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Pima County Criminal Records

Pima County in Arizona State has several different repositories of information on criminal records. These sources of criminal records deal mostly with Pima County convictions and not necessarily with cases wherein the result was not a criminal conviction.

There are several types of criminal records and not all of them deal with convictions. Therefore, the information that you get from Pima County databases may not necessarily be as complete as you would like it to be.

What is Conviction?

In law, conviction refers to that wherein a judgment is handed down from a court indicating that the person in question is found guilty of a crime. As stated earlier, not all Pima County criminal records are records of conviction. Some are mere criminal records of minor misdemeanors, during which case, they are only stored in the local police archives and not at county level database unless the report has been filed at court. Pima County criminal records of conviction may also result when the defendant pleads guilty to the crime in question. A guilty plea is usually done in an effort to lessen the gravity of a sentence.

When a defendant is found innocent, the Pima County criminal records of a case are not sent out to the state repository. They remain as court filings or Pima County criminal records of court cases.

What are the uses of Pima County Criminal Records?

Pima County criminal records are considered as public documents and as such, the public has a legitimate right to use them. Some of the legitimate purposes of Pima County criminal records include pre-employment background checks, court inquiries, criminal justice investigations, researches, et cetera. Perhaps, the topmost reason why any private citizen would want to get hold of Pima County criminal records is employment. Many employers today perform standard background checks on their prospective hires as protection against hiring negligence lawsuits.

The Four Levels of Pima County Criminal Records

Pima County criminal records undergo four different levels. These are the following:

Arrests – This is considered as the first level of Pima County criminal records. When law enforcement officials make arrests, they are mandated by Arizona law to make fingerprint card reports of the arrest and store them as Pima County criminal records of arrests. The county jail level database is therefore an excellent source of Pima County criminal records. There are quite a number of private sources which could legally provide you with said information.

Court Records – Court records are Pima County criminal records that have been filed at court. After arrests are made, the reports that the local police makes are sent to the local county court for hearing of cases. Court filings are then made and depending on the outcome of the case, i.e. whether there is or isn’t a conviction, the court will send out the Pima County criminal records to the State Police or keep them in their files.

State Police – The Arizona State Police keeps an archive of criminal records from all counties of the state. Thus, Pima County criminal records are also stored in the State Police’s searchable database which anyone can access. The only problem with the database is that it only contains reports filed by courts and municipal departments.

Department of Corrections – The Arizona Department of Corrections also has a database of Pima County criminal records of everyone who has served time in prison. This is a good place to look for information about an inmate.

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