Thursday, July 30, 2009

Online Criminal Records - The Real Way To Get Them Instantly

By Mike P. Aul

In the FBIs 2007 Uniform Crime Report they stated that 14,209,365 arrests occurred nationwide for all offenses (except traffic violations), of which 597,447 were for violent crimes, and 1,610,088 were for property crimes. That statistic makes it very easy to believe that the person you are conducting a search for criminal records online may very well have one.

You are going to start by organizing the information you have already. This is one of the most important steps when searching for public criminal records online. It is a good idea to at least have your subject's name and date of birth. This will help you refine your results. You first stop should be the court's web site of the home town of you subject. If they have an online search conduct one using the above information. This will get you, hopefully, any court records or court documents concerning the subject. This will also allow you to collect additional information such as a home address or even a social security number sometimes.

One major mistake is not getting as much information as possible. If you are looking for public criminal records online then you have to be ready to search many places. I have coached many people in conducting criminal background checks and have to constantly remind them of this. Once you find one criminal record on a subject it does not mean your investigation is over. The best example I often give for this situation is this; you have a subject that lives in Connecticut so naturally you start at the Connecticut Judicial Web Site and find a few criminal convictions. Awesome! You got some results for your subject. The problem is that before this person live in Connecticut they live in New York and they have an extensive criminal record there too. You would never know this if you stopped with Connecticut.

There are court record databases and criminal record databases that are in the business of gathering public court records and storing them in their databases. They keep the records long after they are dropped by the actual court web sites. They also gather records for across the nation so you can be sure you will not be checking the wrong court. This is by far the best way to get access to public court and criminal records online.

In the spirit of saving you time and aggravation trying to hunt down public criminal records online from everywhere your subject may have been I would like to suggest the option we use all the time. They are a criminal records database or a criminal background check database. These sites compile records from across the country into one database that you can subscribe to and then search. It is a lot of work to keep these databases up to date and comprehensive, which is why they usually charge a subscription fee. This is hands down the most instant and cover-all way to get criminal records without missing that crucial piece of information.

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