New York Criminal Records Search
A criminal record is a good way to know about a person’s behavior in public. To help you avoid troublesome people, New York criminal records provide valuable insights about individuals living in the state. A criminal record can help you to make your workplace or neighborhood a safer place. Factors such as state and federal reporting limits may limit criminal history records. Some criminal records are automatically sealed without any help from you. Examples of such records are violations or traffic infractions and dispositions in your favor. On the other hand, criminal records such as drug related convictions are not automatically sealed instead they require filing of a petition with the court.
The Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) maintains the criminal records in New York. Commonly known as ‘rap sheets’, criminal records are provided to only those people who have been authorized by the judiciary or the DCJS to access the criminal records. As they are public records, the majority of the criminal records can be accessed by the public. Generally, the following types of criminal records are available to the public.
New York Criminal Court Records
This includes existing and past felony and misdemeanor conviction records. Generally, court records include a person’s:
- Name and DOB
- State identification number
- County
- Charge or charges
- Physical characteristics
- Sentence and disposition
New York Sex offenses
Just like every other state, New York has a sex offender registry that maintains a database of sex offenders. Generally, sex offenses include information about high-risk offenders and people convicted of or found guilty of attempting to commit or committing sexual offenses. Following is the information that sex offenses show:
- The name, DOB, and address of the offender
- The physical characteristics of the offender
- The crime and crime location
- The number of offenses committed
- The county of the offender
Apart from the aforementioned criminal records, the Division of Criminal Justice Services also provides police records, traffic citations and records of warrants. You can request the Division of Criminal Justice Services for New York criminal records in person, by mail or online. If you choose to request by mail, send your request along with the required documents to:
New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services
Office of Legal Services
Criminal History Record Information Access Inquiry
Alfred E. Smith Building
80 South Swan St
Albany, New York 12210
To make an online request for the criminal record, you can visit the website of the division of criminal justice services. Finally, you can obtain New York criminal records online through public databases.
