Unfortunately it's not going to be that easy to perform a free criminal record search online (I'll explain), and you're correct, many of the records search websites that advertise " free criminal record search " on the web are usually Not free at all. They say that to sucker people into their site. They then justify themselves by saying that the search is absolutely free but you have to pay for the report, cheeky buggers!
With regards to some private records search sites who do charge, the reputable ones would have spent a great amount of time and money collecting information from various government and private sources, sorting everything and then uploading to the web. Their livelihood and reputations rely on the accuracy and quality of the reports they provide. The same cannot be said about many free info providers whose info may satisfy the curiosity of some but will certainly need to be double checked in the case of more serious searches.
Part of my work requires me to perform online criminal records checks (and marriage and divorce records, court records, property checks etc.) and I would rather use the paid searches offered by some of the private companies. Why? Because the information which I receive is of a much higher quality. It is taken from various sources, both private and public, and of course throughout all the states of the country. This is very important to me (especially with criminal / arrest record / inmate searches) as my chance of getting complete and accurate information are much greater.
If I was to manually search for the info it would take many hours in government buildings, in long queues and the risk of incomplete or inaccurate information would be far greater.
Most importantly what really makes it difficult for me is that I could only search criminal records in one state at a time. This is because state government institutions only collect and sort info from their own states, not throughout the whole country (understandable I guess). The problem is that there is no central Government organization to collect and sort information of all the states, upload to the web, and then allows citizens to perform a single search of the entire country's criminal records database .
It's because of this fact that many people who require crucial information, like criminal records, use a paid search. They need to be absolutely certain that the reports they receive are accurate, complete and most importantly from a country wide database!
From trial and error (lots of trial and error) with various online criminal record search websites (and of course after trying all the "free criminal record search" sites...) I can recommend Gov criminal record searches . They have one of the largest data bases in the country, and they produce criminal check reports quick and complete.
A final bit of advice : If you have decided to use a paid criminal record search website then make sure that they charge a once off fee only that gives membership to the site for a year, plus as many searches as you like. Steer well clear of the record check websites who request a fee per search.
I hope that helps - I know you were looking to perform a free criminal record search, but I think it's good that you have the full picture.
All the best with the searches.
