Arrest records, like them or not, we’ve all got them. Even if you’ve never been arrested, you still have an arrest record. If that’s the case, your record is just empty. These kinds of records are kept by everyone so the United States government can do a better job keeping track of what it does and what its citizens do. Fortunately, because these records exist, that means that you can find them if you know what you’re doing. If you have an interest in learning how to find arrest records but don’t know where to start, you’re in the right place. Today we’re going to take a look at how to find arrest records and also dive into some pretty exciting information about arrest records.
Arrest Records: Why, What, and How
In America, there are a lot of things that are just kind of ingrained into our society that we take for granted that haven’t always existed. Arrest records are just another one of those things. Criminal records came first, and those weren’t invented until 1869. That might not seem like too long ago, but keep in mind that there has been crime for as long as there have been laws. If there hadn’t been, there would be no use for laws.
Arrest records are simply a record of arrests. If you’ve never been arrested, or you’ve been arrested once or twice, your record is going to be pretty short when you look over it. If you’ve been arrested a number of times, your arrest record is going to be pretty long. Any time you’re arrested, it appears on your arrest record and will stay there until the time period is over, which varies from state to state. In some states, your arrests are never removed from your record.
Quite literally, any time that you’re arrested, it will appear on your arrest record, regardless of the reason for the arrest, if you make it to court, or if you’re convicted. If you do make it to court, that would be added to your court record. In the same vein, if you’re tried and convicted, that would appear on your criminal record. You don’t need to be arrested to go to court or even to be tried, assuming that you turn yourself in or you’re going to court for a civil matter instead of a criminal one.
This information is recorded to make it easier for the government to keep track of who has been arrested. There are a lot of reasons why this is a good thing for them. Firstly, if an officer decides to give someone a slap on the wrist for a minor violation, it appearing on their record would indicate to a future officer that this is a pattern of behavior and that they shouldn’t be so lenient. It also makes it easier to keep track of what law enforcement officers have been up to. That information can sometimes make it as high as the President himself in extreme cases.
By being able to keep track of exactly what law enforcement officers are doing at any given time, the government can, ideally, crackdown on any form of corruption that pops up within this part of the government. It also allows for easier audits, both conducted by people within the government and 3rd parties, to help find out how they can cut back on spending in one part or another.
Getting Your Hands on Arrest Records
Finding this information can be easy, but it can also be incredibly trying. At the end of the day, it really depends on how you approach it and where exactly you’re looking for this information. Arrest records are public information, which simply means that they aren’t considered to be classified by the United States government. Anything that is public record is accessible by the public by some means. Some pieces of information that fall under public record are a little trickier to locate than others, but all of that information is still available.
There are a few ways that you can go about getting someone’s arrest records, and it can be a little tricky depending on the method you use. We’re going to be taking a look at a couple of the most common methods, and you can decide from there which will work the best for you. Both of the methods we’ll be looking at today have their perks, and both are good for different types of people, depending on their needs and their location.
The first method we’ll be looking at is the most intuitive and is probably the first one you thought of when this topic came to mind. Simply checking through the Sheriff’s Department’s website to find the information there. Many counties do provide this information either on the Sheriff’s department’s website or on the county court’s website, so this could be an invaluable resource for your search.
We’d like to put some emphasis on the words “could be an invaluable resource” because, while it does have potential, it can also be entirely unhelpful. There are many, many counties that have this information readily available for the public, and that makes it a lot easier for those that come looking this way. There are also counties that don’t make this information easy to find at all, which means that you probably won’t be able to find it. There are also counties that do provide this kind of database, but they don’t regularly update the information, which makes it very tricky for those that are trying to find accurate information. The last thing that you want or need during a search like this is missing, incomplete, out of date, or even nonexistent information.
The databases provided by law enforcement also aren’t connected. Each county’s database exists on its own with only information pertaining to a single county. That’s great if you only want information for your county, but if you have a lot of places that you want to be sure you check, it can cause you to spend a lot more time on this search than you want to, and that’s without revisiting the fact that some counties don’t make this information easy for you to access.
If after reading about that method you can already tell that it won’t work, we have a great solution for you. There are many services that exist online commonly referred to as personal background check services, that allow you to simply enter someone’s first and last name and pull up not only their arrest record but things like driving records, criminal records, court records, warrant information, phone numbers, addresses, email addresses, and sometimes even more. The information you receive can depend a lot based on what’s available, and you’ll understand why in just a moment.
These personal background check services operate in a very ingenious manner. The systems that they have set up are incredibly thorough. Once you enter the first and last name of the person in question, their system will scan through hundreds of thousands of public records databases all over the United States. This sounds like it might take a lot of time, but their systems are able to scan all of these databases simultaneously, leading to almost unbelievably short wait times. In fact, you can expect to get your results instantly, so you won’t need to wait around until the system is done searching. Of course, sometimes it can take a few extra seconds to get your results but in most cases, that has more to do with your internet connection than the systems that these services have in place.
Personal background check services have been around for years now. Some personal background check services are even about as old as the internet, or at least the internet as we know it now. There’s a good chance that they’re here to stay. As time goes on, they’ll only get more and more sophisticated to ensure that they’re providing their users with the best information available at any given time, day or night.
Make Your Arrest Records Search a Walk in the Park
Searching for arrest records can feel like such a grueling task, especially if you’re doing it because you want to vet someone before allowing them to play a role in your life. Fortunately, there are many services that exist that have the ability to greatly expedite your search. That frees up a lot of time to do things that are more important to you, like spending time with your family or maybe even reading a nice book out in your garden. No matter why you want to shave time off of your arrest record searches, you easily can if you have the right tools at hand.
***SpyFly provides consumers affordable, immediate access to public record information. Federal laws prohibit businesses from using SpyFly’s service to make decisions about employment, insurance, consumer credit, tenant screening, or for any other purpose subject to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 USC 1681 et seq.**
