There a few different methods for conducting a Pennsylvania background check using the state system or an online service. Discover which one to use and how depending on your situation.
Pennsylvania has unified their court system and made it accessible through a web portal. You can, for example, check the status of individual cases, or the hearings calendar of a particular courthouse. However, to conduct a criminal records search, you have to go through what is called PATCH (Pennsylvania Access To Criminal History). This is a website run by the Pennsylvania State Police for the express purpose of making records searches easier for everyone from law enforcement to individual users. Unfortunately, this process is a little more complicated than you may be lead to believe.
A PATCH search can be initiated online, or by printing out and mailing a form. A non-refundable fee of $10 is charged for each name you would like to search regardless of outcome. What's 10 bucks? Wait, here comes the downside. You will be charged for misspellings, duplicate submissions and other user errors. You should also be aware, the Pennsylvania State Police response is based on requester-information and includes fingerprint supported data exclusively from the State Police Central Repository. It does not preclude the existence of criminal records, which might be contained in the databases of other local, state or federal criminal justice agencies. Plus, if there are results they will be sent by snail mail. Obtaining the correct records could potentially take weeks.
For those that see this as a means to obtain a cheap criminal background check, prepare to be disappointed. PATCH only covers Pennsylvania. If you are only interested in what your subject's record is inside Pennsylvania, or if you know your subject has never been outside the state, this might well suffice. However, given the rate at which many individuals, especially criminals, move around, a national background check is often your best bet.
For more comprehensive background searches encompassing a few states or the entire nation, the dizzying array of possibilities is bewildering. Unfortunately, many of the online services are nothing more than a money sinkhole. Using inferior service is dangerous to you and those around you so don't trust just any service that looks good and makes grandiose claims.
Don't risk the safety and well being of your business and family to a dangerously flawed background check where 40% error margins are a rampant problem at most online services.
