These days, people run criminal records searches for all sorts of reasons. Whether it is to find if there are any sex offenders living in the neighborhood, protect yourself from dating a fraud, or search for those you work with. However, checking someone’s criminal record isn’t as straightforward as it seems to be. It may require you to spend quality time.
If you want to look up a criminal record but have no idea where to start, this article will walk you through the process. In this article, we detail 3 methods to easily access criminal records to find out whether someone has been convicted of a crime.
how to look up a criminal record
Third-party criminal records search (the easiest)
Criminal Record Search by Name
1. Enter Name 2. View Report
Keep in mind that checking someone’s criminal record is a time-consuming and labor-intensive process. But people search engines like TruthFinder and BeenVerified can do the busy work for you. You don’t need to go to courthouses or county courts online to request your search and wait for the report. As these services can help you look up a person’s criminal record with a few mouse clicks. And all the searches are done secretly.
Below are the ones you can try.
Criminal records search with TruthFinder
TruthFinder is a well-known service that allows users to conduct confidential research and obtain a full report that reveals different types of arrests and criminal activities along with other public records about an individual in the United States. If you have questions about people in your life, using TruthFinder to conduct research can give you peace of mind.
Through a criminal record check with TruthFinder, you’ll have access to:
— Arrest records
— Misdemeanors
— Felony convictions
— Sexual offenses
— and more …
To find out if someone has a criminal record, take these steps:
- Visit TruthFinder’s search page.
- Enter the person’s first and last name and click Search. (If you know the city/state where the person lives or committed a crime, add it into the search field to yield better results. )
- When results appear, find your match and unlock the report.
Criminal records search with BeenVerified
With millions of state, federal and local records in their database, BeenVerified is the best place to find accurate records in multiple jurisdictions from across the United States. You provide the person’s name and known locations (if you have access to them), and the website will generate a report containing offenses the person has been charged with; and the crimes the person has been arrested for.
Here’s how you can look up someone’s criminal record:
- Visit BeenVerified’s search page.
- Type in the person’s name and hit Search.
- Then follow the on-screen instructions to find your target. Once a report is generated, you’ll be able to view the person’s criminal history. It will include publicly accessible information in a conviction record, eg. the defendant’s name, the sentence, the actual conviction, fees, or fines.
Additionally, you can conduct research on your neighborhood to verify if there are sex offenders. This is pretty important especially if you have children.
Google search
If you’re pretty comfortable with conducting research on your own, then start with Google.
- Enter the person’s name + city/state into the search bar and put them in quotation marks “”.
- Search their name on Google Images to see if there is a photo of that person you can recognize.
- Check the Google News tab just in case they’ve been reported.
However, if that person has a common name, then your search may pull up pages of records, and it will be virtually impossible to find the correct subject. So you’ll need other identifiers. Or if that case wasn’t reported by news channels, you can’t even comb through public records by doing a simple online search. If that’s your case, try the next method below.
State or county criminal records search
If you know where the person lives, visit the state or county court website to see if you can search for records there.
For example, type the state (eg. New York) + court records into the search bar. Then find the official website to check if you can access the person’s record.
Or type county (eg. Dallas) + criminal records into the search bar. Then look for the exact website that allows you to access public records.
However, if the person has a criminal record in another state you don’t know about, you can find his/her criminal record unless you search it for every jurisdiction in the country. Also, some types of arrest records cannot be completely revealed unless you’re an official representative of the government, a criminal justice organization, or a private agency.
If you can’t find the information you need online, go directly to the courthouse or office to submit the request for the criminal records of the individual you want to research.
A criminal record is a history of an individual’s criminal background, which can divulge a lot about an individual’s character. Finding out if that person has a criminal record is necessary in order to avoid potential threats. Doing all these searches on your own can be draining. But background search services such as TruthFinder and BeenVerified can help you access an individual’s criminal past and save you big-time headaches.
Contributors
Customer Experience Director