[Nutmog]

This surprises me about America. Other countries have national criminal record databases. Is it that America hasn't spent the money to build one, or that counties/states/police stations don't want to share information, or that they're not allowed to share information?

[stevetrewick]

But access to those databases is not necessarily available to all. In the UK we have the 'Disclosure and Barring Service' (which used to be the 'Criminal Records Bureau', but there are now a bunch of non crime (or non conviction) reasons you might be on the barred list) which will perform a background check which discloses any convictions and any allegations of sexual abuse. All this for the bargain price of £59.

As that last suggests, however, only certain roles are eligible for the checks, those being primarily roles that involve working with children or vulnerable adults, though the full list [0] is quite interesting.

[0] https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...