What is the Criminal Records Bureau? It is an office, created in the U.K., designed to handle the increasingly large number of requests for criminal record checks. The Police Act of 1997 began the process of creating the bureau, as a way to make the U.K. safer for vulnerable adults and children. The police could not handle the increased numbers of criminal record checks, and so the bureau processes the criminal information, as well as information from the Department of Health and the Department of Education and Skills.

The main objective in creating the CRB was to facilitate access to criminal records so that employers could make better hiring decisions, regarding sensitive jobs dealing with children and other vulnerable persons. Applications for criminal record checks supposedly take anywhere from 10 to 28 days, depending of the disclosure level, yet because the CRB is such a new bureau, it often takes much longer. If someone wants to conduct their own criminal record search, then the CRB is not involved and he or she must request “subject access” from the British police force.

The two main levels of disclosure that are used to conduct a criminal records search by the Criminal Records Bureau are the Standard level and the Enhanced level. A standard level of disclosure is used if the individual would be holding an extremely responsible job, such as working with children at times. It can also be used for positions where a person would be dealing with other vulnerable individuals, or for a position such as an accountant. Standard Disclosure gives information on the individual’s convictions, as well as any cautions received and even final warnings that have been given to them.

Enhanced Disclosure on the other hand, is used when individuals are working around children constantly, such as the position of a social worker. With this step, criminal records information is checked directly by the police department.

More On: The Purpose Of The Criminal Records Bureau

Technorati Tags: crime, criminal records bureau, the purpose of the criminal records bureau

Quickly bookmark Criminal Records Bureau Purpose at:                                                

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 29th, 2008 at 4:18 pm and is filed under Legal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.