Do you think that you could have an outstanding arrest warrant?
Arrest warrants are serious. They are not something that you can brush under the carpet and forget about. If there is a warrant out for you it can lead to dire consequences that will follow you for your entire life. The following tips are designed to help you when you are looking for warrants and when you are trying to avoid getting one.
If you have time on your hands then you can do a lot of searches active warrants for free. The Internet is at your fingertips and arrest records and warrants are public records. This means that it is now possible for anyone to go online and start searching for their warrants. You should start by checking out the web sites of the local county and state courts and sheriff offices. Then you need to check all the neighboring counties and states. Continue your search for court records offices until you have visited every one in the country. Many of the records that you will need will be online but you may have to apply for the rest by other means.
While the information you are looking for may be freely available somewhere on the net searching for it can take up a lot of your time but you can speed things up by utilizing a public records web site. You may be charged a small fee for access. The article Arrest Records Are Public And Free has more information on public records databases on the web.
1. Never ignore a warrant
An arrest warrant does not go away no matter how long you leave it. If you don’t deal with it as soon as you can then you will always be looking over your shoulder wondering when they are going to catch up with you. Give yourself up before you get arrested. It makes sense.
2. Get a lawyer
Yes you can handle your own case if you really want to but if you are like most people then you might find that you get way out of your depth very quickly. The law and the justice system are not designed for everyone to understand. It is complicated by design to keep lawyers and justice officers in well-paid jobs. Don’t try to beat the system because you will most likely lose. I’m sorry but that’s just how it is. Bite the bullet and hire a lawyer straight away.
3. Give yourself Up
One of the first things your lawyer will do for you if you have a warrant is to arrange for you to hand yourself in. This will be done in a way that puts you in the best light when the case gets to court. A voluntary presentation will always look better for you than a forced arrest by a police officer.
4. Search for any outstanding warrants often
You don’t have to have done anything wrong to find yourself with an arrest warrant. You may have become a suspect in a crime that you know nothing about or you might have had your identity stolen and used to commit a crime hundreds of miles away. Doing a regular check to see if there are any warrants for you is the only way that you can hope to avoid being arrested as a result of a warrant.
5. If you don’t want to get arrested then don’t ask a cop
The job of a cop is to arrest you if he can. What was that I hear you say? You thought that the job of the police was to protect citizens and prevent crime? That’s what most people think but just ask yourself how the performance of a police officer is measured. Is it by how many crimes that never happen as a result of his or her actions or is it the number of arrests that they make? Yes a cop will be happy to run a check on you but he will arrest you if he finds one so think twice before you try it.
6. Try to avoid identity theft
Identity theft is a huge problem and it’s getting bigger and bigger. Up to 1 in 4 Americans become victims of identity crime at some time in their lives. You must be careful with your personal information for many reasons and getting left with an unexpected warrant is just one of them.
7. Bench Warrants are avoidable
You can avoid getting bench warrants in most cases. All you have to do is show up in court when you are supposed to and do exactly what the court tells you to do. You must also remember that whatever the court tells you to do, whether it is to pay a fine or do some community service, you must make sure that the court knows that you have done it. Don’t get yourself a bench warrant because you forgot to get your community service signed off.
8. Can you avoid arrest warrants?
Some arrest warrants can not be avoided because they are beyond your control. However you can significantly lower your chances of getting a warrant by not committing any offences.
9. Checking county and state for outstanding warrants
It’s important that you check for any outstanding arrest warrants at both county and state level. It’s not always obvious where your warrants might be and the transfer of information between county and state is not always fast or reliable. Remember also that searching at state and county level will not reveal any warrants in other states.
10. Make use of free public records
You can do a nationwide search for arrest warrants using web sites that collect public records. These are records that are freely available to anyone and there are web sites that collect and organize it all into huge databases to make it easy for you to search. This facility can be very useful when you don’t know where your warrants might be and it isn’t too expensive either.
11. Bonus tip – How to search outstanding warrants for someone else
You can use public records investigations web sites to search for information about anyone you want, not just yourself. the whole process is 100% confidential so there is no reason not to check out all your friends, family any anyone you have contact with. Here is a review of the web site that I use. Give it a try. You might find that looking for information about people is an enjoyable experience, I know that I love to do it.
