Florida Background Checks

Criminal background check in the Sunshine State must be done in accordance with state law. There are very specific requirements that companies must follow in order to perform a legally compliant background check, and it varies by state. Health Street's understanding of local laws combined with advanced technologies help keep you in compliance with background check laws.

A Credit Reporting Agency, or CRA, should do more than just checking a public database on your behalf. Running background checks present a pair of equally troublesome risks:

If you receive information from your CRA that you are not permitted to include in your hiring decision, you can run afoul of laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) or the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). On the flip side, if you miss a critical criminal record, it can be even more devastating. For these reasons, it's critically important to work with a CRA with experience performing comprehensive employment background checks in .

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If your business hires truck drivers, DOT regulations require that you reach out to prior employers as well as check the FMCSA Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse for violations. You also need to run a Motor Vehicle Report (MVR) to ensure that your drivers have a clean, safe driving record.

Health Street takes this work off of your hands and stores your Florida background checks securely in the same convenient online portal where you can manage your DOT drug testing and random pool. We contact prior employers, check the Clearinghouse on your behalf, and report it all back to you in a comprehensive background check report, that includes:

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Education verification and reference checks are also critical to the pre-employment background checks in Florida. Employers should also verify an applicant's resume, confirming their:

Calling all of the schools and employers on a person's resume to confirm if your applicant is telling the truth could take hours. Fortunately, Health Street can easily handle your Florida resume and employment verifications quickly and effectively. We will flag any discrepancies and report them back to you.

Background Check Laws Specific to the State of Florida

Florida does not have a "ban-the-box" law that limits employer abilities to conduct criminal background checks. Florida does have laws that restrict local or state agencies from denying licenses, permits, or certificates necessary to perform a job based on criminal convictions, unless the conviction was for a felony or first-degree misdemeanor related to the necessary license or permit.

There are no laws in Florida that prohibit an employer from asking a job applicant about their criminal history or convictions at any point in the hiring process. Job applicants in Florida are protected only by federal laws, including the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and potentially, by Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

The federal EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) offers guidance on how employers should consider criminal background when screening job applicants. They must balance the nature of an applicant's criminal history without discriminating against job applicants. Job applicants should also be provided with an opportunity to provide mitigating information about their crime to prospective employers.

One Florida statute does affect Florida job applicants with criminal histories. In Florida, litigants are able to sue a company based on "negligent hiring" if they are injured based on an employee's conduct, as long as the employer failed to uncover or heed a past criminal history. This statute and risk of lawsuits against employers means that Florida employers are more likely to conduct criminal background checks and also more likely to decline a job applicant that has a criminal history which has any relationship to the work being performed.

Statistics on Crime in the State of Florida

Florida records crime statistics using the Department of Justice Uniform Crime Reporting system (UCR). In 2019, the state recorded 541,048 total crimes, a 4.6% decrease over 2018. Over 459,000 of the state's crimes in 2019 were property-related. A total of 81,092 violent crimes were committed, a 1% decrease over 2018.

Florida's 2019 violent crime rate was 382.4 per 100,000, almost identical to the 2017 national violent crime rate of 382.9 per 100,000.

In 2019 in Florida:

Also in 2019, there were 357,828 instances of larceny in Florida, including 3,012 incidents of pocket picking and 1,214 instances of purse snatching.

Over $121 million in cash was stolen in Florida in 2019, of which $2.1 million was recovered. The total value of stolen motor vehicles in Florida in 2019 was more than $610 million, while $357 million in value was recovered by authorities. Also in 2019 in Florida, 14,128 bicycles were stolen, a 1% increase over 2018, while most other property crimes declined.