Expungement Clearinghouse
Dallas, TX (PRWEB) April 12, 2012
Research shows that people have been and will continue to be refused employment because of criminal background checks that report expunged or sealed records. With the state of the economy as it is, and with the goal of helping to create more employment opportunities, a group of criminal record database companies have joined forces to set up an expungement clearinghouse to ensure that more expunged records are removed from their respective private criminal databases.
Since many courts and agencies do not proactively inform the public of expungements, a person may obtain a court order expunging or sealing a record but that order may never be received by the criminal record database companies, who are a source of criminal record information to many of the background screening companies in the US.
The Expungement Clearinghouse is designed as the central mechanism for sharing validated expungement orders by collecting the information from individuals, their attorneys, courts and other sources. Once expungements are validated, each member of the Expungement Clearinghouse will receive expedited notification to remove these expunged records from their private criminal records databases. This service provides a faster and more coordinated approach to removing the records that are no longer publicly available.
At the launch of the Expungement Clearinghouse, slated for mid-spring, over 800 criminal background check companies will benefit from the information exchange provided by the Expungement Clearinghouse through its members.
“We believe that this no cost solution for removing more expunged criminal records from our industry’s databases will proactively assist people trying to rehabilitate from their criminal pasts,” said Craig Kessler, co- founder of Expungement Clearinghouse. “While the absolute number of expungements is small compared to the number of convictions, we have seen increasing use of expungements to assist these rehabilitation efforts. The Expungement Clearinghouse, an industry initiative, will make that assistance more effective,” continued Kessler.
The service provided by Expungement Clearinghouse will help reduce liability for employers in states where the law prohibits employers from considering expunged cases. The service also allows criminal background check companies to be more proactive in fulfilling the desire that led legislators to create the legal process for expunging records.
During the annual trade show organized by the National Association of Professional Background Screeners that runs from April 15th to April 17th, Cliff Williams, Chief Operating Officer from Innovative Enterprises, and Todd Carpenter, President of IntelliCorp Records Inc., will join Craig Kessler, President of backgroundchecks.com, to promote the Expungement Clearinghouse and welcome new participants. Any background screening agency that has a database of criminal records from which it produces reports on consumers may qualify for membership. There is no fee to join, but all members must agree to the Expungement Clearinghouse’s procedures for the removal of expunged records from their databases.
About Expungement Clearinghouse
Expungement Clearinghouse expedites the updating of criminal records in private sector databases by sharing data about expunged criminal records with participating database companies in a way that is easy and cost-effective for the companies to use in removing those records. Expungement Clearinghouse’s members are experts on the standards that database companies should use in making decisions to remove records from their databases and have embedded that knowledge in its processes. Expungement Clearinghouse is founded by backgroundchecks.com, Innovative Enterprises and IntelliCorp Records Inc.