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Read this before you launch a search for arrest records or warrants from Georgia!

Arrest records

In my opinion, when it comes to arrest records, Georgia is no different from most other states. There are no black and white answers but a lot of greys, depending on the type and extent of information you are looking for and the agency that you approach for it.

That said, Georgia Laws do allow public access to jail records and information on arrests made in the state that have led to a conviction. You can get the arrest report by approaching the local law enforcement office or the judiciary. If you are seeking in-depth arrests records from Georgia, approaching a state level agency would be a better option.

 

 

What kind of information can I get from an arrest inquiry?

Well, I’d say the name tells you precisely what to expect. For starters, you will be told who was arrested and you will be given details on the specifics of the arrest. So, you can expect to find:

• The full name of the person who was arrested
• Date of birth
• Date of arrest
• Charges against this person
• Detention facility where the accused is being held
• Bond amount (if applicable)
• Release on bail (if applicable)

Notice how there is no mention of the arrest mugshots. Georgia Laws enacted in 2014, prohibit law enforcement agencies from providing arrest mugshots to the public. That said, it is possible to find arrest booking pictures through some private sources. But, these will typically be old images that were retrieved from the website of the judiciary or the sheriff’s office before said law came into effect.

 

Should I approach the police or the judiciary for the arrest log in GA?

Both options are available to you. You can approach either the sheriff’s office or the court clerk for information on arrests in a specific county.

1. Arrest history search through the judiciary: If you are looking for the arrest history of a specific individual, it makes sense to get in touch with the judiciary. In fact, the option is particularly well suited for such an inquiry because you can actually browse through all the court records in the name of the subject simply by taking a trip to the clerk of court’s office of your county.

You will find public service terminals in the lobby that connect to the judicial database. I like to call it the “no questions asked, no money paid” approach to finding arrest records. Of course, if you can’t get the information you need, help is also at hand, albeit you will have to pay a small fee for the service.

2. Look who got busted by contacting the local police: Yes, I am talking about the arrest list for the day or even the week here. The local sheriff’s office keeps an account of all arrests made, be they connected to serious felonies or minor misdemeanors.

Now, the one thing that I must clarify here is that arrest reports are not the same as incident specific police reports. An aggregation of all police reports for the day for a particular law enforcement agency is known as the police blotter.

Simply put, this is the activity log of the sheriff’s office for the day, which contains information on just about everything that transpired and all the tasks that were carried out by the personnel of the agency. While in some states this information is offered online, very few law enforcement agencies in Georgia currently provide this information online or offline.

 

So, how do I access the arrest records from Georgia?

The good news is that in most counties, you won’t have to drive down to the sheriff’s office for the arrest list since most law enforcement agencies offer this information on their website in some form.

While some will directly post the “arrests last 24 hours” list, others will allow you to look through the arrest booking records of the county jail. Either way, you will be able to get the arrest search done through these facilities. I believe a few examples will help you to understand this better. So, here you go:

1. Arrest records for Cobb County: The Cobb County Sheriff’s Office does not provide their arrest log online, but you can browse through the jail records for the past 30 days using the tool at http://inmate-search.cobbsheriff.org/enter_name.shtm. The information offered isn’t much and just includes the full name of the detainee, race, DOB, location, SOID and days in custody.

 

2. Arrest log for Coweta County: The local sheriff’s office is one of the few agencies in the state that offer the police blotter online. From information on recent arrests to a search tool for jail records, you will find all of that and more at https://p2c.coweta.ga.us/p2c/.

 

3. Arrests in Houston County: The Sheriff’s Department of Houston offers a standard inmate lookup tool but they provide a lot of information in response to the arrest inquiry. The tool is available at http://online.houstoncountyga.org:8011/mrcjava/servlet/MRCPUBLIC.M00020s and you will be able to get the full name of the detainee, information on the charges, identifier data as well as bail and release details.

 

4. Just busted list for Bibb County: The local law enforcement office posts its daily arrest log on the agency’s website and allows visitors to launch an inmate search through the facility at http://bibbsheriff.us/inmate-search/. The name based search for arrest history will get you identifier details of the person detained as well as information on charges.

 

5. Recent arrests in Dade County: The Sheriff’s Department of Dade County does not offer online facility to access their arrest booking data. However, you can call the office clerk at 706-657-3233 for an arrest search.

 

6. Chatham County arrest log: The local police do not offer an inmate lookup tool on their website. However, the sheriff’s office does post the arrest booking list for the last 24 and the last 72 hours at http://www.chathamsheriff.org/Corrections/Bookings-24hrs and http://www.chathamsheriff.org/Corrections/Bookings-72hrs.

 

7. Dekalb County arrests records: You can go through the jail records for Dekalb County by using the tool at https://ody.dekalbcountyga.gov/app/JailSearch/#/search. Once again, this is a name based arrest inquiry, and you can find specifics about the inmate and the charges against him/her. The agency offers arrest booking and release information that goes back up to 12 months.

 

8. Gwinnett County arrests records: The local sheriff’s office provides an extensive mix of information when you initiate a search for arrests through the agency’s website. The arrest inquiry can be launched by using the app at http://www.gwinnettcountysheriff.com/smartwebclient/. This is a name-based search for arrest records and it provides details on all instances of arrests in the name of the subject, including details on the charges against him/her.

 

Arrest warrants

The one thing I can tell you is that if you have had success finding arrest records from Georgia, you stand to be disappointed with a warrant search. Yes, the police tend to keep information on arrest warrants under wraps, and for a good reason.

I suppose it will be hard to understand the guarded approach unless I tell you a bit more about warrants and their issue procedure. So, let me start by answering the question-

 

What exactly are arrest warrants?

These are court issued orders that allow the police to take an individual into custody. Depending on the offense in question, the police may/may not be involved in the issue process. However, when it comes to actually making the arrests, the job is entrusted to the cops. Arrest warrants are generally issued by the magistrate’s court, but they can also come from other branches of the judiciary.

• Active warrants: Typically, when the police need a court order to apprehend a suspect, they approach the court of the magistrate for it. They have to prove to the magistrate that there is a valid reason for suspecting the accused before the order is granted. Also known as active warrants, these orders can then be used to make arrests whenever and wherever the accused is found.

 

• Bench warrants: Of course, if you do something to piss off the judiciary, you will end up with a warrant in your name. Think not appearing in court as ordered or neglecting to follow a court directive here. These arrest orders are known as bench warrants.

 

• Outstanding warrants: A third term that is often used in context of such arrest orders is “outstanding warrants”. Because arrest warrants once issued do not expire, these simply stay back in the system till they are served, even if it takes years before they are actually put to use. Such arrest orders are known as outstanding warrants.

 

• A warrant roundup: For any state, outstanding arrest warrants usually number in the thousands and they remain in the system indefinitely. After a while, the police stop actively pursuing a suspect and simply wait for the accused to have a run in with law enforcement, at which point the outstanding warrant against him will be found and he will be arrested.

 

However, often a few law enforcement agencies come together to initiate what is known as a warrant round-up. This is a joint-operation that involves a proactive search for people who have warrants (both outstanding warrants and bench warrants) in their name.

So, should I just call the sheriff’s office for a warrant check?

That is one way of doing things. But, let me warn you here- this approach will only work in your favor if you are absolutely sure that you don’t have a warrant in your name. Allow me to take this one step further and explain to you exactly how things work on this front.

If you call or visit the sheriff’s office, without exception, you will be asked to divulge personal information, such as your name, address, etc. If it’s a personal visit, you will have to offer some form of identification. The minute they find the arrest warrant in your name, you will be in handcuffs and on your way to the jail.

On the phone, of course, they won’t tell you that they are sitting on an active warrant in your name. Instead, they will ask you to come in for the warrant inquiry. Need I say more about what’s going to happen once you are there?

 

Can I get a warrant list from a judicial office?

If your warrant inquiry pertains to one individual, it makes sense to conduct the search through the office of the court clerk. However, if you want access to the warrant database, you won’t get that through the office of the judiciary.

In some counties of GA, you will find the warrant list on the website of the sheriff’s department. But, only a handful of law enforcement agencies offer this information in the public domain, quite simply because there is a lot of scope for misuse of such data.

For starters, releasing this information so openly means that all and sundry have access to it, including the suspects who may skip town anticipating their arrest. Yet, in the interest of public safety many police departments do, at the least, provide information on the most wanted of the area/agency.

Is there a way to initiate a warrant lookup online?

As I discussed above, the sheriffs’ offices of some Georgia counties provide warrant information online. This can come in the straight-forward form of an online tool that allows to launch a warrant inquiry or the information may be offered as the “most wanted list”.

Needless to say, the information will be limited to a certain number of high profile suspects, if it is the most wanted list that’s on offer. Having said that, here is a look at how to access information on active warrants from some of the county sheriff’s offices of GA.

1. Douglas County warrant check: The Sheriff’s Office of Douglas offers their most wanted list at https://sheriff.douglas.ga.us/most-wanted/. This is by no means their complete warrant database but you do get information on suspects accused of serious criminal offenses.
2. Fulton County arrest warrants: This again is a most wanted list, so you will only get information on outstanding warrants issued in serious criminal matters. The list is available on http://www.fultonsheriff.net/fulton-fugitive.html.
3. Forsyth County warrant list: The most wanted list of Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office had information on all of 6 suspects at the time of writing this article. But, as discussed above, this is a good starting point, particularly if you are seeking information on people involved in felonies. You can find the list at http://s2c.forsythsheriff.org/mostwanted.aspx.
4. Catoosa arrest warrants: The Catoosa county Sheriff’s Office posts their most wanted list at https://www.catoosacountysheriff.com/most-wanted/. Charge related information is offered along with recent photographs of the suspect.
5. Henry County warrants: The warrant division of the Sheriff’s Office of Henry County routinely offers information on the area’s most wanted at http://www.henrycountysheriff.net/FieldOperationsDivision/WarrantUnit/tabid/124/Default.aspx.
6. Cobb County warrant lookup: Once again, you will have to make do with a most wanted list, which has about a dozen or so suspects in it at any given time. The warrant database is available at http://www.cobbsheriff.org/most-wanted/.

 

Court records

Criminal court records offer an alternate route to conduct a background check on a subject. Come to think of it, the information you can get from judicial records is often far more extensive than what you’d receive from a warrant search or an inquiry on arrest records.

The best part is that while doing a case search through a judicial agency like the clerk of court’s office, you will inevitably also stumble on case information from civil matters initiated by or against the subject. So, I like to think of this as getting twice the bang for my buck.

Actually, if it is just information that you are after, no bucks will change hands because you can typically access the public service terminals for free. So, let me run with this and tell you about what kind of information you can get from courts records and who you should get in touch with for the case lookup.

 

Can a Georgia court records search double up as a criminal check?

If you have read the section above on “arrest warrants”, you will remember my advice on when not to approach a law enforcement agency or the judiciary for details on criminal court cases.

That said, one way to get details on arrest warrants is by doing a criminal case lookup in your name, provided this facility is available through the website of the clerk of court. Fortunately, many judicial agencies do offer an online case search tool. So, you may have some luck with this one.

If you are going for a third party court record search, whether criminal or civil, you stand to get a wealth of information, including:

• The name of all parties involved in the criminal/civil action, with the exception of juveniles, victims of domestic violence and witnesses in certain cases.
• The status of the case, whether it has been disposed or sub judice.
• If the case has been disposed, information on the verdict, including conviction and sentencing, restitution awarded if any.
• In case of conviction, details pertaining to incarceration.
• Information on the offender’s movement through the correctional system and details pertaining to release.

As you can see, the information can be quite in-depth and the best part is that often you can launch the docket search simply with the name of the plaintiff or the defendant or even the attorneys pleading the case on either side.

 

How can I get in touch with the clerk of court’s office for a case lookup in Georgia?

In my experience, the good folks at the clerk court’s office have too much on their hands to respond to a phone request for case records, so calling them won’t get you anywhere. This leaves you with three other options:

• You can write to them. You will find the address of the agency on the website of county government. If you mail in your request for a criminal case search, you will be charged a small fee and you will have to offer some form of identification.
• You can use the court’s public access system on the website of the agency. But, depending on the specific clerk of court’s office, you may get to access civil as well as criminal court records or may have to contend with data on just civil court cases.
• You can visit the agency office in person and tap into the court’s public records database by using the terminals in the lobby.

Although it helps to start with some information on the tribunal/court that has heard a specific criminal or civil matter, it would make no sense to directly go to that specific court. There is no way that they will entertain a request for judicial records; this I can tell you with relative certainty.

 

How do I find a court docket from Georgia online?

In all counties of GA, you can get access to the court connect online system that allows you to access the court repository as well as the court calendar. I am giving you a short list of such websites, which will give you a gist of how this works:

Dekalb County court records: Judicial records from the Dekalb County Superior and State Courts can be found by using the case search tool at https://ody.dekalbcountyga.gov/portal/Home/Dashboard/29. You can initiate a name or a record-number based inquiry. You can get information on all the criminal and civil matters in the name of the subject, including details about events and hearings during the trial as well as case disposition.

Cobb County Clerk of Court’s office records: In Cobb County, you can find a superior court docket by using the search facility at https://ctsearch.cobbsuperiorcourtclerk.com/. For state court case records, go to https://www.cobbcounty.org/courts/state-court/clerk/court-connect.

Henry County case search: For Superior Court case lookup in Henry County, you will need to use the tool at https://hcwebb.boca.co.henry.ga.us/SuperiorCMWebSearch/msearchParty.aspx?newsrch=1. Information on cases handled by the Magistrate’s Court is available at https://hcwebb.boca.co.henry.ga.us/cmwebsearchppp/.  Access to State Court records from Henry Co is only available upon registration. This facility is available at https://hcwebb.boca.co.henry.ga.us/state_cmwebsearchpfp/Login.aspx.

Macan County court records search: The case records for Macan-Bibb County State Court are available at https://courts.maconbibb.us/. You can initiate the docket search by using the case number or the name of the parties involved in the matter. Superior Court records require a registration; this service is available at https://peachcourt.com/.

Can I use the Unified Courts Open Access System of Georgia?

This facility is available at http://georgiacourts.gov/eaccess-court-records/. Registration is required but you don’t have to pay for it. Peach Court’s, as the service is known in honor of the state’s moniker, covers 205 Superior and State Courts across Georgia.  After registration, simply find your county/court from the list at the URL given above. The Appellate Courts of Georgia maintain their own case information database. These can be accessed at:

• For the Court of Appeals at https://www.gaappeals.us/
• For the Supreme Court of Georgia at https://www.gasupreme.us/

The websites offer information on the matters heard by the appellate courts as well as the calendar for these branches of the judiciary.

 

Criminal records

Yes, I am talking about a proper criminal background search here; one that can get you the entire criminal history in the name of an individual from the State of Georgia. It goes without saying that given how extensive such reports are, certain requirements and rules have been put in place to ensure that the data does not fall in wrong hands.

That said, the service to launch the criminal check usually comes with a price tag on it. How much you end up paying for the criminal case search will ultimately depend on how much information you need. For instance:

• If you need a local public criminal records, you’d have to approach the sheriff’s office for these and often law enforcement agencies only charge printing fees.
• If you are interested in a state-wide criminal background check, the rules get stricter and you will often end up paying more. I have detailed information on this coming up in the next section.
• If you want discreet access to criminal records, you will have to avail the services of a private agency. Their charges are often lower than the fees of most state agencies.

 

Who do I approach for a state-wide criminal background check in Georgia?

It is possible to initiate a name-based criminal check through the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) and a fingerprint based criminal search through the Georgia Crime Information Center (GCIC). Both of these are state level searches although for an additional fee, it is also possible to get an FBI criminal background search done. This, basically, gets you crime related information from all over the country.

But before you get too excited about the prospects of finding all that dirt on your subject, let me clarify a few things. Both of these are official inquiries, which means you have to pay for them and you have to submit some form of identification. In other words, they work well if you are looking for a formal criminal history report for purposes such as employment screening, immigration, etc. Assuming those are your reasons, here is how you can get the criminal case search done:

1. Name based inquiry for criminal public records: The FelonSearch website at http://www.felonsearch.ga.gov/ charges $15 for each inquiry. You will need to register to avail the service and the fee will be charged to your credit card even if the inquiry returns a response of “No Records Found”.

 

On the upside, you will get access to all public criminal records that resulted in a conviction and you don’t need a signed waiver/permission from the subject of your inquiry. The RAP sheet includes the full name of the subject, identifying details like race, DOB, height, weight, social security number, etc; information on arrests and charges as well as case disposition data.

 

2. Fingerprint based criminal lookup: The GCIC offers the complete criminal history information of an individual, which is not just limited to records of conviction. You can find the fingerprinting location closest to you by visiting the webpage at https://www.aps.gemalto.com/ga/index.htm. GCIC charges between $36 and $44 for the state-level check.

 

What if I am interested in a local criminal case search?

An official name-based criminal check can also be launched through local law enforcement agencies. However, the results of such inquiries also call for a signed waiver form from the individual in whose name the inquiry is launched. Moreover, the results are limited to public criminal records specific to the county in which the inquiry is initiated. Here is a look at how to get such a criminal check done in some of the counties of GA.

1. Walker criminal court docket: The applicable forms for the criminal lookup can be found at http://walkerso.com/criminalhistory.php. Print the one that is appropriate to your inquiry; fill it and take it to the Office of the Sheriff at 105 South Duke Street, LaFayette, GA 30728.
2. Columbia county criminal history: In Columbia County, you can either go to the records division of the Sheriff’s office at 2273 County Camp Road Appling, GA or to the Evans Substation at 650 A Ronald Reagan Drive Evans, GA for a criminal background check. They charge a $10 fee for the service (cash only) and you will need to take along the form at https://www.columbiacountyso.org/home/showdocument?id=15197.
3. Hall County criminal background search: Approach the Sheriff’s Office of Hall County at 2859 Browns Bridge Road, Gainesville, GA 30504 for the inquiry. You will need a valid photo ID and will have to pay $20 for both first and third party criminal checks.
4. Chatham County criminal background check: The Sheriff’s office of Chatham County gets a name based criminal check done through the GCIC. You will find the request form at http://www.chathamsheriff.org/Portals/Sheriff/Enforcement/CHRI%20Release.pdf and they charge $15 for the facility. You can expect to receive the background report within 3-5 business days.
5. Richmond County criminal case search: For a background check, you can visit the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office at 400 Walton Way, Augusta, GA 30901. Don’t forget to carry a government issues photo ID as well as your original social security card along. They charge $10 for the service.
6. Cobb County criminal check: The Sheriff’s Office of Cobb does not have a fixed fee for local crime history checks. They charge $0.25 per page for copies of the records. To initiate a state-wide criminal search through them, you will have to pay $15. You can get in touch with the Records Unit of the agency at 1825 County Services Parkway, Marietta, Georgia 30008 or go to 185 Roswell Street (Basement), Marietta, GA.

 

Is there any other way to find GA criminal records online?

Yes, you can also find limited criminal public records through the Department of Corrections website. This agency offers the facility to lookup information on convicts currently serving time in Georgia prisons. The search tool is available at http://www.dcor.state.ga.us/GDC/Offender/Query.

You can use the DOC ID or the name of the offender to initiate the search. The information offered is fairly extensive and includes identifier details along with arrest mugshots as well as data pertaining to charges, time served and parole/release dates.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]