LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - The addition of online access to criminal records for background checks has proved popular with Nebraska residents who want to see whether a prospective employee, a neighbor or a future spouse has ever been arrested.
More than a year ago the Nebraska State Patrol put its background check system online. It lets people check a name through the patrol database for $18. The site is accessible at www.ne.gov/go/crime_report .
Patrol Lt. John Shelton told the Lincoln Journal Star (https://bit.ly/1lCIsV3 ) that if the numbers keep climbing, the system will have run 40,000 checks by the end of the year - 40 percent online. In 2013 there were 37,501 name checks, with 11,688 of them online.
“It’s popular. Every month we see those numbers continue to climb,” Shelton told the newspaper.
The names are run through the patrol’s criminal history database, which Shelton said contains information from all people who are arrested and fingerprinted in Nebraska. That includes arrests in Nebraska by federal agencies, if the person detained is subsequently held and fingerprinted in a Nebraska county jail. It doesn’t include information on people arrested only in other states or countries.
Without the online service, a name check can take seven to 10 days. The online system will provide a result immediately if the person checked has no criminal record, Shelton said.
But about 25 percent of the time, an arrest will be noted and, under state law, the information can’t be released until the patrol determines what happened in the case: Was the person ultimately charged after the arrest? Prosecuted? Convicted?
The system hasn’t saved the patrol any money, Shelton said, because doing less work on preliminary name-based background checks has freed patrol employees to do other work.
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Information from: Lincoln Journal Star, https://www.journalstar.com
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