Government Public Records

Searching on the internet for criminal records is a modern convenience. In a world where CSI, 24 & House are some of the world’s most popular TV shows, the general public has become much more wary, careful and informed. Learn how the various court records are accessible to you, and find the information you are seeking, fast!

If you’re here because you are interested in searching for criminal records then it’s useful to know various pieces of information before you start your search. Firstly, there are courts at the municipal, county, state, and federal levels, each with its own set of criminal records. According to the 2000 US census there are 3077 counties in the United States, each with their own county court, and their own county criminal records and files. Normally the cases held at the county level include minor crimes and also felonies that are not reported at the higher, federal level.

If you start searching for criminal records you’ll quickly discover that county criminal records are relatively fast when compared to the records of state and federal courts. If you were to call the court record retriever for state and federal court records it often takes 72 hours to retrieve the data because they search most of these records by hand. This is why it is such an amazing tool to be able to search online for these county criminal records instead of paying a visit to the local court record retriever! Also, because you may only find the information you are seeking by looking in a few places, a bit like an investigator following up clues, it can be a time consuming process without the aid of a court records database.

A Federal Criminal Records Check is a search of a specific federal district court’s records. Federal cases include crimes involving federal law, crimes that cross state boundaries, and crimes that are committed on federal property. Drug crimes, crimes involving weapons and also immigration crimes are some of the records which are kept at a federal level. The FBI maintains the federal court criminal records through an agency called the NCIC, the National Crime Information Centre. This is a computerized system which collates the data submitted from the FBI and other agencies. Accessibility to this database is often limited on a “need to know basis” as the phrase goes from Hollywood, meaning if you don’t have just reason to access the files you won’t be given access. If you are not involved in the cases you are searching for you can still get access on a limited basis, but not the personal information of the accused or witnesses. This system is used to perform background checks on prospective police candidates etc. It is useful to note that even though the NCIC doesn’t offer much to the private sector with regards to federal court records there are still records from other agencies which are accessible. All crimes which have a sentence of over a year are classed as felonies, so you can see that many crimes would fall under the state court, and are therefore much more accessible.

State court criminal records are easier to track down via the Internet. State Courts have differing fees for accessing their records, and some state court records are free to access. These records contain the data given by the various county court records indexes, but they won’t include sensitive personal information of defendants and witnesses. In order to have a good chance of finding criminal records it is advised to open up the search to a state and countrywide index search.

Search for county criminal records, state criminal records and much more at criminal court records .