Ask most HR leaders whether their screening program includes a criminal background check, and the answer is almost always yes. Ask whether it covers a candidate who lived in three states over the past decade, worked remotely before joining, or has a prior record under a slightly different name variation, and the answer gets more complicated.

That gap between what people assume their screening covers and what it actually covers is where most hiring risk quietly accumulates. And it’s exactly the problem a nationwide criminal search is designed to address.

The Assumption Most Screening Programs Are Built On

Traditional background screening packages are largely built around address history. A candidate tells you where they’ve lived, your screening vendor pulls county-level searches for those jurisdictions, and you get results based on what courts in those specific areas have on file.

For a long time, that model worked reasonably well. People tended to live and work in the same general area, court records were largely local, and address histories were reliable anchors for determining where to search.

That assumption no longer holds the way it once did. The workforce has spread out. Candidates relocate for school, move across state lines for short-term work, live in one state while working remotely for a company in another, or simply don’t disclose every address they’ve had. Criminal records don’t follow a person when they move; they stay in the courts where the charges were filed. If you’re only searching where someone says they’ve lived recently, you may be missing the places that matter most.

What a Nationwide Criminal Search Is Actually Doing

A nationwide criminal database search, often called a USA Criminal or USA Crim search, casts a wider net. Instead of searching specific courts in specific counties based on disclosed addresses, it aggregates data from a broad mix of sources: state and multi-state repositories, department of corrections records, administrative offices, and various court record databases.

The goal isn’t precision at the outset, but breadth. A nationwide search is designed to surface potential matches across jurisdictions you wouldn’t otherwise know to check. When a match is flagged, it triggers a follow-up verification directly at the source court to confirm accuracy before anything is reported.

That two-step process, broad identification followed by court-level confirmation, is what makes a well-implemented nationwide search useful rather than noisy. The database finds the lead; the court record verifies it.

Where the Gaps Tend to Show Up

Organizations that rely solely on address history-based searches tend to encounter gaps in a few predictable situations:

• A candidate relocates to a new city or state shortly before applying. Their recent address history reflects their current location, not the states where they spent the prior five or ten years.
• A remote employee is hired to work from a state the organization has no other presence in. Because the company has never operated there, that jurisdiction may not be part of its standard screening scope.
• A candidate has a record tied to a name variation or alias not captured during application intake. County-level searches run under the disclosed name won’t surface records filed under a different one.
• A growing company expands into new markets and starts hiring in regions where it has no established screening process. The default package, designed for the original footprint, doesn’t automatically expand with the company.

None of these are fringe cases. They’re fairly routine characteristics of how people move through the workforce now.

What It Isn’t: Clearing Up Common Misconceptions

A nationwide search isn’t a replacement for county-level verification. It’s a complement to it. The two serve different functions: one is built for breadth, the other for precision. Organizations that remove county searches in favor of a single nationwide database search are trading depth for coverage, which tends to create different problems than the ones they’re trying to solve.

There’s also a common concern that database searches are inherently less reliable. That worry is understandable, but the accuracy of a nationwide search has more to do with how it’s implemented than with the concept itself. A search that identifies potential matches without verifying them at the court level would be a problem. A search structured to use database results as a trigger for targeted court verification is a different product entirely.

The Compliance Angle

Background screening programs have to operate within a defined legal framework, primarily the Fair Credit Reporting Act and EEOC guidance on how criminal history is assessed. A well-structured screening program isn’t just about finding information; it’s about demonstrating that the process for finding it was consistent, defensible, and appropriately scoped to the role.

For organizations in regulated industries like healthcare, financial services, or education, the question of scope carries additional weight. Industry guidelines and internal risk standards often point toward broader coverage for roles involving financial access, vulnerable populations, or public-facing responsibility. Documenting why a particular search configuration was chosen, and how it aligns with the role’s actual risk profile, is part of building a program that holds up to scrutiny.

Signals That It’s Worth Reviewing Your Current Setup

Not every organization needs the same level of screening, and adding a nationwide search isn’t always the right answer. A few situations tend to signal that the current configuration is worth a closer look:

• The company is expanding geographically or hiring in states where it previously had no presence
• A meaningful portion of new hires are remote employees spread across multiple jurisdictions
• Hiring volume has increased significantly and screening packages haven’t been reviewed since the original configuration
• New roles have been created that carry higher responsibility or access than existing positions
• An insurance review, legal audit, or incident has prompted a closer look at risk management practices

Questions Worth Asking Your Screening Vendor

If you’re uncertain whether your current program reflects your actual footprint and risk profile, a few direct questions can surface a lot:

• What geographic scope does our criminal search actually cover, and how is that scope determined?
• Are we relying solely on candidate-disclosed address history to decide which jurisdictions to search?
• When our database search returns a potential match, how is that verified before it’s included in a report?
• How does our current configuration align with the roles we’re hiring for and the risk levels those roles carry?
• Has our screening scope been updated since we started hiring more remote or multi-state employees?

A good screening partner should be able to answer each of these without hesitation. If the answers are vague or the conversation hasn’t happened recently, that’s worth noting.

Building a Program That Reflects How Your Workforce Actually Works

No single search eliminates all hiring risk. Effective screening is built in layers, combining county-level verification, state searches, and nationwide database tools in proportion to the organization’s size, geography, and exposure. The goal isn’t a program that looks comprehensive on paper; it’s one that actually reflects how and where you hire.

A nationwide criminal search adds breadth and visibility to that picture. For organizations whose workforces have grown, spread out, or shifted toward remote and multi-state hiring, revisiting whether your current program still fits is a straightforward way to close gaps before they become something more significant.

If you are in need of a new background screening provider to help with criminal background checks, we are happy to help. Contact UBS today.