If you have been running employment background checks for a while, you probably know that the most reliable information source for a person’s criminal history is the county criminal search for state / local level offenses. Most criminal databases, either privately owned or even state-run, are not always as reliable as a county criminal search. There are a handful of exceptions to this, which we have noted below in our Statewide Criminal Search Grading Table.

If you are running an “Official Statewide,” where the information source is a database that is owned / operated / updated by a state agency, this is what you can expect in terms of accuracy.

There are no official statewide criminal searches available from CA, LA, NV, WV, WY and OH. These are only supported with private database searches, which are the least reliable.