed fidelity, to evaluate applicants. We analyze criminal records for a sample of 101 people, comparing official state reports, two sources of private sector background checks (one regulated and one unregulated), and qualitative interviews. Based on our analysis, private sector background checks are laden with false positive and false negative errors: 60% and 50% of participants had at least one false positive error on their regulated and unregulated background checks, and nearly all (90% and 92% of participants, respectively) had at least one false negative error. We define specific problems with private sector criminal records: mismatched data that create false negatives, missing case dispositions that create incomplete and misleading criminal records, and incorrect data that create false positives. The prevalence of error in private sector background checks limits access to social opportunities ranging from employment, education, and housing."
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