Sunday, August 3, 2014

Pennsylvania Criminal Records

By Ben Kingsley


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.

The limitation simply means that, although everybody has the freedom to access the arrest records of the state, not everybody would be able to get all of the information pertaining to the recorded incident. A good example of this is the records of minors. Juvenile records are kept confidential and are only available to those who have the authority. Being a public file means many can see what is stated on the file, this increase the risk for the witnesses as well as the investigator. Such sensitive documents are only available to the public after the case has been resolved.

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.

Requesting for a copy of a criminal arrest record is not only available through the Internet. One can also personally request it at the office of the State Police. The search can be hastened if the requesting individual downloads the form first and all of the required information is filled out. The $10 retrieval fee has to be paid as well during the search. It can be paid in the form of money order or check. One will also be required to indicate their personal information in the request form.

Criminal Records Free to Public access is possible with some websites that promote their services. They do this to gather a lot of interested users and provide their service to a number of users. Residents of Pennsylvania do not need to worry about the accuracy since some websites are directly connected to the state's online database system.




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