Search For Warrants - How To Find Free Arrest Warrants
Law Article | November 6, 2019
Arrest records and warrants are publicly available records are many can be found online for free. More comprehensive searches for warrants, criminal records and background checks are also available if you need more information or you don't have the time to do all the research.
Free public records warrant checks
You can look up your arrest warrants by going to the courthouse where they were issued for free because they are public records. You have a right to see them. Some authorities might want to charge you an administration fee for the records so you can't always guarantee that it's a completely no cost way to search for warrants but it should be relatively straightforward.
Just about everything you can imagine is online nowadays and free arrest warrants are no exception. More and more law enforcement departments are seeing the benefits from publishing their arrest warrants and records online and that can only mean that as time goes by, there will be more warrants online and they will become easier and easier for you to take advantage of. All You need know is which county or state web site to look at.
If you have the time you can search for warrants for someone by surfing to the web sites of local county and state law enforcement offices. Many now provide an online search capability that you can use for free. Others might ask you to send a request of some form before you get the information. This process is easy and generally straightforward enough but it can take up a huge amount of your time if you don't know precisely where you should be looking.
Reasons for doing an arrest warrant search
Regular searches for your arrest warrants can help you to avoid some of the more unpleasant aspects of warrants that you are unaware of or forgotten about. This can include getting a call from the police while you are asleep at home and getting taken to jail in handcuffs. More often you can get pulled over for a minor traffic violation and get arrested when the officers find your warrant as a matter of routine.
In all of these cases it would have been better to have handed yourself in after seeking legal advice but you need to know that you have an active warrant before you can do that. Handing yourself in voluntarily always goes down well in court because the judge will see that you have made a real effort to put things right.
It's also a good idea to do a criminal background check including a search for arrest records and warrants on anyone that you have any dealings with. Just to make sure that you aren't walking into trouble. Using a public records web site for background checks is confidential so no-one needs to know that you have been investigating them.
Searching for warrants nationally
You can go to web sites that provide you with access to public records that have been gathered from just about every available source that you can imagine from all over the country. These sites have to charge you for using the site but because the demand for information from people like yourself is huge , they are able to give you the service for a very affordable price. If you are trying to find out if someone has an arrest warrant or a criminal record that might be from anywhere in the country then you should be using a public records sites to do it. It beats spending all your time tracking down the information for free and can be much more effective in finding the information you want.