R,

I'm unclear about what your points were and wondered if you misunderstood my hiring comments. 

When it comes to hiring public safety employees, there is no vast database collected on people or a centralized one.  My point was that when it comes to background research on potential police officers, the information-gathering methods wildly vary.  Not only that, hiring standards are also all over the place and have been changing over the past handful of years, and often not for the better.  (I was recently told job applicant numbers were so low at my former department one of the hires had been arrested at least seven times - and not for things like jaywalking.)

What I was getting at is these background examinations need to be more in-depth and better well done.  As I said, for a policing job, mine was simply a three-or-so-page questionnaire sent out to my listed references with pretty limited questions about my character and their knowledge of me. 

Really, if one thinks about it, at the least,  if a questionnaire like this is used, the candidates' initially listed references should possibly be ignored and a follow-up question on such a questionnaire added that asks the initial references, "Who are three friends of the applicant that you know of?" - and then after that, additional people should be asked the same question about the person's character and past behavior.

I'm not suggesting a huge governmental database nationwide on citizens of an Orwellian nature, but that the testing and selection procedures for future law enforcement employees need to be greatly improved. 

Especially, because nowadays, what is being done is not working.