For sure other states have these records - try searching for the Corrections or Public Safety or maybe Prisons departments in each state. For example, in www.state.nd.us, find the Dept of Corrections under "Agencies" under "State Government". They have a statement under "Inmate Records" in their Prisons Division at: http://www.state.nd.us/docr/prison/inmate_info.htm
that says: "Employees of the Prisons Division may not disclose inmate information except as granted in North Dakota Century Code 12-47-36"

Contrast that with say, http://www.state.in.us/,
click on "law/justice" link at left to get to:
http://www.state.in.us/ai/law/, click on "Offender Public Information Search" to get to:
http://www.in.gov/indcorrection/ofsearch/ODSdisclaim.html

The search for "Miller, James" gets 30 hits, and each record has the fairly detailed record of convictions, and whether the person has been released, is still under court supervision, or it gives the name of the correctional facility, crime(s), length of sentence(s), release date(s), etc.

So regardless of what the state law says about landlords and employers having access to these records in your particular state - the fact is that a persistent and determined employer or landlord has access to a big store of this information for free on the web. Maryland's "Inmate Locator" at http://www.dpscs.state.md.us/onlineservs/oil/ is for current inmates, and warns that information may not be current or complete (the other sites I have seen all seem to have a prominent disclaimer in case of errors). Background checks in Maryland (including past offenders) seem to be considerably more controlled, see the instructions at:
http://www.dpscs.state.md.us/publicservs/bgchecks.shtml.

In addition, you can research journal articles or law reviews in large public or academic libraries. For example, in Academic Search Premier (Ebsco), the search: "criminal record and (housing or employ* or job or jobs)" gets 136 hits. "Criminal record and housing" gets 7 hits. In Masterfile Premier (available at very many public libraries), the search: "criminal record and (housing or employ* or job or jobs)" gets 166 hits; 108 hits if you limit to "full text online"

If you really want to dig deep into policy, trends, legal problems, etc., it would be wise to go to a large academic library to search Lexis Academic, under Legal Research / legal news or law reviews. Legal News, past 2 years, search headline and lead paragraph for: "criminal record and (housing or employ! or job or jobs)" gets 25 hits. (Note! Instead of * for truncation in Lexis - * is one character, ! is multiple characters; so "employ!" gets employ, employer, employee, employment, etc.)

Sorry about the delay getting this reply to you - if you still need more leads, please contact us again. There are quite a few other databases that could help if this turns into a mjor project. My impression is that this is a pretty hot issue both for supporters and opponents of access to criminal records.