Are Background Investigators or Adjudicators Privy to Victim Statements?

Law enforcement agencies play an important role in helping victims prepare their statements and ensuring that they are presented to the court in a timely and appropriate manner when a crime is committed. Law enforcement agencies also provide important information in the background investigation process for applying for a security clearance.

If you have criminal conduct in your past, the SF-86 is pretty straightforward. Did you commit a crime? Have you ever been arrested? A simple yes, or no and explanation in the comments section is all that’s required.

But what if you have a victim statement on the record, and you are afraid a background investigation will uncover details from the crime you experienced, leading to an unfavorable clearance determination by adjudicators?

There are a few threads on the ClearanceJobsBlog surrounding this topic, but this victim was afraid that adjudicators would find them irresponsible because they were ‘tipsy’ when the crime was committed:

“I’m an applicant wondering if they are looking for victim reports in police records in addition to criminal history and such. I was robbed & assaulted a year ago and that’s not a huge deal (I did nothing criminal) but they will see that I was pretty tipsy walking alone, I stopped to talk to the guy instead of just walking by, and I’m afraid they’ll find me too irresponsible. (You don’t have to tell me that was stupid…I obviously know.) If they just know it happened, fine, but the details are kind of ugly.”

VICTIM STATEMENTS WITH LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT

A victim statement, also known as a victim impact statement, is a written or verbal statement made by a victim of a crime to inform the court of the impact the crime has had on their life. Victim statements are often used in sentencing hearings to provide the judge with insight into the harm caused by the crime and to help determine an appropriate sentence for the offender.

Victim statements can be made by anyone who has been directly or indirectly impacted by a crime, including victims, family members, and friends. The statement may include information about the physical, emotional, and financial effects of the crime, as well as any other ways in which the victim’s life has been impacted.

Are Background Investigators or Adjudicators Privy to Victim Statements?

Over the course of a security clearance background investigation, checks are done in every city and state that an applicant has resided in, attended school, or worked in the U.S.. Most of the time, records where someone is the victim in the circumstances are not discussed, but as usual, ‘it depends’ applies frequently in the security clearance process. Background investigators request records from a law enforcement agency, and one investigator on another thread says, “some agencies only provide criminal records, and some agencies provide details about every time a police officer asked you to move your pet dog off a sidewalk for no reason.”

Whatever information is uncovered, the investigator will have to follow up on.

The background investigator will be very professional and will be looking for facts only, and it will be noted in the Report of Investigation (ROI) that you are the victim.

Since this applicant doesn’t seem to have been charged with public intoxication during the incident, they would not be required to list it on the SF-86, so there wouldn’t be any conflicting stories that would put their personal conduct in jeopardy.

Just remember, investigators are humans too, and are in the business of objective reporting for protecting classified information and preventing the bad ones from gaining access to it. Any single incident shouldn’t result in clearance denial or revocation under the whole person concept, particularly one in which you were a victim – regardless of the details.

Much about the clearance process resembles the Pirate’s Code: “more what you’d call guidelines than actual rules.” This case-by-case system is meant to consider the whole person, increase process security, and allow the lowest-risk/highest-need candidates to complete the process. However, it also creates a  lot of questions for applicants. For this reason, ClearanceJobs  maintains ClearanceJobsBlog.com – a forum where clearance seekers can ask the cleared community for advice on their specific security concerns. Ask CJ explores questions posed  on the ClearanceJobs Blog forum, emails received, and comments from this site.