There are several different ways that can be used to conduct a criminal background check on a person nationwide.  The first way is to contact a background check company either by telephone or via their website and request that a background check be run on a certain individual.  The information will be searched by the background check company and the results will be returned to the person that requested them by mail or email within a specified period of time.

Another option is to use the services of the internet websites that use software programs to search the billions of public records available on the internet to find any references to the person that is being searched.  This is often a difficult option of doing a criminal background check on person because if the name of the person is common, the information returned may be for several different people.  Without knowing which places the person has lived in the past, it may be impossible to determine which records are for your subject and which records are not.

The last option is to search national public records yourself to obtain the records that you need for a criminal background check on a person for free.  This is the easiest, cheapest, and most effective method, but some personal information will be needed about the subject to be able to find the records that you need.  The information can be found in the public records of the municipal court in each state that the person has lived in.