Conducting an Illinois Criminal Records Search

The Uniform Conviction Information Act was introduced in the state of Illinois in 1991. Under the provisions of this act, all Illinois criminal records are to be made public knowledge. The criminal history records that are maintained and collected by the Illinois State Police Department's Bureau of Identification are to be made available on request. This means that anyone who needs information regarding criminal history records in the state of Illinois can approach the authorities for help.

Obtaining Official Records from the State Police Department

The State Police Department maintains comprehensive records of all cases that pass through it. These records can be accessed by the general public through a series of well-defined steps. Following the provisions of the Uniform Conviction Information Act (UCIA), there is a Conviction Information Request form. All requests under the UCIA need to be made through this form. The person who wishes to retrieve the information must obtain the form from the Bureau of Identification.

Since each form has a unique processing control number, duplicates of the same form cannot be used for multiple requests. Each request must be on an original form. UCIA information can be requested on two different types of forms from the State Police Department. These are the non-fingerprint forms and the fingerprint forms.

As the name suggests, the non-fingerprint form is for a criminal records request that does not contain fingerprint information. This form is ISP6-405B. These forms use generic information such as name, address, sex, birthday and religion to perform a search. Searches are performed on the state department’s electronic records database and the relevant records are retrieved.

While this method can often generate satisfactory results based on the information provided on the form, it may often happen that the criminal in question can operate under an alias. In such cases, the reliability of the records cannot be completely trusted. There is a fee for every request. Presently, the fee for non-fingerprint information is $16, going up to $30 for checks from foreign banks.

The ISP6-404B is the form used for fingerprint criminal record requests from the Illinois State Police Department. This form needs to include the fingerprint of the subject whose records are to be searched. Since fingerprints are a unique way to identify an individual, the records generated as a result of the fingerprint search on the state database will contain information that is accurate and completely reliable.

Exclusions Under the UCIA

As per the terms of the UCIA, only records of cases which have resulted in convictions are made public. If a person has been acquitted, the relevant records shall not be made public. Hence, all UCIA-based requests must necessarily be for people convicted of a crime. The charges for this service are $20 per request. For checks from non-US banks, the charges are $50.

Court Criminal Records

All circuit courts in Illinois keep records of the cases that pass through them. These case records are also maintained electronically and are available as public information upon request. There is a nominal fee charged by the court for retrieval of the records. Charges for circuit court criminal records in the different Illinois counties hover around the $12 to $15 mark.

Illinois Criminal Records on the Internet

An Illinois criminal records search on the Internet is very useful because of the sheer number of results that it generates. A typical search engine reveals a huge number of results. While some are official sites belonging to the state government, such as http://www.isp.state.il.us/, others are quasi-official or privately-owned sites. These sites retrieve records from the official databases and make them easily available to the end user.

Often, the fees charged by these sites are lower than the government sites. In some cases, they may even be offered completely free of charge. However, limited information is common in the free arena. Hence, for a more comprehensive search, it is better to go with a paid option and with a government or government-approved site. With numerous methods available based on which a criminal records search can be initiated, these sites ensure that a mandatory background check can easily be conducted by anyone.