Platform
How jurisdiction selection actually works
Criminal court records in the United States are maintained by thousands of independent jurisdictions, each with its own structure, coverage and access rules. Deciding which courts to search is the whole problem, and it is the problem Personnelgraph was built to solve.
The four ways a search misses a record
Standard screening does not fail because anyone is careless. It fails because criminal record data in this country is fragmented and jurisdiction-dependent. Here is what that looks like in practice, and what the search does about it.
- 01
The address they didn’t list
A background check normally searches the places an applicant says they have lived. Leave an old address off the application and the search never looks there, so anything in that state stays invisible. It is the simplest gap in the system, and it needs no deception at all: people forget addresses, and a move from ten years ago is easy to omit.
- Maricopa County, AZdisclosed, and searched
- Los Angeles County, CAnot disclosed, never searched
- Johnson County, KSnot disclosed, never searched
What CourtScopeAI does
It assesses the disclosed residence history for gaps and inconsistencies rather than accepting the disclosed list as the search scope.
- 02
The statewide search that isn’t
Some states do not capture every local record in their statewide system. A statewide search looks thorough and comes back clean, and the county record it missed never appears. Screening from out of state, there is usually no way to know which states have this gap.
- Michigan statewidenothing on file
- The county court holding the recordnot covered by the statewide system
What CourtScopeAI does
It recognises where statewide coverage is insufficient and routes the search to the specific county courts that actually hold the records.
- 03
The offence was somewhere else
People do not always offend where they live. A search built around home addresses can miss a record sitting in a county the person only passed through, a county with no obvious reason for anyone to search.
- The home countynothing on file
- The county passed throughno address there, never searched
What CourtScopeAI does
It draws on historical offence patterns to identify additional jurisdictions that a residence-based search would not include.
- 04
Nearest isn’t the same as right
Where statewide search is not reliable, records have to be pulled county by county. Searching the county closest to where someone lived is a reasonable guess, and it is still a guess. The right county and the closest county are not always the same place.
- Berkshire County, MAnearest, nothing on file
- Worcester County, MAthe right one, never searched
What CourtScopeAI does
It applies structured jurisdiction logic in place of manual judgement, so the county set is determined consistently rather than by whoever happens to be running the check.
Put together, an applicant who has moved between states, lives where statewide searches are weak, and has a record across a county line can pass a check easily. None of that is an edge case. It is a structural consequence of how criminal records are organised here.
What CourtScopeAI does, and what it doesn’t
A search can only return what the courts it was pointed at actually hold, release, and release in time. That distinction is worth stating plainly, because a claim to the contrary is not one anybody can keep.
It does
- Assess applicant-provided location information and apply jurisdiction logic to identify potentially relevant court sources.
- Produce consistent jurisdiction decisions across every case, regardless of who initiates it.
It does not
- Guarantee the availability or completeness of records. No search can.
- Change what a court holds or how quickly it releases it. Court systems vary widely on both.
How the platform works
Step two is the product. Everything either side of it is table stakes.
- 1
Authorization
FCRA-compliant disclosure and electronic signature, collected digitally and stored against the case.
- 2
Jurisdiction selection
CourtScopeAI reads residence history, jurisdiction reliability and historical offence patterns, and determines which courts have to be searched, including where a statewide search is not sufficient.
- 3
CourtRequest
Search requests routed direct to each court, tracked per case.
- 4
One report
Every result consolidated and documented consistently, as Clear, Alert or Awaiting Info.
Built for FCRA-compliant workflows
Employers can send digital authorization requests to applicants, collect electronic signatures, and store completed authorizations against the case. Personnelgraph guides users through the required steps, including obtaining authorization before any screening request is initiated.
The federal requirements are set out in full onthe FCRA article, including the parts that belong to the employer rather than to us.
This page describes a product, not a legal standard.Nothing on it is legal advice. Seethe terms of use.
Screen the courts that matter
See how CourtScopeAI determines jurisdiction coverage on a real address history.