Criminal History & Arrest Records

Criminal and Arrest Records, sometimes referred to as a “rap sheet,” are documents that detail an individual’s criminal history. If the person has been tried as an adult and convicted, the criminal record should exist in our database. If for any reason you do not see a criminal record that you thought would show up in your report, please contact us. There can be many reasons this might happen, and we can walk you through it to try to reach a resolution.

Criminal Records should show all crimes committed, even those that the individual was not convicted of. This is due to the attached Arrest Record, which will include all arrests on file, including arrests where the individual wasn’t formally charged with a crime.

Crimes committed when an individual was a juvenile are typically difficult to find public records on, as those criminal and arrest records are typically sealed and/or expunged. In the eyes of the law, an adult is any individual over the age of 18. Any arrest and/or conviction records attached to an adult should be publicly accessible.

PeopleWhiz’s search engine accesses over 67 billion public record data points, delivering highly accurate, detailed reports instantaneously.

In the United States, the public has the right to access any adult’s criminal record history. The National Crime Information Center is a federal government database which collects and stores massive amounts of data processed through the criminal justice system. But the public does not have direct access to this database. Rather, the local jurisdiction where your search target either currently lives or has lived in the past will typically be our data access point.

A person who commits crimes in a single jurisdiction will typically return a report with a complete criminal and arrest record history. If the person has committed multiple crimes across state borders or in separate jurisdictions, there is a small chance their criminal records will compile as a partial record, meaning it could be missing documents. This doesn’t happen often, but it can happen; in this case you’ll likely see the individual’s criminal history from a single jurisdiction. If you have questions on this, please contact us either by phone or email, 24/7, and we will attempt to locate additional criminal records. There are ways to go about doing this, including contacting certain county and state courthouses directly by phone.

Federal Law mandates reporting certain classes of offenders, most notably sex offenders, but even these databases are maintained at the state level rather than federal.

Criminal Histories

It’s not always easy or inexpensive for individuals to obtain someone’s complete criminal history. Criminal records databases maintained at the state level can be difficult to access (not in every instance but in many). But on the county level, databases can often be accessed through online portals, making it easier to view an individual’s criminal past.

State prisons and most county jails maintain records on inmates, but again instances arise where you may not see arrests and convictions from additional states. Knowing your search target’s complete address history can help here: if need be, you can tap into each individual state and county’s criminal record database to pull individual records. PeopleWhiz will provide complete address histories to fill in any blanks you may need.