Why You Probably Have a Criminal Record

you Should Know? That's right. Yeah, you've been doing this for four and I we bet we're very close. So not bad. I know it's not bad. We're I guess you could say we're um, we're starting to get our stride. Wait for someone to come take the keys away and send me in my room. And I think that this is I think they stopped paying attention. They're not really aware that we're doing this any longer. Any importance actually listen, So that's always good. But who listens is important? That's right.

That's a good point. So, Chuck, you ever seen the movie Scarface? Yeah? You know, like the whole beginning part where he comes to Miami from Cuba. So that was based um on an actual historical event called the Merriel boat Lift. Yeah, I think I knew that. So between um, well, then sit back and listen up to something you already know. Between April fifteen and Halloween, a hundred and twenty five thousand Cubans we're basically allowed to leave Cuba. That's a lot.

And they were also allowed to enter the United States for how long was there a window like from April to um Halloween? So yeah, there are a lot, I mean a lot of them came um and a it was. It was a huge deal. They basically put everybody in jail. Remember the Fulton County Federal Penitentiary where Scarface was the real Scarface al Capone, um, just down in Grant Park.

They put a bunch of them there and there was actually an uprising there and Delta Force had to come in I think, and the Delta Force, um, so uh, it was kind of a big deal. One of the reasons why they put everybody in jails because they wanted to make sure that Castro wasn't just sending over the dregs of his prisons. So, which would have been pretty smart. Yeah. So they actually interviewed everybody, and twenty three thousand of them confessed to having a criminal record back in Cuba.

And that's really saying something because you know, it's not like Cuba was going to send over these people's records. Like this was self confessed. And I think that right there basically kind of tells you about that person they're trying to fit in. Right, Well, they let me come clean exactly. Maybe if I come clean, you I can stay here. Right, Yeah, let's say that that's what it was.

That's what I'm thinking. Um. So, of these twenty three thousand, though, they found that, um, only two percent were actually criminals under US law. The other uh, let's see twenty one thousand, two hundred and fifty four. Uh, that's just off the top of my head, Um, we're we're criminals under Cuban law. That that didn't have some sort of analog here in the United States. I wonder what some of those laws were.

I would imagine they would have a lot to do with discent, political discent, yea, probably everything, or like hoarding, uh items hoarding, Yeah, like you know, under communist rule, if you toilet paper or you've got some smuggling operation going for toilet paper. How swapping apparently is illegal in Cuba, because they're like, we're gonna give you a house, but

we're gonna tell you which one it is. Um anyway, So most of these people were allowed to go free, and even some of them were allowed to go even some of the actual criminals were allowed to go under what's called immigration parole um. And then of those forty six who were found to be real criminals, eight hundred to nine hundred had to come back to jail, the real pokey this time because they've broken the US law while on immigration parole. But my point is this, without

criminal records, I would not have had this intro. That's pretty good. I had a feeling that was going to circle around like that, because we're talking about criminal records, at least here in the United States. Yeah, and when we say records, we don't mean the good time. We mean like files. Yeah, not like a break, you broke a record, or like let's listen to a record. Yeah,

those are good records. Yeah, there's a there's I can't remember what Lisa's doing on the Simpsons, but she has to go to the Hall of Records and then under underneath and Parnses says, not a good kindly, that's good. Um, all right, criminal record here in the US, at least as and I didn't realize this, It starts with your arrest. Yes. For some reason, I thought if you were arrested and not convicted, then they would just say forget about it. Yeah.

Apparently once you have a charge and there are ways for they can say forget about it, but you have to go ask and they can tell you now because they don't like your looks. Um. There's a few ways these are used here in the States. Um. First and foremost obviously to help out trying to catch bad guys in the database, I ding suspects. That's kind of the original point, I think. So. Um. They're also used for

sentencing now, which makes sense. Yeah, because like if you've done something before and they know it, they have a record of it, it's right they can say, you know what, due to your past behavior, we think that we should really throw the book at you, right, or if there's like a three strike law, they have to Yeah, background checks,

that's the third thing there mainly used for. This is the most controversial use of criminal records because with background checks, if you enter the military, try to get a job with the FBI, UM, if you are involved in elderly or childcare. Um. Criminal background checks are pretty standard, but they're also becoming increasingly used by corporations in what is

widely considered overbroad ways. Yeah, because the the original idea of using a background check, a criminal background check for a job was that they're checking that you're applying for like a delivery driver job, and they're checking to make sure that you don't have a history of like running down the elderly with your car and driving off because they'll get sued for that. Well, now companies are just

looking for any kind of criminal behavior whatsoever. And as we'll see, they actually say like, no, we're not gonna hire you because of your criminal record. They can discriminate based on a criminal record, but you can also not share that criminal record. You can correct Yes, okay, we'll get to that. Um. Back in the day, obviously they used to just handwrite these things, keep them at your local cop shop. And that's why back in the day, it was really easy if you're criminal, just to move

to a different state or city. Yeah, and like you're sort of getting a fresh start online. Yeah, because if you wanted to share this criminal record, you might have to sit down and hand write it out. And who wants to do that. Nobody not me. Basically, it was just medieval monks who were cool with doing that and they didn't have anything else to do. Cops had plenty

of other stuff to do. So right about now, if you're out there in podcast land and you're listening to this and you think, dudes, why are you telling us, you're awesome audience about criminal records, Because we're all have clean noses and we're do gooders of the world, I believe you. But here's a set. Six point five percent

of the US population has a felony record. Felony record, which is higher than I thought it would be, and one in fifteen people have actually been to prison in the pokey in the pokey and uh, I think our fan base would be on the lighter side of that. Um, But hey, I know we've got people out there that have been in prison because we did prisons. People rotus. We have people out there who were in prisons right now. Yeah, that's right. Let's do a little shout out to our

prison population. Listeners, everybody in there, stay up and uh hanging there, get out soon. Okay. So even beyond that surprising stat right, six point five percent felonies, right, that's right, sixty five million, which is about a quarter of the American population. Sixty million American adults have a criminal record, which means they've at least been arrested. Yes, do we need to talk about anything in our past? You know,

I don't talk about that, Okay. Uh, there are some things if you do have a criminal record, that are that are going to be there for the for the taking. If you're in law enforcement, that is pretty much your name, date of birth, alias, is what you look like, what you're built like, where you live, what you've done, if you've got any outstanding warrants, if you've been convicted, and then the old stand by fingerprint and mug shot. It's

all right there. Basically what's keeping smoking gun dot com alive? That mug shot to do the huffer with the gold face. Have you ever seen that guy? He was arrested for huffing and he's got like the glittery gold spray paint around the nose and mouth. Now, my favorite was either Nick Nolty or James Brown and they look like brothers in their mug shots. Yeah, those are pretty close with a crazy hair. Um. So basically you can see just

from those details of what's in a criminal record. The idea behind them is we want to find now who you are and what you've done before. Ye, And that's pretty much it. It's aside from the fact that they're not handwritten and just kept like you say, at the local precinct, um anymore, they're stored on databases. That's the idea behind them hasn't changed much over the century, very true. Um.

It starts at the local and state level. And if you are going to have an arrest record or a or a criminal record, that's who was in charge of keeping up with it, Like if it was a state crime, it was in a federal offense, then your state court and state offices who's going to be in charge of that? And then they can either report it to their repository or not. I think not all states mandate that. No,

it's voluntary. And then the state repositories can either report it to the national repository, right or I'm sorry, that's voluntary within a state. In some states, it's voluntary whether municipalities share their information. So it's all kind of voluntary, right if you end up on a federal registry to an extent, and you can have more than one record. Um, I would imagine in a perfect law enforcement world, everyone has everyone who has a record has one record and

it lives in the cloud and it's just accessed. You know, when you do another thing, they just add another thing to it. But from from the sound of this, you can have a bunch of different records and they could all have different stuff in them and maybe they'll never be compiled into one. That's true. Well, it's because there's a lot of people commit crimes, is one reason, is there? And I think they're trying or does it disappear that way because they have multiple records, I think we may

have stumbled onto something. You're right, there's only like eight criminals in the US. They're just really prolific. So, UM, the good news, Josh, if you have a criminal record and you want it expunged or sealed as they call it in some states, Uh, you can get that done if you go through You can at least try to get it done by going through very specific process in

the court in the state where you were convicted. So you have, UM, you petition the court, and there's there's lawyers that um specialize in this kind of thing, like going before the court and saying, look, this guy, this crime was a crime of passion. There's no recitativism involved. That this guy has had an exemplary life since then. Um, he wasn't even convicted, he was just arrested. This was

twelve years ago. He hasn't done a single horrible thing. Um, and even if he had, if he had had a sentence, he would have completed it. And um, he hasn't hadn't been arrested since. And so the judge thinks about it. Uh, they bring out a dog and if the dog likes you, then your record is expunged. I think the judge sits are the big expunged stamp or denied like in raising

Arizona just wham. Yeah. I think the expunged is the isn't a don't think they should use that word because it gives the impression that your record is white clean, yeah, and that there's maybe a sheet of paper that the stuff all used to be on, but there's nothing there any longer. It's not the case sealed is a much better term to describe what happens, because what happens is

your record remains, but only law enforcement has access to it. Yeah, but it sort of is expunged in a way because or I guess the key word there, you said the appearance, Because you can still from that point on give the appearance that you have a clean record to your employees. You can say employers, you can un employees. You don't want them thinking ill of you, but you can say I have a clean record, and legally you can say

that and get away with it. Yeah, if it's expunged, although it still exists, it's just a law enforcement and also um government agencies have access to it, but no one else does. If you're in Arizona, you're our luck. If you're in New York, I think and see the to me should be automatic. If you are arrested and convicted of something, then they found out someone else did it, right, you have to still go through that process in New York to get it expunged. And I guess in other places,

but I figured that would be automatic. No, in New York. If you're arrested and you are UM not not you're not convicted, you go to trial, but you're not even convicted, you still have to petition to get your arrest record cleared. Yeah, I guess that's everywhether right. Um. I am under the impression because New York where it's possible only if the case was decided in your favor, that that would mean that if you were if you went to trial, your

criminal record would be expunged if you weren't convicted. I have to admit I'm not sure about that one. New York didn't play no, but Arizona seriously doesn't play like they have no process for expungement whatsoever, which is too bad. Um. And I think even with kids that's the case. What in Arizona? Oh yeah, well with juveniles, Um, since you brought it up, everyone knows that if you're um under eighteen,

generally you will be tried as a juvenile. Unless you have murdered or raped somebody or some other really really terrible crime, they will try you as an adult. But if you're under eighteen, they'll try you in juvenile court. And here in this country, we have a little belief that, you know what, we're gonna wipe your record clean once you become an adult. You might have messed up as a kid, but you're going to get a second chance

out there in life as an adult. Don't worry about your juvenile record anymore, which is great if you stay

on the straight and narrow. If you don't, then it's uh still attached to you if you start committing crimes again and uh you actually, if you are the juvenile convicted of an adult crime tried as an adult and you want to get that explained, you have to go through the same process as any adult wood as well as if you have a sexual crime, you have to register for the sex offenders list, just like you would if you were an adult, right, which is super important,

I should say. Also, um and its defense, Arizona does have a process for destroying juvenile records. Yeah, okay, I guess it's just adults, gotcha. Um, So the the I guess the sex registry is kind of a version of the Specialized Criminal Record Depository, right. So, um, for many years, I I guess, until very recently, states weren't um mandated to have a sex offender registry. There's a girl named Drew Shedeen who is like twenty two year old North

Dakota UM College student. I remember this very well, do you? I I didn't remember um who was abducted and and I believe raped and murdered by a guy who was a Level three sex offender. And level three is like where the justice system is basically like, this guy's gonna do it again. Yeah, he had raped another woman, he kidnapped and stabbed a woman, and he had just gotten out of jail for twenty three years for those crimes,

and he did it again, did it again. And one of the ways that he was able to do this is because North Dakota didn't have a sex offender registry. Well they do now. All states do now, and this is I think like two thousand two or two thousand three, that long ago. But they named the National Sex Offender Public Registry after Drew shedein UM. So it's very appropriately called the Drew Shedein National Sex Offender Public Registry. And

basically this is uh a publicly accessible database. Yeah, you let me go to it and type in where you live and it'll be like, here are all the sex offenders in the neighborhood. It's pretty disconcerting. It there's apps out there where you can like see who lives where, and you'll find also that they're very frequently there's a like will be one apartment complex or something where there's

a bunch of them. And the reason being is because most states have laws where like, you can't live X number of yards within a bus stop, you can't live X number of yards within a school, what have you. And in states like Florida, they're so restrictive that, um, the sex offenders frequently have to like live under overpasses in the middle of nowhere. Well, that happened in Georgia and that camp camp. Yeah, I think it's still there,

is it, I believe? So Yeah, Well, I think probation off officers too will set people up in housing and uh a lot of times they'll you know, that's like the apartment that they go to the apartment complex. Um. But obviously that's a really important thing to have because uh, sex offenders had the highest recidivism rates of I think all criminals. Yes, I read that somewhere too. It's very scary. So, um, now they're stored on databases. Obviously we've talked about interpoll before,

and they're shared you know, internationally. They're getting better about that at least. But it's not like an open book, right, it isn't an open book. And in fact, um, you have a legal right to access your criminal records through the Freedom of Information Act. And I went and looked. The FBI will give you whatever they have on yourself, or else they'll send you something that says you have

no FBI record. Yeah, I think you're only uh in the National Crime Information Center database if you have been booked and fingerprinted by the FBI, or the FBI has your record, right, I'm sorry, the Interstate Identification Index. I think that's the one where h you're only innered if the FBI obtains your fingerprint data, so like somebody has sent it to the FBI at least. But FBI, do they maintain a national database of criminal records. I don't

know if they maintain it or not. It doesn't say, um, I know the d O the d O T maintains one for traffic violations like big ones. We we should have mentioned that if you've been convicted of some sort of traffic offense, speeding ticket, what have you, or anything, it's not on your criminal record. Yeah, unless it was like vehicular homicide or something like that. That would that

would be in there, right, UM, yeah, I think so. Instead, it's things like d u I, suspended licenses, driving without insurance, fatal accidents. Um, there's they're maintained on the National Driver Register, which is separate from your criminal record. You could have two records out there. And maybe perjury about the operation

of a vehicle. That's if you've ever like you're getting a wreck and you're a drunk driver and you get your best friend to switch with you who wasn't drunk, which is they should have been driving to begin with, that's perjury. That's felony. Yeah, that's a big deal. Um. So Chuck, you can get your criminal record, n um. The government can look at it any time they want. UM. And employers can she talked about at the top of

this podcast. With permission. With your permission, you can't give anyone else besides a potential employer or an employer permission to get your record, Like you can't, I can't get yours. Even if you said no, really he can get it. It's fine to say no, but an employer can. UM. And like we said, originally this was this was something that was just very targeted, where like if you were a driver, they wanted to know if you had any vehicular homicide record or that kind of thing. Um. And

it's getting more and more broad. Um. And apparently because criminal records um weren't protected, you weren't a member of a protected class. Yeah. Um, so you could be subject to job discrimination based on the fact that you're a criminal record. They used to be like freewheeling, Like they would tell you to your face and maybe smack you in the mouth when they told you that you weren't

getting the job because you were a crook. Um. Courts have started to rule in people's favors, finding that, uh, some laws or some convictions have been shown to disproportionately affect like black people Hispanics, so that job discrimination based on these kind of convictions amounts to racial discrimination. And some courts have found in the favor of people who are turned down for jobs even though there's no law

defends against job discrimination based on criminal records. Interesting. And you could also be discriminated against for like public housing. Um and I love in the article and in general treated differently. Yeah, people can be a jerk to you if you have a criminal record with no retribution um. And the The one exception which I thought was interesting was that UM, if you have a felony for drug use, they can't use that against you to not give you

a job. It's part of rehab, is it the rehab process? Yeah, that makes sense. You know, the very powerful rehab lobby got that loophole put in there. Well, it certainly strikes a a notch on the side of people who believe that people drug problems are like, you know, have addiction problems, and that they're not necessarily bad people, so good for them.

So let's say you you talk to your employer and they're like, look, we know you have a criminal background, but the dog, the test dog we brought out likes you, so we're gonna take a chance on you. But we want you to pony up some money. They're going to tell you to go get what's called a fidelity bond. I had never heard of this. I had neither like I've heard about it in the case of like Robert Downey Jr. Needing extra insurance after he went through is

like bad drugs phase. It's probably the same thing. It probably is. But but movie companies UM production companies would have to like purchase this massive extra insurance or not be allowed to work with him at all. He was too big of a liability. Not anymore of course. No,

he's really cleaned up his act. Yeah he's great. Um so yeah, there's a regular people, not just Robert Downey Jr. Regular people can get fidelity bonding to which amounts soon insurance policy that you get or your employer gets on. You're saying, we think you're kind of a screw up maybe, and we want to make sure of our bets are heads you're not fired, right, but think you might really screw us up one day. That's what else you got. Um firearms, Uh, you got to go through background check

when you purchase firearms here in this country. And don't worry, you won't have to wait very long for your firearm. Yeah, how long is that? It's like instantaneous, is it? Yeah?

But if you have a criminal record, if you've been indicted for a crime of more than a year in prison, you are ineligible to purchase a gun, which means you're just going to have to buy one off the street like other ex criminals, which is said, Um, it doesn't preclude you from traveling to other countries necessarily, but as everyone who's ever been through customs knows they can deny you whenever they want in any country. Pretty much. You know, they have to allow you to come in. They have

to invite you in like a vampire, right. And it doesn't preclude you from coming to this country if you have a criminal record either, unless you're on a boat from Cuba. That's right. But the same deal we can deny people coming in. They suggest to get a visa if you're coming to this country to work and you have a criminal record, Good luck with that, That's what I say. I say the same thing, good luck everybody.

You got anything else? No, there's another one down in our endless string of law enforcement podcast that we definitely have a suite of, like ten at this point at least. Yeah. Um, if you want to learn more about criminal records and all that kind of thing, How stuff Works won't judge you if you search for that. You can just type it into uh the search bar, like I said at how stuff works dot com. Um, and I said search bar.

So it's time for Facebook questions, Josh. We have two and thirty of these, and so uh yeah, let's go ahead and start here. Um. Doug Callahan if you were to dive into a pool filled with any kind of fruit, what kind of fruit would you choose? Pineapple? Um, Jerry thought that was funny. How does being a team mask at work? That's a crazy question. I think that's a request for a show. Okay, like Team Mask guys, Um, Shelleen Chuck Chook Chook the best, best favorite theme park

in the US? I mean, there's no question. What are you going? Cedar Point? Yeah, yeah, I guess you're right. I've only been there once. It was pretty good, but Magic Mountain was pretty awesome in l A. Cedar Point is the greatest in the world. I'm kind of sucker for the the studio ones too, like Universal Studios, Like the Rides are Lane, but I just like, you know, the old Wet Show in the Miami by Boat Show. Who still be the Miami? But I don't think so. I think the Night Riders, Yeah, the the n c

I S Boat Show. Oh h yasdn Nadery The Fifth Element good or bad? I wasn't a fan. I know people love that movie. I didn't think it so good. I've never made it all the right through. Okay, right, when I see Gary Oldman and it's stupid haircut. I'm like, I'm done. Comes down. Then what do you got? I'm reading? Uh? We want to read that one. Let's see. Is there anything worth not knowing? That's a going from Craig Jacquette. No, there's well, no, I don't know. That's a really great

question on its face. No, of course there's nothing that we shouldn't know. But I also believe there is such thing as knowing too much, like personal stuff about people. There's a lot that you shouldn't know, right, But also even beyond that, chuck like, do we really need nuclear weapons? Do we need nuclear capabilities? What if we didn't know that? It's a great question, Craig Jaquette, you get you get first prize today. Uh. James Hamilton's which sport has the

fittest athletes? Clearly Nascar? What do you think the fittest athlete? I would say high lie or soccer? Um, Jody Jackson, I have good news for you. We've done how China is one child policy works. Another person thought this was called for a quest That's right. It is not. It's really called for silly questions. Uh, Cody Quimby, who's your favorite Beatle? And why. Josh's answer would be none of them.

Mine would be George Harrison because you know, yeah, he's great. Yeah, his soul was like like I love John Lennon, but he was sort of a whiny little baby and a bit of a pretentious artist. Paul McCartney's great, but Paul was a bit of a power control freak. George Harrison was just like there, dude, what about Ringo Ringos? He placed down a nice back, but and he's fun. I love ring Good too. Let's see one all right. Andrew Jordan's what current TV shows? Do you recommend? Stuff you

should know? Coming to Science Channel January? That's so current it's not even out yet. Um. I mean I watched obviously Madman is is to me the best show on TV right now. I disagree. I think Dirty Rock is the best show on TV. Thirty Rock is great, and Louis to me is like a tie for the best show on TV. He's like, dude, he's making like French art house movies every week on television. It's pretty amazing. I watched The Killing. I watched True Blood. Do you

watch the Killing? Yeah? Well, Taxing isn't it? I watch He's bounding down. The killing isn't taxing. I mean, it's kind of depressing walking Dead. I don't watch a ton of TV, but there's like me, like eight shows. I like Dexter still Man. Man, that one went off the rail so bad the past couple of years. I needed to give it. I haven't seen the past couple of years, and it's way pretty come on DVD. Good luck man, spoiler alert off the rail. All right, So that's it

for now. I think we have one more addition to this and then we'll wrap it up. Okay, Thank goodness. If you want to catch up with me and Chuck digitally speaking, you can send us a tweet to s y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know, and you can send us a good old fashioned email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how Stuff works dot com. MHM brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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