By Steve Miller

When employers check the names of applicants for certain jobs – teachers, cops, lawyers – for prior criminal infractions, there is a 1 in 4 chance that even if there is a past conviction, it isn’t in the system.

A recently completed state audit of the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Computerized Criminal History System and Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s Corrections Tracking System finds that prosecutor offices and courts submitted disposition records in 73.7 percent of arrests made in 2009, which means that the state’s criminal record search function “is not complete,” according to the audit, which goes on:

A significant number of prosecutor and court records are not reported to DPS, which impairs the quality of information that DPS uses to conduct criminal history background checks. For example, 1,634 (7.65 percent) of 21,351 offenders whom TDCJ admitted to jail, prison, or probation in November 2010 did not have corresponding prosecutor and court records in DPS’s Computerized Criminal History System. In addition, information that DPS provides as part of its criminal history background checks does not include probation records.

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