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Discussion

Do I have a record?

I am starting nursing school in the fall and was looking into getting CNA certification while I'm in school so I can do some volunteering/maybe get a job at a hospital for some experience. It isn't necessary for my program; I was just hoping to get an idea of what settings I might like to work in. Anyway, I found a program for this that I could start this summer but they say they do a background check and I do not know if I have a record.

I shoplifted a pair of sunglasses once in high school from JC Penny. It was mortifying and I learned my lesson and would never think that was an ok thing to do again. I'm pretty embarrassed to bring it up even on this fairly anonymous forum; it's not something I'm proud of.

I got a summons/ticket from a police officer, but was then contacted before the court date by a lawyers office representing JC Penny and asked to pay 200 dollars, which I promptly did. I called the court number on the summons a couple weeks later to see if I still had to show up and they couldn't find a record of my court date.

Would this sort of thing show up on a background check/stop me from becoming a CNA(or eventually, an RN)?

The only time I have actually been to court was for a car accident, to which I plead no contest. I don't know if that counts as criminal because the accident was my fault(it was a 'green light - yield to oncoming traffic' while turning left and I thought I had more room so I went, no one was hurt and it was the first week of having my license.)

Will either of these things stop me from working in health care? I don't know if paying the fine for shoplifting got rid of the record like it did for the court date. It was my first and only non-traffic offense. Along with that and the wreck, I got my first speeding ticket this past mardi gras =[. I don't understand what counts as criminal; the traffic things were still me breaking the law right? But I feel like everyone gets at least one speeding ticket. And most people I know have been in car accidents and even at fault before.

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    • Featured Replies

    You might have FBI rap sheet with car wreck and shoplifting if in those incidents you were ever fingerprinted by police officer.Tickets do not count but car wreck and shoplifting might.I will order my FBI rap sheet If I were you.It will take 8 months but atleast you will know what is there before facing BON.Do not use all these internet background check.Orde FBI one because that is the one BON use anyway.Meanwhile get your record expunged do not lie to BON

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    • Experts

    OP: you may possibly have a record for shoplifting, especially as you received a summons from a police officer to appear in court. Why the court has no record of this when you called, I don't know...but that doesn't mean that you didn't have a hearing. Courts can be notoriously slow in processing things and your summons may not yet have been processed and on the docket when you called. And you NEED to follow-up on that, because having missed a hearing is not going to help matters.

    FYI, any fine that JCPenny demanded is seperate from any legal action that may be taken against you.

    I would talk to an attorney ASAP to get this sorted out. Best of luck.

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    You can get a FBI background check done fairly quickly if you do it with livescan through an approved channeler. On the FBIs website they list approved channelers in which these companies can take your prints and have them run through the database to obtain a personal copy of your record. It costs around $50 but you'll have results within a week usually. Here's the website with the list of approved channelers.

    http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/identity-history-summary-checks/list-of-fbi-approved-channelers

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    In most cases, applications may require a background check, but if it's a minor offence I wouldn't be too concerned. Primarily, company's are worried about felony charges. Applications with or without bg checks often will ask you to disclose any convictions you might have had. Wording is key here..."felony convictions" is the norm they ask for. Now for your first issue, given that you didn't go to court I'd guess no, you have no record from that. Even if you did, given that you were under 18 it should be sealed.

    Now for the second one, that is a traffic offence and...well it's a traffic issue. Wouldn't worry about it.

    If you are really freaking out, bg check yourself. Probably cost you 50+$ but if you really need that much peace of mind, the it would be worth it!

    Also, if you are in nursing school, many hospitals will take on tech's as long as they have started clinicals, so a CNA cert might not even be necessary (though the bg check will be); anyway, would save you money on superfluous courses if you checked out the option of being a SNT (student nurse tech).

    Best of luck!

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