Jail Records

The United States of America has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, with an official rate of 737 people imprisoned for every 100,000 population, exceeding even the crime-ridden nations of Russia and South Africa, and far exceeding the economically superior nations of Europe. For this reason, it is unsurprising that many people would wish to search for jail records, to run a background check and learn if a potential employee, associate, or even date has been imprisoned at some time in the past.

Jail records are generally stored in two places - at the Department of Corrections for each state, and at the county level at the local sheriff's office. These records include both present and past prisoners, and since it is unlikely that a jail records search will be conducted for a current prisoner - since such a person is unlikely to be undergoing screening for a job.

Accessing jail records is often as simple as going online and searching for prison and inmate records for the appropriate state. The information is public, but haphazardly collected and reported outside the prison system itself, so the searcher may be lucky and discover the information that they need immediately, or be unlucky and find themselves following a series of labyrinthine leads that may or may not lead to the data they require.

An excellent resource for finding jail records and inmate information for the United States is to be found at the Jail and Inmates Records Search Directory, a website organized by state. To begin their search for the jail records, the user of this website first clicks on the appropriate state, and is then provided with a menu of county information sources. In some cases, the jail record information is available as a direct online search. In other cases, the address, telephone number, and other contact data of the sheriff and county jail are provided, and it is up to the interested party to make direct inquiries to the appropriate authorities.

It should be noted that it is never appropriate to use the information gained from a jail records search to harass or defame another person. The data can be used to make decisions about one's own interaction with the person, but spreading this information around or actually harassing the individual about their prison past is illegal and can result in a lawsuit or even arrest and jail time for the harasser.

With that caveat in mind, there is nothing to prevent the enterprising websurfer from uncovering the detailed prison past of anyone whose name and history is available to them. The combination of online search programs, Department of Corrections records, and county sheriff records allows anyone with the motivation and basic Internet and telephone access to peer into the jail records of friends, associates, and hirelings, and choose their attitude towards these people based on what they discover. Many will have a clean bill of health; others will have imprisonment in their past, which may or may not affect their current circumstances.