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Free Public Criminal Records Online Searches

By Claire Dowell


The office of the Central Repository under the Pennsylvania State Police is the one that handles the PA criminal records. Such record is stored electronically using the Pennsylvania Access to Criminal History Records also known as PATCH.

The state of Pennsylvania uses PATCH to store and monitor the reports that the state receives. This includes the police arrest records which are generated by the officers for people who violated the laws. The online system of Pennsylvania even caters to users who have not registered to the system allowing authorities, organizations and even private individuals to access the records. Although, access to the arrest records of the state is open to the public, the information obtained from a public file is limited because of the criminal laws that the state of Pennsylvania has implemented.

Such limitation is evident to what the public can view or get from an arrest record generated through the system. Records of juveniles are not available for request unless it is done by individuals who are authorized to do so. A public file will not contain details about the witnesses well as the officer in charge. This is done for security purposes. Furthermore, an arrest record is made available to the public only if the case has been resolved r closed and no further investigations are using it. This is to help the investigators have a consistent and credible source of information.

The state of Pennsylvania only releases the documents to the person who owns the file. Authorized individuals also have access to the arrest records of Pennsylvania. This includes organizations, business owners or government officials. A fingerprint scan would cost only $15 while a name-based search would cost only $10. Authorized individuals are the only ones who are allowed to conduct a fingerprint search.

Before the Pennsylvania Access to Criminal Records was developed, residents of the state would have to go to the office of the State Police to request for a copy of an arrest record. To avoid the hassle in the office, one can download the request form online and fill it out with the necessary information needed before personally going to the office. Once ready a $10 processing fee ha to be paid in the form of a one order or a check. It is also important that the one who filed the request provide their personal information during the search. This can help track the access to the file.

The Internet is now used as a medium to deliver information to a number of targets. Criminal arrest records are one of the many documents that are now available online. This makes the search convenient and a lot faster than most of the methods that we know of. There are websites that offer criminal records free to public. The Pennsylvania Access to criminal history records is linked with some website in order to deliver the most accurate information to the public.




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