Criminal history information for Connecticut is maintained by the State Police. The Computerized Crime History (CCH) database was established in the 1990’s, hence electronic arrest records are available for the past 2.5 decades while older crime reports are still kept in hard copy. The information saved within the central repository is divided into two classes; sealed data and publicly available information.
Pursuant to the Connecticut Criminal Code, conviction data and information that helps to establish the identity of the offender are available to the public while access to details on cases that have been dismissed or where the defendant was pronounced “not guilty” is only offered to law enforcement and criminal justice agencies and employers who are working within a special statutorily defined class hence are allowed access to this data.
How does the Connecticut State Police find information for the CCH?
Crime history data is kept by every agency that is involved in criminal processing is some or the other way. For instance, the police, the court of the magistrate and the county clerk all have information on the issue of active warrants from CT and arrest records. Judicial agencies also have details on court disposition and sentencing while the Department of Corrections has details on inmate processing including information on parole and release.
All of these agencies send the data they have to the Connecticut State Police. The CSP also acts as a liaison between local law enforcement and the FBI. The arrest records of a person are typically kept through his lifetime and in some cases even after the death of the offender if the cases that he was involved in dealt with serious felonies.
What information can be found through a warrant search in CT?
Current offender information and conviction data are available to all applicants through fingerprint searches. Although, you do not need authorization from the subject to seek his arrest records, the mere fact that the inquiry is fingerprint based means that it would involve the participation of the person under investigation.
Typically, through such an inquiry, you can find out about all arrest warrants from CT in the name of the subject, including those issued in matters that are still pending before the court; the detentions reported under outstanding warrants and those that were effected without judicial decrees, court disposition on cases that have ended, sentencing information (since only data on conviction cases is available).
How to conduct a warrant search through the CSP?
In spite of the fact that conviction data is considered public information, you will find no provisions currently being offered to conduct warrant searches online.Actually, at this point, you cannot even send in your request for inquiries that pertain to arrest records through email or fax. So, it is going to be the old school grind every step of the way as you will need to contact the agency in person or through mail.
You can file a request for a name based investigation and it will cost you $36. This will only get you a response that states whether the name of the subject can be found in the crime history database or not. So, an inquiry of this nature best serves as a prelude to a full scale investigation. You can also launch a fingerprint based warrant search to access a crime history report; these are charged higher at $50. Use the form given on http://www.ct.gov/despp/lib/despp/reports_and_records/dps-0846-c_criminal_history_record_request_form_rev_12-01-17.pdf. Once the form has been duly filled, include a money order or check in the package and send it or take it down to the Department of Public Safety at:
Bureau of Identification,1111 Country Club RdMiddletown, CT 06457