People can get criminal records for life for stealing from Walmart, but let them hold up stealing rent in somebody else’s property for over a year and they’re a protected class it seems.  

It is a criminal offense that the cities prosecute if you fail to register. 

You also can't discriminate against rental applicants with criminal backgrounds (except sex offenders). 

One streeteasy.com writer made an interesting point: "This is not the criminal justice system where there are multiple degrees of culpability.

Such as criminal history or bad eviction history.

I doubt you'd want to send someone over with a criminal background or that is a registered sex offender.

I have rented before and used screening service called TVS, Tenant Verification Service to pull credit, rental and criminal reports.I have not pulled a report in a while and they have apparently changed the way they operate, in that the renter now pulls their own reports and supplies them to me.

@Joe Gore They provide full credit report, credit score, and national criminal background check and a conlcusion with applicant recommendations.

Once the Craiglist listing is hijacked, think of the less informed individuals that will be duped to pay a deposit for a discounted property by depositing funds into the criminals account or sending the money to some random address.

This is referred to as a "Thief" or "Criminal".