Criminal Background Checks

We blend technology with a human touch to provide faster, more accurate results.
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Background Checks are Not
Created Equal

What are employment criminal background checks, and how does criminal activity impact background checks for employers? Getting a complete picture of a candidate’s criminal history is often more complex than people think. At Sterling, we make it easy for you to make fast, more accurate, and safer hiring decisions through a combination of robust services, solutions, and technology that allows us to:

  • Uncover more criminal activity
  • Gain direct access to more US criminal records
  • Deliver more accurate results by maintaining high levels of quality controls by filtering and auditing at every step
  • Deliver faster criminal search results to you to get new hires to work sooner
  • Help you mitigate risk with our compliance-enabled features
Sterling has digital access to 85% of US criminal search records
Direct Digital Access to More Criminal Records
With CourtDirectTM, our proprietary automation technology, Sterling has digital access to 85% of US criminal search records. Some county jurisdictions still rely on paper records, where a county clerk manually retrieves those records relevant to a background check for employment. In situations like these where automation isn’t available, we have our own dedicated team of court researchers available, which allows Sterling to find and deliver physical court records faster than third-party court runners A court runner is a person who physically goes to court houses and transacts directly with the court clerk to obtain copies of official records held by the court. .

Our Technology Delivers Results
In Hours, Not Days

Sterling combines advanced proprietary technology with the human touch to provide high-quality results, advancing our pursuit of continuous improvement in the services we offer. For example, our own CourtDirect technology enables us to expand our digital access to court records. By leveraging assisted and augmented intelligence since 2017, we offer noteworthy improvements in turnaround time. We complete 60% in the first 15 mins, 70% in the first hour, and 90% in the first day for criminal background searches.
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60%
turnaround time in 15 mins.
70%
turnaround time in the first hour.
90%
turnaround time in the first day.

More Criminal Activity Uncovered

With Sterling’s three powerful criminal locator tools, we cast a wider net to identify the most likely places to search for criminal records in a background check for employment. When used together, these three locator tools uncover tens of thousands more criminal records than instant database searches alone.
Sterling identifies the address history associated with a Social Security Number (SSN) using an extensive database of 10,000+ sources. The results broaden the scope of a background check to include jurisdictions (and names, if requested) beyond what the candidate has disclosed. Alias names also may be identified upon request.
The Enhanced Nationwide Criminal Database searches State, County, and Corrections criminal record databases to locate additional jurisdictions where a candidate may have committed a crime. Prior to reporting, possible felony and misdemeanor convictions and pending cases are verified against primary source court records to validate the record before it is reported during employment background investigations.
Locator Select queries over 2400 jurisdictions for bookings and incarcerations, covering most of the incarcerated population in the US, and locates additional jurisdictions where a candidate may have criminal record history. Possible felony and misdemeanor convictions as well as pending cases are verified against primary source court records to validate the record before it is reported.
Blending Technology with a Human Touch

Sterling doesn’t just use technology alone for our background check services. Our market experts use a consultative approach to apply technology in the most appropriate ways to deliver the high-quality results that our clients rely on. We evaluate data at every step of the criminal screening process, reducing the opportunity for errors to occur.

Our advanced technology is designed with regulatory compliance as its foundation by applying filters to support alignment with federal and state reporting requirements. We leverage  assisted Machines perform existing processes, including the replacement of repetitive and standardized tasks previously done by humans. and  augmented The intersection of where humans and technology learn from each other, empowering humans to do things they couldn’t do before. intelligence because we believe humans and technology can and should continuously interact.

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What Customers Are Saying About Our Technology

Mark Monitello,
Mark Monitello,

Chief Human
Resources Officer

Not only do we need pre-employment checks done for onboarding but we’re also running them through OIG (Office of Inspector General at the US Department of Justice) checks on a monthly basis. We also need to get them appointed with insurance carriers who do their own background checks on top of that. The process takes time and costs a lot of money, so the accuracy and detail of background check information provided to us is critical, because to go through the whole process to find out that we potentially can’t get someone appointed to a carrier can be a very costly problem. Sterling’s technology has allowed us to get more accurate background checks faster and easier, which is critical to us and our success.”

Read the full story here.

Rita Bowden,
Rita Bowden,

Manager of Recruitment and
Workforce Planning, Texas A&M’s
Division of Human Resources
and Organizational Effectiveness

What sold us on Sterling was getting the most comprehensive coverage for criminal background checks and a strong return on our investment.”

Read the full story here.

End-to-End Criminal
Screening Process

Most criminal screening processes consist of three steps: a social security number trace, a national criminal records database check, and a sex offender database search. At Sterling, we take great pride in our robust Criminal Background Screening solutions, and our ability to provide multiple options for clients with varying degrees of business requirements.
Our key services and technologies enable us to provide unique and powerful solutions for your background check program. The overall process we follow includes a seven-step process. Together, these steps allow us to enable industry-leading turnaround times, accuracy you can trust, and automation for efficient and effective client experiences.
Sterling Criminal Screening Process Sterling Criminal Screening Process

Our Robust Suite
of Services

So, what exactly comprises a background check? More specifically, how are our screening services different? Sterling’s background services are designed for today’s modern global workforce. Our robust suite of background screening services can be tailored to fit your specific business needs and requirements.

County Court Record Searches are available in 3340+ counties in the United States. These searches identify potential criminal history information such as felony convictions, misdemeanor convictions, and pending cases in the jurisdictions provided by the candidate or identified based on Social Security Trace and/or other locator services (such as where they have lived, worked, or attended school).

Sterling searches through the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) National Sex Offender Public Website (NSOPW), which includes registered sex offenders in 49 States, US territories, the District of Columbia, and participating Indian tribes.

The Federal Court Search is for crimes that are prosecuted in federal district courts, including convictions and pending cases for charges such as international/inter-state drug trafficking, kidnapping, and other federal-level crimes. Sterling can obtain federal records from all district courts based on SSN trace locations in the United States, and related territories.

GLOBEX searches millions of records worldwide sourced from foreign governments, courts, regulatory enforcement, law enforcement agencies, and other public and proprietary data sources around the globe. Data sources are subject to availability and applicable reporting restrictions. This search is for restriction, sanction, and exclusion records maintained by the United States and international legal and regulatory enforcement organizations and public sources. The search includes sources containing information from 1700+ Watchlists and Sanctions with 4+ million records, as well as Politically Exposed Persons.

Criminal activity monitoring proactively monitors 2,000+ jails for new booking and incarceration events for the enrolled employee population. Employers receive alert notifications so they can conveniently log into the Workforce Monitoring application to view additional criminal activity details.

The Enhanced Nationwide Criminal Database searches state, county, and corrections criminal record databases to locate additional jurisdictions where a candidate may have committed a crime. Prior to reporting, possible felony and misdemeanor convictions and pending cases are verified against primary-source court records to validate the record before it is reported.

FACIS, a search with Verisys®, pulls primary source data from federal and state sources for exclusions, sanctions, debarments, and disciplinary actions against healthcare professionals and businesses for published license types and publishing jurisdictions. FACIS sources include federal agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office of Inspector General (OIG), List of Excluded Individuals/Entities, the System for Award Management (SAM), and Excluded Parties List System (EPLS).

The State Search service searches a state’s repository or state police records for criminal information, and can provide an alternative source for criminal record information in the state.

The Global Criminal Search is for records in countries and/or territories based on the candidate’s self-disclosed address history, excluding US and Canadian sources, and may include various levels of courts, police records, or other sources of information. Records are reported in accordance with regional and local laws and regulations, and other restrictions that may be imposed by the source. Major coverage areas include Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), and Asia Pacific (APAC).

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons is commonly referred to as a terrorist watch list. OFAC administers and enforces economic sanctions programs primarily against countries and groups of individuals, such as terrorists and narcotics traffickers. The sanctions can be comprehensive or selective, using the blocking of assets and trade restrictions to accomplish foreign policy and national security goals. This search spans multiple geographies with varying regulations and regional considerations, and so the results are subject to availability and applicable reporting limitations.

Get Started with
Criminal Background Checks

Whether you are looking for background checks for employers or more accurate criminal background checks, here’s how you can make safer, faster, more accurate hiring decisions utilizing our robust solutions. Click the option that best describes you.

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