Locating police records is important if you are looking for neighborhood sex offenders, babysitter background checks, potential employee criminal background checks, or any county public records. In the world we live in today, it’s really hard to trust everyone we meet, let alone everyone we don’t have time to meet face to face. So, for example, you’re looking to move to a new neighborhood, and you want to know if the neighborhood is good. Are there many criminals in the area? Most people would just call the police station or go down to the station and look in the files. However, that doesn’t really need to be done with the access we have to the World Wide Web, libraries and things of that nature.
If you are concerned about a sex offender, there are several websites you can visit to check to see if one lives in your neighborhood. Some sites even say what kind of crime they committed and when the offender was convicted.
There are many websites that will show you photos (if they have them) of criminals, as well as their addresses. Some websites also provide this type of criminal history information for free. Others charge a nominal fee. Just go to Google and search for county police records and you’ll see a list of sites that offer criminal database searches.
If you’re looking for a particular record, you can do a number of things to try to find it. You can check your local county website to see if they list their records online. Many cities, counties, and states list court decisions and things of that nature online now for the public to see (just like you would in a Sunday newspaper section).
If you go to the website and don’t see it, call the circuit court office and ask if they have a specific site somewhere where you can look up county public records, including marriage and divorce records. It may be that you are simply not looking in the right place. If you know the person you are monitoring, it is definitely not difficult to pick up the phone and call the court office. Most offices will also tell you a decision over the phone if it has been made when you call.
Last but not least, remember that if someone has been convicted of a crime, their record is in public view, so you shouldn’t have to pay for it if you don’t want to. Registration is available online. The technology may not be available online for free in your county or state.
So if you don’t think you should pay for this information, call the circuit court office or go to court. They will be able to point you in the direction to find the records online or they will be able to tell you where you can go to get your records for free. Of course you get what you pay for. You can save a lot of time simply by doing a police records search online for all kinds of county public records.