If you happen to know what city and state county this person lives in, try " " county municipal courts.

I've had varied degrees of success researching this. FREE? Mostly what made the news is free as far as news articles. History? Kinda asked to pay.

I did find some interesting results from Maryland that blew my mind.

I would suggest you google your county sheriff's office. I know my county has a free service where you can see if someone has outstanding warrants. I don't know about past arrests, but I do know that they list outstanding warrants. I think what is offered varies by the county, which is why I suggest googling your county.

I agree though that we should have the right to know background about folks.

Annie

yep, you can look at the county sheriff's sight for where you're looking and if they're convicted it should be there. You have to look at each county separately though I think.

Well my county's website is poop, useless. I just emailed whoever the address is to on the site and asked the same question...I fill like it's too difficult to know this stuff. How do employers do this?

HUGS

They pay.

Employers pay. The information is free, but because you have thousands of counties in 50 states the amount of information and time it would take to search all of them on your own isn't worth it. Companies that do background checks have invested in software and people that can do it for you much faster. It costs them money so we have to pay too.

I might add that even with a background check stuff can be inaccurate. I put my own name in an online background check and the closest one had my relatives right, but my age was wrong and other stuff was wrong. They wanted $40 to get the complete report, but I wouldn't pay it when the information they are showing is inaccurate anyway. Many county records have spelling errors in them which will keep them from showing up on background checks. It took me 10 years to get my county to correct the spelling on my name on for the property I own. Crazy.

One of my ID's has my name spelled properly, another has it misspelled ... it was more work (and cost) than it was worth changing the misspelled ID because I still get all the services.

Businesses do a proper criminal background check using unique ID that is specific to a person (name & birthdate are a beginning, they also use social security and sometimes fingerprints).

In Canada the criminal court records are all available; however, most searches are limited in that, like Google, you will end up with hundreds more results than you ever want to see ... but they are public knowledge, as is sitting in any room that has not been cleared for security purposes.

When running a background check on myself (friend is a police officer) the top result said I had been arrested for selling drugs, but also returned a different birthday than had been entered in ... oops ...

County websites for sex offenders or other individuals tend to be out of date. However, the records and computers located the county sheriff's office are supposed to be up to date. However, many department don't allow you to bring any materials that can record the information, such pen and paper as well as cell phones when you access it. So, you might need a good memory.