Public Criminal Records

Public criminal records are those criminal records atcases of public criminal record. Usually, criminal records
the national level which can be obtained by anyinclude the statements of victims and witnesses and
private citizen without any form of governmentother highly sensitive personal information. Once all
authorization either via internet or fee-basedthis information has become part of the public criminal
systems.Public access to the state criminal records isrecord, the identities of the witnesses are revealed
not possible in most of cases because they are keptand their personal safety can be at risk sometimes.
in state depositories. In contrast, Non-Public recordsFurther, if there any errors in the records, they will
are held by the government and are accessible onlyhave a highly negative consequence on the
to criminal justice firms and other agencies that havereputation of the individuals.Government agencies and
been granted statutory authority to access thecourt systems limit accessibility of the information
records. Public records include government contractsthey have posted online or offline to reduce the risks
with businesses, birth, marriage, and death records,involved in the public accessibility of the criminal
court files, arrest records, property ownership andrecords. These agencies have to pass on a regulation
tax information, minutes of meetings of governmentstating that investigative reporters and researchers
entities, driver's license information, occupationalare required to enter into a confidentiality agreement
licenses, and Securities and Exchange Commissionwith the court not to publish the personal
filings. Almost all the local, state, and federal courtsidentification information for having the accessibility of
and government agencies have been increasinglythe full text of the record on the payment of certain
making public criminal records available on web sitesprescribed fee.
since the mid-1990s.There are some limitations in