Search Free Arrest Warrants

Finding an arrest warrant

There are a few reasons that you might want to search free arrest warrants - maybe you have a friend in jail and you want to make sure you don't have any warrants before going to visit them (sometimes they will book you for outstanding warrants if you don't bother checking).

Maybe you are dating somebody and want to make sure they don't have any serious problems that they haven't told you about. Maybe you are applying for a new job and you want to see what employers will see before they run your background check.

Not quite that easy

Whatever your reason for wanting to find an arrest warrant, it is not as easy as simply putting your name in a website and having all outstanding warrants show up. The reason is that all of these warrant databases are separately maintained - some are available online, others aren't.

Unfortunately, finding arrest warrants is not quite that easy, but with these tips and tricks you should be able to pretty confidently determine whether you or somebody you know has an outstanding warrant.

Check the county's website

It is becoming more and more common for county's to publish their arrest warrant information on their website (and inmate search information is even more common). This is convenient because it allows you to check from the comfort of your own home - also, this information should be free. If you are on a website that is trying to charge you for it it probably is not the official county's website.

Call the county clerk

Usually the county clerk's office is responsible for storing public records, such as arrest warrant information. If you call and ask whether you have an outstanding warrant they should be able to look it up for you.

In some areas, though, they won't give this information over the phone (sometimes they require that you should your ID to get it - something I'll never understand since it is a public record).

Go to the county clerk's office

The final step to determining whether you have an outstanding warrant in your city or county is to go down to the county clerk's office. Again, these are public records and they should not withhold the information from you.

Beware, however, that if you have an outstanding warrant that you may be arrested on the spot (it really depends on what the warrant for - this isn't common, but if you have a warrant for murder or something obviously they're going to want to apprehend you).

Do a background check (not free)

Another way to find out whether you or somebody you know has a warrant is to do a background check. This won't be free (free background checks seem to be elusive), but for $30 or $40 you should be able to get a good idea of whether there is an outstanding warrant.

The other problem with the background check, however, is that it isn't 100% accurate - the online background check databases get their information from various places that they won't reveal, so you never really know how fresh their data is.

Go visit somebody in jail

Pretty much every large county jail these days does a warrant search on visitors coming in to the jail. This is probably the riskiest way to do a warrant search because if you do have one you are very likely to be arrested, but if you don't mind spending the night in jail it's a pretty fast and easy way to figure it out.

Plus, some people just don't like the feeling of not knowing and constantly worrying about being pulled over or the cops raiding their house - if you're one of these types maybe this will work for you.

If you are going to do this, however, you should consider just going to the police station and tell them the truth - tell them that you think you might have an outstanding warrant and you want to turn yourself in. You should definitely talk to an attorney before doing this to get real legal advice, but this might really help you out in front of a judge - there is a big difference between somebody who voluntarily turns themselves in and somebody the police have to come after. You should do some research first and look into attorney reviews to make sure you find the right person to represent you.