The world we live in can be a dangerous place if we are not careful. Shady characters are walking among us everyday, and it’s becoming more and more difficult to differentiate them from the decent ones. Children are no longer safe in schools or in their own homes, not with predators and other mentally unstable individuals lurking about. Having that said, it would be a prudent idea to have the means to appropriately discern an individual’s susceptibility for criminal acts. It may not be perfect, but criminal background checks can give us that prospect. In the state of Oregon, the public is given the ability to access and obtain Oregon arrest records for various purposes, from record review to employment criminal background checks.