Conducting a Connecticut criminal record check can be a bit complicated and confusing, so I have broken down some of the ways that it can be accomplished, from the most basic to the “leave no stone unturned” method.

If you are a reader of this blog, you know that we typically recommend conducting criminal record checks through multiple sources. (Additional reading: How to Conduct a Criminal Background Check Like an Expert and How to Look Up Criminal Records.)

For a variety of reasons, many of these sources are not complete. In some cases, they cover different things.

But most of all, I get paid to find information, so it’s critical that I do everything in my power to do that, regardless of how far back it goes.

Basic

---

Connecticut Judicial Website

The State of Connecticut Judicial Branch has a website where you can look up criminal and motor vehicle cases statewide. In addition, you can look up arrest warrants issued for failure to appear or for violation of probation as well as orders to incarcerate.

There are a couple of caveats, though. The criminal records go back only 10 years, so for anything beyond that, you will have to use one of the alternate methods outlined below. Also, by the state’s own admission, the outstanding warrant database is not complete; so if you don’t find an outstanding warrant, it doesn’t mean that one does not exist.

Department of Public Safety

The Connecticut State Police keep criminal records throughout the life of the individual and after he or she is deceased. Electronic records date to the early 1990s, when the database originated, and historical paper records date back much earlier. You need to fill in a form and send a $36 check to the Connecticut State Police.

Frankly, it’s a slow and tedious process, but the information is coming straight from the State Police, so it’s the most “official” source you can go through.

PACER

Most people think of criminal records — including those for drug possession, driving while intoxicated, or assault and battery — as state matters. However, there are a number of federal statutes that can result in someone facing criminal charges, especially with white-collar matters.

Most U.S. District Court criminal records, including Connecticut’s, are accessible through PACER, the online federal court docket system. According to information on PACER, they have records back to 1961, although I am not sure how comprehensive these are. Even so, in more recent cases you can download the documents right from the website.

Advanced

---

On-Site Court Check

As I mentioned in a previous post (How To Look Up Criminal Records), one of the most important things that you need to do in a criminal check is determine which county the person is residing in so that you can search the local court. Why? These courts are the sources of the information, and going to the source is almost always the best way to get what you are looking for.

You can hire a court retriever in the local jurisdiction to search the records through BRB’s public retriever network.

Third-Party Database

As noted above, the criminal records on the State of Connecticut Judicial Branch website go back only 10 years.

So what if you want to find records beyond 10 years? You either go directly to the court, or you can utilize one of the many third-party databases that have been collecting criminal records for many years.

In fact, utilizing some of these third-party databases may be even more effective than going directly to the court. Why? Connecticut purges records often, so records may not exist at the court or in the courts databases. Some of these third-party databases have been collecting and saving the information for years.

The one we use is Court PC of Connecticut, which has been collecting Connecticut criminal conviction information since the early 1990s and has some criminal information going back to the early 1980s. According to owner John Lach, they have been collecting data from Connecticut through its open access law since 1992.  As John explained in an email,Court PC has coverage for all criminal convictions as of 1991 and partial coverage for pre-1990 felonies based on if the case was purged and / or finalized when they started collecting data.

Leave No Stone Unturned

---

Local Police Department Inquiries

This is put into the category of “leave no stone unturned” because it’s a long and tedious process. There are 92 municipal police departments in Connecticut. If you really wanted to, you could contact each and every one of them. But a more effective use of your time would be to contact the individual towns where the person resided and ask how to make a request for any incidents or police reports relating to a particular individual or a particular address.

The difference between this request and other requests is that these incidents may or may not have turned into criminal cases. For example, police may have been called to a residence regarding a domestic dispute, but no criminal charges were filed.  Or they charges may have been filed, but the person was not convicted (note that the sources identified above only provide conviction information).

Final Thought

So there you have it the way to conduct a Connecticut Criminal record check from the most basic to the “leave no stone unturned” method. Any questions?  Leave us a note in the comments below.

Over the past 10 years I have conducted hundreds upon hundreds of background checks. By “background check” I don’t mean the cheap background check your employer has probably completed on you. I am talking about the “leave no stone unturned” background checks that cost clients thousands and thousands of dollars.

As you may imagine, I am a big proponent of conducting background checks, but they are often misunderstood.

Like everything else, they do have problems.

Here are five problems with background checks:

1 Not everything will be found

If you stole lunch money from your friend in the 7th grade, it’s not going to found. Likewise, if you inhaled once at a sorority party in college, that’s probably not going to be found either. This may seem completely ridiculous, but I have been asked about both of these things before.

Background checks rely on public records; things like stolen lunch money records and sorority party attendance and drug inventory are not included. Of course, interviews may reveal some information about you not available in the public record, but interviews are only really conducted with a complete background check with interviews which, more likely than not, is beyond the normal scope of a background check.

2 Databases have errors

Background checks rely on databases that gather information from millions of public records. But these databases have errors.

You will hear hundreds of stories of employees not getting jobs because they have been incorrectly linked to some criminal offense they did not commit. In the other extreme, we have shown that a popular online background check did not reveal a lengthy criminal history.

Errors are obviously are problem, but the bigger problem is the some background check providers rely strictly on databases and do not obtain any source documents from local repositories to confirm the existence of these records, even with serious criminal offenses.

The solution is to utilize a combination of databases and onsite checks at local repositories. The problem is that many providers don’t do this because of cost.

3 Common names are very challenging

Ever try finding some information on John Smith, Michael Williams, Jennifer Johnson or Barbara Jones?

Common names are extremely difficult, in part because most public records are not linked by a unique identifier such as your date of birth or social security number. In some cases you will find that many individuals with the same name are all mixed together or worse, have the same exact name AND middle initial.

Even the most experienced investigators have problems with common names. Unfortunately, there is no easy answer. If you want to be comprehensive, you have make your way through thousands of records; a manual, time consuming process.

4 Past performance does not necessarily predict future results

This year’s top-performing mutual funds aren’t necessarily going to be next year’s best performers.The SEC has required the above statement on materials provided by the industry to tell investors that a fund’s past performance does not necessarily predict future results.

This is similar to a background check. Because someone has not committed a crime in the past, doesn’t mean they will in the future. And because someone has filed for Bankruptcy doesn’t mean that they are going to do it again.

Historical bankruptcies, financial difficulties, criminal acts, a litigious past, misrepresentations and regulatory sanctions can be indicators of potential problems down the road.

But while a background check may provide some clues to the future, it’s not a crystal ball.

5 Background checks are fact based material…you make your own interpretation

Background checks by nature are fact-based material, culled from public sources.  Things like whether a person has been involved in lawsuits, if they have any criminal records or have filed for bankruptcy will be included in the report.

Any background check worth it’s weight, will not provide any opinions based on the findings. It is what it is. The records speak for themselves.

The problem is that you have to make your own interpretation. Some white lies on a resume may not mean all that much to you, but they can be an indicator of other deeper lies.

The background check report will not tell you that the person is a compulsive liar, but it will tell you that they falsified their degree and did not put on their resume that they were president of a company that went bankrupt. You need to make your own judgment if you want to be in business with that kind of person.

So there are five common problems with background checks. If you have any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to leave your thoughts below.

I was recently working on a case where I needed to download and PDF a Twitter stream to preserve the information in case the information was deleted or changed at a later date.

The simple solution was to create a PDF of the Twitter stream, but when I tried that, it looked like a jumbled mess. Try printing something from Twitter and you will see what I mean.

In addition to trying to create a PDF using Acrobat and Google Chrome’s built-in PDF tool, I tried using various web capture tools such as Screen Capture and Awesome Screenshot on Google Chrome. I found both to work well with pages with only a few hundred tweets, but for larger pages with hundreds or thousands of tweets, they crashed. I also tried Evernote and Springpad, but neither was able to keep the format of the Twitter stream to my liking.

After some digging around, I found a solution that not only preserves the Twitter stream but keeps the same look and feel in PDF format and maintains all the links.

The Solution

Although I didn’t really care about keeping the exact format, I wanted it to be presentable, in case it needed to be used in court. I also wanted the final document to be user friendly, and a PDF seemed like a logical choice.

This solution requires a couple of things:

• A full version of Adobe Acrobat (not the free version). I used Adobe Acrobat 9 Standard, but I am sure that older and newer versions of Adobe Acrobat would work as well. Some other PDF software may also do the job, but I did not test any out.
• Your own Twitter account (make a new one if you have to).

How to Download and PDF a Twitter Stream

Step 1: Log on to Twitter (this will not work if you don’t log in).
Step 2: Using your Internet browser, find the stream that you want to capture (i.e., http://www.twitter.com/#!/[Enter User Name Here]; e.g., http://www.twitter.com/#!/ladygaga).
Step 3: By default, Twitter shows only the most recent 100 or so tweets. Keep scrolling to the bottom of the page until you get the first tweet that was posted (this may take some time if there are lots of tweets).
Step 4: Download a complete version of the web page. In Chrome, select the Wrench icon and select “Save Page As…” (In Internet Explorer click Save As and in Firefox select Save Page As.) By default the file type should be set to “Webpage, Complete”; if not, select it. Make sure you save the file in a place where you can find it.
Step 5: Open the full version of Adobe Acrobat. Go to File > Create PDF > From File. Select the HTML file that you downloaded (it should be called something like “Barack Obama (barackobama) on Twitter.html”) and create the PDF.

There you have it. A PDF version of a Twitter Stream. It’s not perfect, but it looks pretty decent; it’s preserved in PDF so it can’t be altered; you can search specific keywords; and all the links operate in case you need to access the linked information later.