Are Arrest Records Public Information?

As an American citizen, there are certain rights available to you. For instance, in the United States, your citizenship allows you access to public information. There are a lot of things that fall under public information, and by knowing exactly what does, you’re able to know what kind of information you may be able to find. If you’ve found yourself wondering if arrest records are public information, then you’re in the right place because that question is exactly what we intend to look into today.

What is Considered Public Information?

There are a lot of things that are considered public information. Essentially, anything that is documented by any public branch of a government body is considered to be public information. The format in which the information is documented is irrelevant. Anything from paper documents, video and audio recordings, and even computer files can be considered public information.

That answer doesn’t really help with our question, though, does it? Fortunately, it’s easy enough to deduce if something is considered public information based on what we just went over

Considering that courts are largely considered a public branch of the government, court proceedings could be considered public information. Police are also considered to be a public branch too. Because of this, arrest records are considered public information, so anyone should be able to access them if they know where to look.

Why are Americans Able to Access Public Information?

There are many laws on the books about public information that range all the way from Federal to State. The main goal of these laws is to help with government transparency. These laws have helped the general public as well as reporters hold their representatives accountable for what the government is doing.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your views on the matter, this extends out to arrest records, making them incredibly easy to find if you know where to look. In fact, many sheriff’s departments and courts will provide arrest record databases right on their website! However, if you’re looking to find this information, there is a better way to go about it.

Finding Arrest Records the Easy Way

While you can look directly at your local sheriff’s department’s website to find this information, that method can take a good deal of time if you have a lot of places to look. You can use a personal background check service to find the same information in a fraction of the time.

Personal background check services pull their data from thousands of public records databases all over the nation, so you can be sure that you’re getting the whole story without needing to invest hours and hours into the process. In fact, these companies are able to provide you with instant results in most cases.

Public Information and You

It’s a fantastic thing that so much information is available about the government. Without this, it would be very hard to find evidence of wrongdoings in our government, and it would be really easy for our government to cover up just about anything. It also grants us the opportunity to see into the pasts of people that we choose to allow into our lives, so we can always be sure that we’re doing our best to keep threats away from us as much as possible.

***SpyFly provides consumers affordable, immediate access to public record information. Federal laws prohibit businesses from using SpyFly's service to make decisions about employment, insurance, consumer credit, tenant screening, or for any other purpose subject to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 USC 1681 et seq.