Criminal Research Provider Guidelines & Exam – Who is it for, and what are the Benefits?

1. Criminal Research Provider Guidelines & Exam – Who is it for, and what are the Benefits?

2. Criminal Research Provider Guidelines and Exam Presenters: Vince Brodt – SJV and Associates 2009 Mid-Year Meeting

3. Criminal Research Provider Guidelines and Exam Presenters: Ben Peacock – Lighthouse Information Services, LLC 2009 Mid-Year Meeting

4. Criminal Research Provider Guidelines and Exam Where are the Guidelines Located? NAPBS website (www.napbs.com) Membership Home Page NAPBS Provider Guidelines Link The 7 Created Guidelines are available *Note that this may change a little with the new website format 2009 Mid-Year Meeting

5. Criminal Research Provider Guidelines and Exam Where is the Exam Located? NAPBS website (www.napbs.com) Membership Home Page (there is also availability for non-members) NAPBS Provider Exam Link Follow instructions to Exam Builder *Note that this may change a little with the new website format 2009 Mid-Year Meeting

6. Criminal Research Provider Guidelines and Exam • The Guidelines – A Brief Overview • General Guidelines – Falsify Research, Jurisdictional Knowledge, Communication, Search Scope and Retrieval Details, etc. 12 topics in all. • Compliance – FCRA, NAPBS and local regulations. 8 topics in all • Timeliness – Search Scope and ETA’s 2009 Mid-Year Meeting

7. Criminal Research Provider Guidelines and Exam • The Guidelines – A Brief Overview • Performing the Search – Source of the Information, Common Name Searches, Search Scope • Reporting of Results – How to Send, Clarification of Data, Matching Logic, Handling of PII • Reporting the Logistics of the Search – Complying with the Data and Security and Privacy Guidelines 2009 Mid-Year Meeting

8. Criminal Research Provider Guidelines and Exam • The Guidelines – A Brief Overview • Reporting records – All data to report, FCRA Compliance • Correcting Information and Audits • Confidentiality – PII, FCRA Compliance • Glossary of Terms 2009 Mid-Year Meeting

9. Criminal Research Provider Guidelines and Exam • The Exam – Who is the Exam For? • The Research Provider • Detailed Work Instructions • Guidance to Develop Systematic Practices • Search Scope Policies • Defining Levels of Court Searched “What Are We Doing With Our Clients’ Data?…” 2009 Mid-Year Meeting

10. Criminal Research Provider Guidelines and Exam • The Exam – Who is the Exam For? • The CRA • Awareness of the Actual “Product” • Confidence In Competency • Fully Understanding The Research Process • Evaluating Current and Potential Research Network “What Are Our Research Providers Doing With Our Data?…” 2009 Mid-Year Meeting

11. Criminal Research Provider Guidelines and Exam • The Exam – Who is the Exam For? • The End User? • This Is Often A Point Of Debate For Many Groups • It Shows Genuine Interest and Expertise • Does the End User Care About the Research Process? • Are They Willing to be Educated by a CRA? “What In The Hell Is Going On With This Search?…” 2009 Mid-Year Meeting

12. Criminal Research Provider Guidelines and Exam • The Exam – Who has taken the exam? • The exam has been taken 116 times in the past 9 months • Average times taking the exam successfully is 2.1 attempts • 27 individuals have taken the exam at least 1 time, but not passed • 44 individuals have successfully completed the exam (36 Providers, 8 CRA’s) 2009 Mid-Year Meeting

13. Criminal Research Provider Guidelines and Exam Sample Questions Your customer has requested a Common Search in a county with multiple courts, each with its own jurisdiction-specific index, none of which include all of the cases filed in the other courts. Courts A and C are both smaller, remote, outlying courts located at least an hour's drive in opposite directions from Court B, and both handle cases only to the level of misdemeanor. Court A receives more traffic and has more records than Court C. Court B adjudicates felonies and the majority of misdemeanors in the county, and is considered the county's Central Court. Which court(s) are you minimally required to check in performing your search? A – Courts A, B and C B – Court B C – Courts A and B 2009 Mid-Year Meeting

14. Criminal Research Provider Guidelines and Exam Sample Questions Your customer has requested a Common Search in a county with multiple courts, each with its own jurisdiction-specific index, none of which include all of the cases filed in the other courts. Courts A and C are both smaller, remote, outlying courts located at least an hour's drive in opposite directions from Court B, and both handle cases only to the level of misdemeanor. Court A receives more traffic and has more records than Court C. Court B adjudicates felonies and the majority of misdemeanors in the county, and is considered the county's Central Court. Which court(s) are you minimally required to check in performing your search? B – Court B; The Central Court, or County Seat, is the only minimally required court to check. Local, lower level, municipal, justice of the peace courts, etc are not always open to the record retriever. 2009 Mid-Year Meeting

15. Criminal Research Provider Guidelines and Exam Sample Questions While researching a subject with a reportable criminal record a newer court clerk in-training happens to provide you with a print-out from the court's "internal" computer system. The print-out contains obviously sensitive information, which does not appear anywhere in the public record, and which the court generally considers not a part of the public record, and which you yourself understand to be against the court's policy to provide to the public. You should: A - Forward the print-out to your customer along with your record report. B - Neither forward the print-out to your customer nor make use of any obviously sensitive information within it which is not also discoverable in the public record. C - Not forward the print-out to your customer, but take advantage of any pertinent information within it, regardless of whether it is discoverable in the public record, by including it in your record report to your customer. 2009 Mid-Year Meeting

16. Criminal Research Provider Guidelines and Exam Sample Questions While researching a subject with a reportable criminal record a newer court clerk in-training happens to provide you with a print-out from the court's "internal" computer system. The print-out contains obviously sensitive information, which does not appear anywhere in the public record, and which the court generally considers not a part of the public record, and which you yourself understand to be against the court's policy to provide to the public. You should: B - Neither forward the print-out to your customer nor make use of any obviously sensitive information within it which is not also discoverable in the public record.; if you can’t prove it, you shouldn’t report it. 2009 Mid-Year Meeting

17. Criminal Research Provider Guidelines and Exam Sample Questions You have established the fact that a newer customer has been prescreening for over the past month without your awareness or approval. Your default search product rates are based on a regular search . Your rate schedule, which you've provided to your customer in writing at the onset of your relationship, specifically lists a surcharge for record retrieval requests . You have already billed the customer for the majority of their prescreened requests, 95% of which have records, at your default search product rates. Which of the following is true under the NAPBS Criminal Research Provider Guidelines : 2009 Mid-Year Meeting

18. Criminal Research Provider Guidelines and Exam Sample Questions A – You do not have the right to re-bill this customer for each prescreened search you have already performed; but you do have the right to notify the customer that you will, in accordance with your published rate schedule, surcharge their prescreened searches as record retrieval requests from this point forward. B – The NAPBS Criminal Research Provider Guidelines offer no guidance on this matter beyond establishing basic definitions regarding prescreening. C - You have the right to surcharge this customer accordingly for each prescreened search you have performed for them, whether you've already billed them at your default search product rates or not. 2009 Mid-Year Meeting

19. Criminal Research Provider Guidelines and Exam Sample Questions C - You have the right to surcharge this customer accordingly for each prescreened search you have performed for them, whether you've already billed them at your default search product rates or not.; Your initial billing/fee information informed the client of your surcharge rates and should be billed as such.; General Guidelines #6. 2009 Mid-Year Meeting

20. Criminal Research Provider Guidelines and Exam Sample Questions You have found a possible record on a subject, ordered the case file from the court's archives and provided your customer with an ETA . However on the day the ETA comes due the court informs you that the file will not be available until the following day. You should: A – Apprise your customer of the ETA change, regardless of the fact it is only a difference of 24 hours or less. B – Recognize an ETA is just that, an estimated time of arrival, and according to the NAPBS Criminal Research Provider Guidelines you are not required to apprise your customer of an ETA change involving 24 hours or less. C – Know that you are only required to update the ETA if you have formally agreed to apprise your customer of an ETA change involving 24 hours or less. 2009 Mid-Year Meeting

21. Criminal Research Provider Guidelines and Exam Sample Questions You have found a possible record on a subject, ordered the case file from the court's archives and provided your customer with an ETA . However on the day the ETA comes due the court informs you that the file will not be available until the following day. You should: A – Apprise your customer of the ETA change, regardless of the fact it is only a difference of 24 hours or less.; Communication between providers and CRA’s is essential to strong working relationships 2009 Mid-Year Meeting

22. Criminal Research Provider Guidelines and Exam Sample Questions You are researching the name Robert J. Smith on a criminal index. You see no listings for a Robert J. Smith as such, but you do see at least two dozen listings for the name Robert Smith with no middle name or initial. To further research these possible records your only recourse is to order the hard files for each of them. The court has a file-pull limitation of five files per day, and some of the files are archived. In view of your current file-pull load, you estimate it would take an additional three weeks to complete the search, as well as prolong the turn-around on your other pending searches with possible records by at least several days. The customer who submitted the search has recently stressed the importance of a faster turn-around on their requests; and at least three of your other pending searches with possible records belong to this same customer. You should: 2009 Mid-Year Meeting

23. Criminal Research Provider Guidelines and Exam Sample Questions A – Realize that not only does the subject have a Common Name, but the two dozen possible records as described collectively constitute Non-Readily Available Records, and as such per the NAPBS Criminal Research Provider Guidelines you are neither required to pursue them nor disclose their existence to your customer. B – Either pursue the two dozen listings found, or deem it infeasible to do so, and mention their existence to your customer in writing, as well as why it was infeasible to pursue them. C – Recognize that pursuing two dozen possible record listings on a Common Name with no middle begins to constitute research for the purpose of investigation rather than research for the purpose of screening or verification, and accordingly consider it safe to report the subject as clear. 2009 Mid-Year Meeting

24. Criminal Research Provider Guidelines and Exam Sample Questions B – Either pursue the two dozen listings found, or deem it infeasible to do so, and mention their existence to your customer in writing, as well as why it was infeasible to pursue them.; Performing the Search # 24 2009 Mid-Year Meeting

25. Criminal Research Provider Guidelines and Exam Sample Questions Your customer has requested a Common Search in a county with a segmented felony/misdemeanor index which, all together, extends back 20 years from the present. The first segment is on computer and extends back 5 years from present; the second segment is on microfiche and extends back 6-10 years from present; the third is on paper and extends back 11-20 years from present. The customer has provided no specific instructions as to how to perform this search. Which segment(s) of this county's index are you minimally required to check? A – It depends exclusively on your Common Search Guideline. B – The first segment only, the computer portion of the index. C – All segments. D – The first and second segments only. 2009 Mid-Year Meeting

26. Criminal Research Provider Guidelines and Exam Sample Questions Your customer has requested a Common Search in a county with a segmented felony/misdemeanor index which, all together, extends back 20 years from the present. The first segment is on computer and extends back 5 years from present; the second segment is on microfiche and extends back 6-10 years from present; the third is on paper and extends back 11-20 years from present. The customer has provided no specific instructions as to how to perform this search. Which segment(s) of this county's index are you minimally required to check? D – The first and second segments only.; A Common Search is predominately a 7 Year search. 2009 Mid-Year Meeting

27. Criminal Research Provider Guidelines and Exam Sample Questions You realize the search request you've just received this morning happens to be the exact same request you performed for a different customer 6 months prior. The current customer is requesting that you process this search as a same-day rush if at all possible. Your original search revealed two convicted records, the reports of which are in your files. On pulling the two original record reports you wrote five months ago you see that one of the case files can be obtained immediately, while the other will take at least five working days for the court to produce from its archives. There is no other way to access the case information on this record than by ordering and reviewing the archived hard file. In that your customer is not a CRA , but a National Provider, you can legally do which of the following in order to fulfill your customer's request: 2009 Mid-Year Meeting

28. Criminal Research Provider Guidelines and Exam Sample Questions A – Re-index the subject to determine no new records have been filed since the original search. If not, recycle the two record reports you already have on file on this subject and promptly deliver them to your customer. B – Re-index the subject to determine no new records have been filed since the original search. If not, order and review the immediately available case file in the court that day, in order to at least verify your original report still reflects the current status of that record; then recycle your original report on the record with the archived case file and deliver both record reports as soon as possible that day in order to fulfill your customer's same day rush request. C – Re-index the subject to determine no new records have been filed since the original search. If not, order the subject's two case files from the court as soon as possible in order to review both and verify that the original record reports you have on file still reflect the current status of those records in the court, and ETA your client accordingly. 2009 Mid-Year Meeting

29. Criminal Research Provider Guidelines and Exam Sample Questions C – Re-index the subject to determine no new records have been filed since the original search. If not, order the subject's two case files from the court as soon as possible in order to review both and verify that the original record reports you have on file still reflect the current status of those records in the court, and ETA your client accordingly. 2009 Mid-Year Meeting

30. Criminal Research Provider Guidelines and Exam Sample Questions Which of the following methods would be unacceptable for disposing records containing Personally Identifiable Information: A – Burn them B – Shred Them C – As per the NAPBS Provider Data Privacy & Security Guidelines: place them in a sturdy, unmarked box or other suitable container; secure lid with tape; do not conspicuously identify the nature of their contents with words like "confidential", "sensitive data", et cetera written on the outside; position the box for a routine garbage pick-up but no more than two hours prior to any scheduled pick-up. D – Both A and C 2009 Mid-Year Meeting

31. Criminal Research Provider Guidelines and Exam Sample Questions Which of the following methods would be unacceptable for disposing records containing Personally Identifiable Information: C – As per the NAPBS Provider Data Privacy & Security Guidelines: place them in a sturdy, unmarked box or other suitable container; secure lid with tape; do not conspicuously identify the nature of their contents with words like "confidential", "sensitive data", et cetera written on the outside; position the box for a routine garbage pick-up but no more than two hours prior to any scheduled pick-up.; Burning and shredding are both acceptable means of destroying PII documents. 2009 Mid-Year Meeting