Criminal record

For the record label, see Criminal Records

A criminal record or rap sheet (an acronym for Record of Arrest and Prosecution), is a compilation of an individual's identification, arrest, conviction (law), incarceration, legal status, sex offender registration, warrant information, and other relevant criminal history. In the United States, these compilations are maintained and updated on the local, state, and federal levels by various law enforcement agencies. Its primary goal is to provide a comprehensive criminal history for an individual to be used for many purposes, including for identification, assistance in developing suspects in an ongoing criminal investigation, and for enhanced sentencing in criminal prosecutions. In the United States, these compilations are unlikely to be admissible in court as proof of a prior arrest or conviction.

United States Criminal Records

Criminal histories are maintained by law enforcement agencies on all levels of government. Local police departments, sheriff's offices, and specialty police agencies may maintain their own internal databases. On the state level, state police, troopers, highway patrol, correctional agencies, and other law enforcement agencies also maintain separate databases. Law enforcement agencies often share this information with other similar enforcement agencies but this information is rarely usually made available to the public. Registered sex offenders have information about their crimes readily available, and Department of Correctional Services in many states disseminate criminal records to the public, in mediums such as the Internet. Usually, the only group in society that is not subject to dissemination of any criminal records juveniles.

Some states have official "statewide repositories" that contain criminal history information contributed by the various county and municipal courts within the state. These state repositories are usually accurate so long as the state requires and supervises the uploading of data from the local courts. Some states make reporting to the repository a voluntary activity. The information obtained from these repositories can be incomplete and the use of this information has associated risks. Criminal history information contained in official state repositories is generally available to the public.

Court administrators, at both the state and county levels, maintain arrest and conviction records for cases adjudicated in their courts. This information is considered public information and is available to employers and citizens who use appropriate procedures to make a proper request. Records retrieved directly from courts are called "original source records" and are the most detailed criminal records available. Some data re-sellers have compiled private third-party criminal databases. To establish these databases re-sellers purchase criminal information from repositories and counties and re-sell the data to employers and others.

The federal government maintains extensive criminal histories and acts as a central repository for all agencies to report their own data. NCIC (National Crime Information Center) is one such database. Generally, and with a very few exceptions, the records compiled by the federal government are not made available to the private sector. Some private re-sellers claim to offer an NCIC record search. In most cases these claims are fraudulent.

Federal Records

Department of Justice

National Crime Information Center

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) manages the official national criminal history database through the National Crime Information Center (NCIC). The NCIC stores information regarding open arrest warrants, arrests, stolen property, missing persons, and dispositions regarding felonies and serious misdemeanors. A serious misdemeanor is defined as a misdemeanor with a potential jail time of one year or more.

The FBI's compilation of an individual's criminal identification, arrest, conviction, and incarceration information is known as the Interstate Identification Index, or "Triple-I" for short. This is basically the FBI's rap sheet. It contains information voluntarily reported by law enforcement agencies across the country, as well as information provided by other federal agencies. It contains information on felonies and misdemeanors, and may also contain municipal and traffic offenses if reported by the individual agencies. Each individual who has an entry in the Interstate Identification Index has a unique "FBI number" that is used to identify a specific individual. It compensates for the fact that an individual may provide several false names, or aliases, to a law enforcement agency when he or she is booked. An individual may also lie about his or her date of birth or social security number as well, making an independent, unique identification key necessary. It is important to note that the information provided by the Interstate Information Index may come from the agency who "booked" the individual and not necessarily the agency who arrested the individual. Therefore, there may be discrepancies between the arrest date, location, and arresting agency listed in the database and the actual date, location, and agency who made the arrest. The Interstate Information Index may also contain incarceration information as well, listing each time an inmate is transferred from one correctional institution to another as a separate "arrest." The Interstate Information Index is only as accurate as the information reported to it by individual agencies, and frequently lacks comprehensive information on the dispositions of the various arrests it lists. It is best used as a guide on where to find more comprehensive information on a defendant.

National Instant Criminal Background Check System

Mandated by the Brady Bill, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) is used by the FBI to screen potential firearms buyers. In addition to searching the NCIC databases, NICS maintains its own index to search for additional disqualifiers from gun ownership.

Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System

The FBI maintains the largest biometric database in the world with the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS). Criminal submissions from arrests and civil submissions from authorized background checks are stored in IAFIS. Currently, IAFIS has more than 47 million submissions in its repository.

Combined DNA Index System

The Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) stores DNA profiles for both convicted felons in the Offender Index as well as unidentified DNA found at crime scenes in the Forensic Index. CODIS was originally piloted in 1990 as a project among 14 states. Currently, all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the United States Government participate in CODIS.

Department of Transportation

National Driver Register

While not officially a criminal history repository, the National Driver Register (NDR), operated by the Department of Transportation, maintains information on drivers regarding convictions of driving under the influence of alcohol or controlled substances, failing to render aid at an accident involving death or injury, and knowingly making a false affidavit or committing perjury to officials about an activity governed by a law or regulation on the operation of a motor vehicle. Additionally, the NDR contains information on traffic violations resulting from a fatal automobile collision, reckless driving, or racing on the highways.

Secure Flight

Secure Flight, operated by the Transportation Security Administration, screens United States airline passengers to see if they are on terrorism watch lists. Unlike the predecessors Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS) & CAPPS II, Secure Flight does not scan passengers for outstanding warrants nor does Secure Flight use computer algorithms to search for links to flagged terrorists.

Interstate Records

Most states have a statewide agency who acts as a clearinghouse for all statewide arrest information. These so-called "state rap sheets" are usually much more detailed than the Interstate Identification Index; usually listing not only the arrest information, but the subsequent court action following that arrest.

National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System

The National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (NLETS), while not technically its own database, serves as an interface to search each state's criminal and driver records as well as the License Plate Reader (LPR) records going back one year maintained by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Thus through NLETS, a law enforcement agency in one state could search for someone's criminal and driver records in another state. NLETS potentially serves as a better tool to search for minor misdemeanors and traffic violations that would not be in the NCIC.