Criminal police verification checks: A tale of blatant loopholes

Background verification is a process of authenticating a person’s credentials and references. Background verification enables employers to reduce potential risk mitigation by hiring a candidate who might be harmful to the company’s safety and reputation. Broadly speaking, an organisation would generally consider authenticating these four areas of a potential candidate’s personal information; employment, education, address and criminal.

A criminal background check of an individual is a check that delves into the criminal details if any of an individual’s past. Organizations conduct criminal background checks to reduce legal liability for negligent hiring and to ensure a safe work environment for employees. The top two convictions that are very influential in the decision not to extend a job offer are violent felonies and nonviolent felonies. However, some of the organizations allow job candidates to explain the results of their criminal checks before the decision to hire or not to hire is made.

There are primarily three different types of criminal records that an employer should check into:

Misdemeanour: An offense for which a sentence of imprisonment between 15 days and one year may be imposed.

Felony: An offense for which a sentence of imprisonment in excess of one year may be imposed.

Violation: A non-criminal offense for which a sentence of imprisonment in excess of 15 days cannot be imposed.

In India, criminal police verification reports are often the main, if not the only, component of a criminal background check. Ideally, they should help verify if an individual has been involved in any criminal activity and has pending criminal cases in jurisdictional police offices records.

These reports involve checking records at the commissioner of police office/superintendent of police office and the local police station, as applicable, based on a candidate’s address and local or state regulations. However, there are specific challenges with these reports that render them less effective, often inaccurate, and potentially non-compliant with a variety of local, regional, and international regulations and guidelines. The various challenges in conducting a police verification check include:

Firstly, there is no central criminal database. Police verification in India is not centralized or driven by a national database. Without digital records, crime logs are local and not accessible at city, state or national levels. This makes police verification from a local police station based on the candidate’s address, incomplete, inaccurate and redundant. Understaffed, overburdened and without a technology-based infrastructure, police stations tend to be disorganized with manual records and paper piles lacking data security or safety measures.
Secondly, it is a tedious, time-consuming and chaotic process. The formal process of police verification yields a result turnaround ranging from 60 days to a year based on the location. All police verification requests are filed personally by the candidate through the police commissioner’s office, and may require the candidate to make multiple visits to complete the check. The process may differ from one locality to another.

Thirdly is the global compliance risk factor. Police verification through a local police station is inconsistent and often acquired through unethical or corrupt practices. Unfortunately, many local vendors continue to offer and deliver this verification, ignoring the compliance issues and not alerting employers, who could subsequently be exposed to serious noncompliance issues. For example, fraudulent information and verification obtained by deceptive means and corrupt practices are unethical and could lead to lawsuits and legal action falling under the United Kingdom (U.K.) Bribery Act and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

An individual with a criminal background in one part of city, state or country could relocate to within India and appear to have no criminal record on a local police verification. Pair this stark coverage gap with all of the issues above and this verification method is highly ineffective and potentially futile if not performed through a formal process.

The author is SVP and MD of First advantage