How to Access and Research New York Criminal Records

Searching for a single record from well over a thousands of New York criminal records can be a daunting task indeed. However, the New York state department has come forward and now offers the provision of fast and easy access to the departmental records. This is extremely beneficial if you want to conduct a background check discretely or want to check the records of your employees without making it too obvious.

Although you may also come across a host of private commercial websites all proclaiming to give you genuine updated information, taking action based solely on the New York State criminal records advocated by these websites may prove to be an unwise decision. You may often come across incomplete or irrelevant and outdated information within the web pages and making decisions on these alone may prove to be a mistake.

Court Records for Background Checks

The New York criminal records provided by the New York State Office of Court Administration is not entirely free of charge. You are required to pay $55 in order to conduct a comprehensive search for criminals arrested in the state of New York. Payment is normally accepted by checks and money orders only. There is no provision for acceptance of cash. All queries relating to criminal disposition records need to be addressed to the Criminal History Record Search Unit of the Office of Court Administration. You can call them at (212) 428-2943 during office hours.

Information You'll Need to Access Criminal Records

You need to know the name and the date of birth of your search subject when performing a search within the territory of New York State. Unlike other state official sites, the search result will not return variations of names and you will have to enter the exact spelling in order to get a proper search result.

Sealed records or records restricted on account of being sensitive national issues will not be visible over the public access system. Although the site takes every care to provide the public with properly updated, accurate results, errors may creep in due to inadvertent reasons and you are well advised to check your findings directly through the office of the concerned court.

Finding Records Online

All details pertaining to the criminal  cases tried in the courts of the state of New York as well as the pending and convicted case records may be obtained by visiting http://www.nycourts.gov/apps/chrs/. The records of all county, supreme and village, town and city courts are uploaded on to the database for easy access by members of the general public.

It is possible for you to go through the criminal court records for all sixty-two counties by logging in to this single and comprehensive website for the State of New York. A recent ruling by the New York court requires the Office of Court Administration to give out information only on crimes as defined according to the laws of New York State. Violations and infractions are not considered offenses for records purposes; only cases of felonies and higher misdemeanors are now being defined as criminal offenses.