Are you wondering whether your online date, your neighbor or someone else has been arrested and imprisoned? And if yes, for what reason? Well, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, you’ll learn 4 easy ways to search for someone’s Arrest Records & Criminal Records using just a name.
Method 1: Conduct a Google search with the name
Arrest records are official public records completed by law enforcement agencies. It’s created when a person is taken into custody, to describe the circumstances surrounding the arrest.
Arrest records can contain a wealth of information:
- Biographical Info: age, gender, date of birth, first and last name, height, weight, eye color, hair color, etc.
- Details of the arrest: arrest classification, case number, offense (at time of arrest), date of the arrest, outcome of the arrest (such as court arraignment), etc.
To find arrest records of an individual, you can try searching the person in a major search engine like Google. Just type the person’s full name along with “arrest record” into the search box. It is recommended that you put the name in quotation marks “” to locate the exact matches.
If you are lucky, this can bring up some results. However, search engines can’t always narrow down your results if you’re trying to search a common name.
Arrest Records Search
Enter a name to search for public arrest records & more
Method 2: Check the state or county websites
Some states and counties’ websites provide search features that allow people to search for a person’s arrest records within that state or county. So if you know in which county or state the arrest took place, you can search the official websites by typing the location + arrest records or criminal records (e.g., “Texas arrest records”) into the search bar.
To perform a search on these official websites, the person’s full name and date of birth are usually needed. Note that when you request access to criminal records through a court or government agency, you often have to pay an administrative fee (which covers that single lookup only).
Just keep in mind that in the U.S., there’s no centralized database of criminal or arrest records. That means you may have to spend a few hours searching through a large number of databases at federal, state, county and city levels to gather the information you need.
Method 3: Use a professional public records search engine
If you want to save your time and money by searching hundreds of official public databases in one single lookup, you might want to try professional public records search tools listed below.
Option 1: Truthfinder
TruthFinder is a well-known online service that allows users to run a background check on an individual. It searches a wide range of federal, state and county data sources. By running a public arrest records search with Truthfinder, you’ll obtain a detailed report that may include more info than expected:
- Arrest Records
- Court Records
- Mugshots
- Sexual Offenses
- Felony Convictions
- Misdemeanors
- Traffic Offenses
- Bankruptcies
- Biographical & Contact Info
- And more…
Just take the following steps to start your search:
- Visit TruthFinder Public Records Search page.
- Type the person’s first and last name into the search bar. If you know in which state the person is active, don’t hesitate to choose it in order to narrow down the results. Then click Search.
- Wait for TruthFinder to comb through its database. When a list of possible matches pops up, find the right one and click OPEN REPORT.
- Choose the CRIMINAL & TRAFFIC tag which reveals different types of arrests and criminal activities about the individual.
Option 2: BeenVerified
BeenVerified is another professional people search tool that you can trust. With a large database containing millions of public records, you can search for available arrest records or criminal records by the person’s name and the state (if you know). You might also uncover biographical information about the person: age, address, court records and many other important details.
To run a search, follow the steps below:
- Go to BeenVerified Arrest Records Search page and enter the information you have. Then click the Search button.
- BeenVerified will then search its large database for criminal records and other available public records.
- Unlock the report and select the Criminal or Traffic tag on the left to check out detailed information.
Method 4: Use a dedicated aggregation website
There’re a bunch of non-official websites providing public records lookup service. You can try staterecords.org for example to see if you can find any useful information. It is an aggregation site that collects government-generated records from public sources and provides fast, easy, and inexpensive access to those records.
But sometimes the information you get on these websites may be limited, as it may not have enough data to cover all the arrest and criminal records. So if you can’t find any match with this method, it doesn’t necessarily mean there’s no arrest record associated with the name.
So that’s pretty much all the methods we want to tell you to find detailed arrest/criminal records of someone. Hopefully this post can help you find the information you need. If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to leave a comment below.