The Los Angeles Times reports the criminal records system California relies on to stop child abusers from working at schools and
violent felons from buying guns is so poorly maintained that it routinely fails to alert officials to a subject's full criminal history.
The computerized log provides an instant snapshot of a criminal history, informing police, regulators and potential employers of offenses such as murder, rape and
drug dealing in a person's background. But nearly half of the arrest records in the database don't say whether the person was convicted.
"California has a shoddy system for collecting case results from 58 county courts and hundreds of local prosecutors and police agencies, said Travis LeBlanc, a special assistant attorney general who oversees technology operations in the state Department of Justice."
The final outcome -- guilty, not guilty, case dismissed - is missing for about 7.7 million of the 16.4 million arrest records entered into state computers over the last decade, according to LeBlanc. More than 3 million of those are felony arrests.
Some large retailers, such as Wal-Mart, wait until they get a final answer before selling a weapon, said Steve Fischer, spokesman for the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division.
If you're looking at a schoolteacher and they have a 15-year-old DUI, you might overlook that.... If it's a sexual crime, they may be more likely to pursue it," Fischer said.
A record is created in the California database any time someone is arrested and his or her fingerprints are taken. The disposition of the case, which may not be decided for months or years, is supposed to be reported to the Justice Department by the county court, district attorney or local police department.
Some agencies report dispositions electronically. Others send records in hard copy or even by hand-written note, LeBlanc said, causing long delays in getting the information into the computers. Some local agencies never report the outcome of a case - leaving what police call "naked" arrest records.
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