Criminal records are part of public records and contain all the criminal activities of a person. All the offenses including sex offences, arrests, convictions, embezzlement and everything that is negative takes its place in these records. These records, just as all other public records are maintained by the government. They are made available to the public in order to let them control their lives better by keeping criminals at bay.
All public records are available for free from the government offices. The only issue with criminal records is that if the crime is considered minor by the judge, it is sealed and access is not given to such records to the public and they can only be accessed by professional agencies. This sealing, by law, permits the person who committed the crime to consider it as “no crime,” which in other words means the person is given a clean chit and does not have to talk about it even when applying for a job or anything else. That means employers who are checking out their applicants will not be able to see this crime in the person’s criminal records.
Usually, these records can be obtained from the government offices in the county. People used to visit these offices to get hold of the records and if they have money, hire a private investigator to get them. But ever since the internet has become a part of our lives, these public records too have gone online and the convenience they afford is so addictive that more and more people began using them.
These services are provided by websites that collect these records from the government agencies and store them in databases online. Since they have to spend a lot of money in the creation and maintenance of these databases, they charge the users some fee to be able to gain access to them. They also keep updating their databases with the latest information.
There are also free public records searches that some websites provide. They mostly contain outdated or inaccurate data and are considered a waste of time.
photo credit: Alicja Michalik
