Whether you're concerned about a family member who hasn't come home and may be in trouble, or you're a small business owner concerned about your employees not showing up for work unannounced, you can easily find out if someone has been arrested by the police. You will need to know basic information about the person, including their legal name, to find out the detention records in your area. Once you find the person, you can decide what to do to help them.
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Part 1 of 3: Finding Someone's Location
Step 1. Talk to people who are likely friends with him
If you know who last saw the person you're looking for, and you can contact them, try talking to them first. He may be able to provide more information about the person's whereabouts and whether he was recently arrested.
- If you don't know her closest friends or people she's just met, you may need to do some research.
- Try calling her number or the phone number of a friend who also knows her. If he is your employee, try calling the emergency phone number he provided, or ask another employee who knows him personally.
- You may not be able to find someone who was with him when he was detained-if he was. But at least you can get an estimate of where he is and what he's doing.
Step 2. Narrow down the possible locations
In order to know if someone was recently detained, you first need to know where that person was last located. Since each city and county has its own law enforcement agency, you can save a lot of time if you have an estimate of where the person's last location was.
- Unless you have obtained different information from the person you are contacting, you will usually need to start your search from the city or region the person lives in.
- You may need to contact more than one law enforcement agency if you are near the border between two states or the jurisdictional boundary between a city and a county.
Step 3. Call your local police station
After obtaining an estimate of the city or area where the person was last located, contact the local police station on the non-emergency telephone number and speak to the telephone answering officer.
- Your success in getting information from the police station depends on how big and busy the police station is. Larger and more active police stations may not provide information about detentions over the phone.
- Some police stations may have a special telephone number to call to see if someone has been arrested. If you can't get the phone number, the person at the non-emergency public telephone number can tell you what to do.
- You can also find out if someone has been detained by going to the police station in person. However, they may not have any information unless the person is processed through the police station.
Step 4. Ask the receiving officer if anyone has been detained
Either by telephone or in person, the officer on duty will be able to provide information about the person who has been processed at the post or police station.
- When talking to the receiving officer, you will need to provide the person's legal name to find out if he or she has been detained. Keep in mind that a person may have a legal name that is different from the usual name.
- In smaller police stations in rural areas, you may be able to describe the person's characteristics and find out if he or she has been detained based on that information.
- A detention record will be created when the police detain the person, so if the person has recently been arrested, the police will have that information, even if the person has not been put in jail.
Step 5. Call the nearest prison
Another way to find out if someone has been detained is to contact the prison in the city or county closest to the person's last location. Usually, police officers who detain someone will take him to the nearest prison, so if he has been detained, he will be placed there.
- As with any law enforcement agency, you will need to know his full legal name, as that is the name that will be recorded when he is detained.
- Keep in mind that it can take 24-48 hours before information about the person appears in prison records. If he had just been put in prison, his record might not have entered the system yet.
Part 2 of 3: Checking Detention Records
Step 1. Search the website of the law enforcement agency in the city or area
Many cities or regions, especially in more populated areas, include detention records as searchable data on the internet. You need to know the basic identifying information of the person you are looking for.
- If a city or county places its detention records online, this can save you a lot of time because you can quickly search multiple locations without having to call or go around town.
- You can usually find out if data is available online by doing a general internet search for “custodial records” and the name of the city or county.
- You may need to enter regional names to narrow down the results, as some cities or regions have relatively common names and can appear in many parts of a country.
- Look for websites with a.gov URL or.id extension. While not all city or county websites use this extension, this is the easiest way to make sure you know the official website.
- Keep in mind that custody records are general information. You don't have to pay a fee to look up detention records on the internet.
Step 2. Share the person's information
At the very least, you'll need to know the person's full legal name to look up their detention records and see if there's any useful information. If the person has a common name, you may need additional information to differentiate them from others.
- Searching for data on the internet can be more difficult than talking to someone in person. If you don't have the person's legal name, or don't know the spelling of the name correctly, you may not get results.
- You should also consider the possibility that the person's name has been entered incorrectly into the record, even if it is simply a misspelling.
- For example, you might be looking for someone named “Sarah Lincoln,” but if the person entering the information incorrectly typed it as “Sara Lincoln,” you probably won't find that person.
- There is a lot of data on the internet that allows you to provide additional information if any, such as the person's gender and age or date of birth.
- As with names, you can't guess – it has to be exact information as it appears on a driver's license or state-issued identity card, or the person you're looking for won't appear in the results.
Step 3. Save the results you found
After entering the information you know about the person you are looking for, click the button to submit the information and the system will return a result in the form of a prisoner according to the information you provided.
- Especially if the person you're looking for has a fairly common name, and you don't have much information about him or her, you may have to sift through several results to find that person.
- The information may contain abbreviations or codes that you do not understand. There will be a mark in a section of the page explaining what the code means.
- If the results include location information, it's a good idea to contact the location first and make sure the person is still there. Sometimes, system updates can take up to 24 hours.
Step 4. Also consider checking neighboring areas
If the search doesn't yield any clues, you can search in neighboring areas to make sure the person isn't being held in another location.
- You will have to repeat many of the same steps to check detention records in neighboring areas as you did in the initial stages.
- If you don't get any results, you may need to go back and talk to people who know the person and try to find out more about where he might have gone or what he was doing.
- It's also possible that you don't have accurate information about the person. Without knowing his exact legal name, you will have a hard time figuring out if he has been detained.
- For example, you might be looking for a woman who is recently married and hasn't changed her name on her Social Security card or driver's license. If he is detained, the name on record is his maiden name because it is still his legal name.
Part 3 of 3: Contacting the Guarantee Agent
Step 1. Find the nearest guarantee agent
Guarantee agents usually have offices located near local prisons or criminal courts, and they often have a lot of information about people who have been detained or charged that has been documented.
- Many guarantee agent service businesses provide easy and easy access, making it easy to get the nearest guarantor agent number.
- Guarantee agency offices are often open late into the night and on weekends, so it can be easier to find a guarantor than to contact the prison.
Step 2. Ask the guarantee agent for information
Especially if the person has already been prosecuted, a guarantor agent with an office near the prison may have information on whether the person is in custody or currently in the local prison.
- Even if you end up not using the services of a guarantor agent to secure the person's release, they are usually willing to provide whatever information they may have.
- An underwriting agent can also help if you are unsure of the person's legal name. If the agent is present while the person is being processed, he or she may be able to identify the person by their physical characteristics.
- How much information a guarantor agent may have often depends on how busy the prison is that night. If the underwriting agent is located in a small town or area relatively close to the interior, you will likely get more information than if you live in a densely populated urban area.
Step 3. Find out how to purchase a guarantee bond
If the person has been detained and processed at a local prison, and you want to help them get out of jail, a guarantor agent can help you find out if the person's bail has been established and what you can do to pay for it.
- You may also be able to find out this information by contacting the prison. If the person has not been processed, the prison will notify you when his trial will be held.
- Typically, bail proceedings and hearings will take place within 24 to 48 hours of the person being detained.
- If the person has special medical or other needs, talk to someone in prison and find out what you can do to help or provide treatment for them.
