How to Find and Access Michigan Criminal Records

Michigan criminal records are available at the Criminal Justice information Center or CJIC in the state repository. This information includes arrests, serious crimes and charges. Information is received and compiled from courts, prosecutors and law enforcement agencies. A criminal record search is done by name or fingerprints.

In Michigan, offenses that are punishable by more than 92 days are reported to the CJIC, which maintains all records of misdemeanors and felonies. Michigan criminal records which include convictions are public records and can be accessed by anyone. These records are mainly used to do background checks for employment purposes and safety reasons.

Office of the Attorney General

You can access the office of the attorney general at http://www.michigan.gov/ag/ for criminal records of Michigan. The Attorney General’s criminal division handles cases where the state is subject to the cases, or the victim or crime is related to the state. These cases include police corruption and political corruption, cases regarding prosecutor disqualification, statewide cases where the prosecutor has asked for assistance and rejected the case, money laundering, racketeering and organized crime.

Cases which are local or have a single victim are seldom prosecuted by the Attorney General. These cases are dealt by the local prosecutors. There is no law stating that the Attorney General will provide legal assistance to any individuals or appear in front of the court on their behalf. If you have any grievances regarding criminal activity in Michigan you can call the office of the Attorney General at (313) 961-6585.

Department of Education

Criminal record checks are a must when applying for employment with the Department of Education, as per the Public Act 99(1992), amended by Public Act 68(1993). Criminal records can be obtained from the local law enforcement agencies. These agencies provide strict guidelines for prospective employees' fingerprints in the school districts.

The school district will be required to submit a completed fingerprint card to the Michigan Department of State Police with a fee of $54 from the applicant. After the records have been checked accurately, then they may employ the individual. A money order payable to the State of Michigan should be forwarded to the Michigan Department of State Police with the completed fingerprint card. The local law enforcement agency can also charge a fee for fingerprinting. If you need further information regarding the process, you can get in touch with
Ms. Stephanie Whiteside at:

Michigan Department of Education
Office of Professional Preparation Services
P.O. Box 30008
Lansing, Michigan 48909
(517) 335-1167 or you can directly visit http://www.michigan.gov/mde/ .

Michigan Supreme Court  

Another important place for getting all the information regarding criminal records is the Supreme Court, which is the highest arm of the judiciary. One can access all the records, hearings and petitions by accessing online at http://courts.michigan.gov/. The Supreme Court is the highest legal authority which maintains all kinds of public information records and has been made available to the public. You can also visit at the address given below:

Michigan Supreme Court
Michigan Hall of Justice
P.O. Box 30052
Lansing, MI 48909
Office Hours: 8.30am to 5.00pm or you can email msc-info@courts.mi.gov.

Department of Corrections, Michigan

The Offender Tracking Information System provides information regarding a wide variety of offenders who were and are under the scanner of Michigan Department of Corrections. This system has all the information about more than 300,000 convicts, parolees and probationers. OTIS, as it is called in short, has certain limitations which are the following: it does not contain information about an individual who was arrested but not yet sentenced, and it does not hold information about offenders who are locked up in county or city jails.

OTIS provides information about anyone convicted of a misdemeanor, and felons. The legislature of Michigan made it very clear to the Michigan Department of Corrections that it should store the offender records on OTIS for three years after being discharged. Information can only be removed from OTIS if the conviction is set aside or three years have elapsed after the offender is released. At present, only the criminals who are sent to prison have their images on OTIS and it gets updated once the offender is released. For more information related to OTIS you can visit http://www.state.mi.us/mdoc/asp/otis2.html.

Michigan State Police

The records regarding sex offenders in Michigan are available from the Michigan State Police. The Public Sex Offender Registry (PSOR) is available on http://www.mipsor.state.mi.us/. This registry is available online for the public to view to protect them against criminal sexual acts by convicted offenders.

Information that is available on the PSOR can rapidly change. This is because the Michigan State Police updates the registries frequently in order to provide up-to-date and accurate information to the public. Most of the information is obtained from public records, and information like physical descriptions and residences are directly taken from the offenders. These may be inaccurate, so the Michigan State Police never claim that the records available on PSOR are always reliable.