NYS OCA CHRS Is Not the Gold Standard CRAs Think It Is

How do most Consumer Reporting Agencies (CRA) deal with New York State? Most will state that they are forced to use the Office of Court Administration (OCA) Criminal History Report, or State criminal search.

This comes with a hefty price tag, though, of nearly $100.00, per name, and the name must be exact to what is on the record, so if you have a court that misspelled the name of the subject by just one letter, you’re not getting that result.

This is one of the many arbitrary rules that the OCA has employed. What they report changes almost monthly, and it’s becoming more and more restrictive.

Recently, while working on a report, we were made aware of a case that was missing from the results provided to us by the OCA. We had the court, case number, offense, and disposition dates - all the information!

When we reached out to the OCA to inquire as to why this was not reported, we were told that after five years of inactivity from the court that they do not report the case at all. This was a disposed case!

The OCA had it stored as unfinished with no activity, therefore, we did not obtain the results. Who is holding the courts accountable? It’s not the Office of Court Administration.

An even more frustrating issue is when an investigator reaches out to the courts and is advised that they have to go through the OCA to obtain the results they desire.

The OCA is leaning on the courts more and more to not provide case information to researchers, and to insist that the State criminal record search is used. However, they aren’t providing comprehensive results, are not holding courts accountable, and frequently change what they will and will not report.

Another example of this is their “Misdemeanor Redemption Policy,” which basically states that any misdemeanor conviction older than ten years will not be reported, as long as there are no other convictions on the record. 

The biggest issue with this is, of course, the exact name match.