Criminal Record

A resume should never include any negative information about yourself. So if you have ever been "in trouble" with the law, you would certainly not mention this in your resume. Newer laws even limit an employer from including such general questions on an application as "Have you ever been arrested?" and limit formal inquiries to "Have you ever been convicted of a felony?"
Being arrested and being guilty are two different things. Arrests for minor offenses are also not supposed to be considered in a hiring decision.

A felony conviction is a different matter. These crimes are more serious and current employment laws do allow an employer to ask for and get this information -- and to use it in making certain hiring decisions. For example, few employers would want to hire an accountant who had been convicted for stealing money from a previous employer. If you have an arrest or conviction record that an employer has a leg al right to inquire about, my advice is to avoid looking for jobs where your record would be a big negative. The accountant in the above example should consider changing careers. I would advise people in this situation to avoid jobs where they could easily commit the same crime, since few employers would even consider hiring them for that reason. Even if they did get such a job because they concealed their criminal history, they could be fired at any time in the future. Instead, I might suggest they consider selling accounting software, starting their own business, or getting into a career completely unrelated to accounting.

As always, your resume should reflect what you can do rather than what you can't. If you chose your career direction wisely and present a convincing argument that you can do the job well, many employers will, ultimately, overlook previous mistakes. As you prove yourself and gain good work experience, your distant past becomes less important. So a criminal history really isn't an issue for a resume at all. Instead, it is a career planning, job search, and interview issue.