Criminal record search, without the national-database myth
There is no public national criminal database in the United States. What exists is thousands of separate jurisdictions publishing five different kinds of record. This reaches more than a thousand county, state and federal jurisdictions of them in one query and tells you which ones answered.
Five record types, and what each proves
Each type is published by a different authority at a different stage, and each supports a different claim. This table is the whole model.
| Record type | Leads with | In our roster |
|---|---|---|
| County jail roster | booking date, charges and custody status | 1,375 |
| Statewide prison (DOC) | custody status, facility and admission date | 53 |
| Court records | case number, court, filed date, charge and disposition | 24 |
| Warrants | offense, physical description and warrant status | 28 |
| Statewide registry | name, date of birth, classification and often an address | 11 |
Counts are a snapshot of the search roster, not a completeness claim — the live list is always at /v1/criminal/sources.
Only 12 states publish all three statewide layers
A statewide prison system exists for 51 states, a warrant system for 26, and a court source for 22. That asymmetry is a fact about US public records, not about any one product — and it is the reason a search must tell you what it actually reached.
County jail roster
Who is in a county jail right now, or was recently booked. Leads with a booking date and the charges at booking — an arrest-stage record, not a conviction.
Statewide prison (DOC)
A state Department of Corrections inmate system: people serving a state sentence, with facility and custody status. This is the post-conviction layer.
Court records
Statewide court records — the layer that carries the disposition, which is the only part of a criminal history that says how a case actually ended.
Criminal record search questions
Is there a single national criminal records database?
Not one the public can search. The FBI maintains a national index, and access to it is restricted to authorised agencies for authorised purposes — it is not open to employers, landlords or the public. Every commercial "national criminal database" is an aggregation of what individual jurisdictions publish, ours included. The honest framing is coverage, not completeness: how many jurisdictions can you reach in one call, and can you tell which ones answered.
So how complete is any criminal record search?
It cannot be complete, and a vendor claiming otherwise is telling you something untrue. We reach more than a thousand county, state and federal jurisdictions, and several hundred more known jurisdictions are queued and not yet answering. The useful question is not "is it complete" but "which jurisdictions were actually searched" — which is why every result cites its source and why /v1/criminal/sources publishes the live list.
What is the difference between the five record types?
They are different stages and different authorities. A jail roster is arrest-stage custody. A prison record is post-conviction custody. A court record carries the disposition — how the case ended. A warrant means someone is sought. A registry is a standing statutory list. A person can appear in one and none of the others, which is why searching a single type produces confident wrong answers.
Can I use this for hiring or tenant screening?
Offendersearch is not a consumer reporting agency and results are not a consumer report. FCRA-covered decisions require appropriate process on your side regardless of the data source. Teams building screening flows should start with the screening-shaped documentation on the background check page.
Does a record mean someone is guilty?
No. Only a court disposition speaks to outcome, and even then it should be read as written. Arrest and booking records document that something happened at a moment in time; charges are regularly reduced, dismissed or never filed. Reading an arrest as a conviction is the most common misuse of this data.
Further reading
Independent comparisons of the tools in this category — including where other vendors are the better answer.
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The best criminal record search APIs in 2026
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The best background check APIs in 2026
Five brands, three companies: the consolidation nobody mentions, each vendor’s real published price, and the only per-call API on the list.
More in our comparisons and research.
Go straight to the layer you need
Inmate search
County jail rosters and statewide prison systems — who is in custody now.
Court records
Case numbers and dispositions — how a case actually ended.
Jail rosters
County booking records — the largest layer, searched across counties at once.
Warrant search
Statewide warrant systems, with the coverage limits stated plainly.