Here's the process to find criminal records in San Francisco: 1) Walk into the courthouse 2) Go find which binder has the first letter of the last name of the

Here's the process to find criminal records in San Francisco: 1) Walk into the courthouse 2) Go find which binder has the first letter of the last name of the applicant 3) Flip through the dot-matrix printed green/white reams of printed papers to see if someone with a first and last name has a court record 4) Write down the case number on a form with a bunch of other info 5) Go wait in line and hand it to the clerk 6a) If it's a record they have, you can go into the back and view it with a clerk watching to make sure you don't steal or adulterate the record. It's the only copy. 6b) If it's not in the courthouse, they'll tell you to come back in a few days while they pull it from the archive. 7) If you had many records to pull, some courts will restrict you to a max of 1-2 per day. So you either have to send lots of people, or just wait. Some courts like Santa Barbra can take 120+ days. This is true for lots of counties in the US, and it takes getting involved in local politics to fix it. A lot of Americans can't make rent if they don't get their next paycheck, and a long background check can be really stressful. It's a hard problem, but it's getting better. I could go on :)