| There are courts at the municipal, county, state, | | | | witnesses. In the USA, federal court criminal |
| and federal levels, each with its own set of | | | | records are compiled by a very popular agency |
| criminal records. A county may be considered as | | | | called National Crime Information Centre (NCIC), |
| a province or a specific region, and there are | | | | which maintains computerized index of the criminal |
| almost 3000 counties in the United States. Each | | | | records prepared by the Federal Bureau of |
| and every county court maintains its own set of | | | | Investigation and other agencies. Employers |
| criminal records. Normally the cases held at the | | | | routinely conduct federal criminal checks before |
| county level include misdemeanors and felonies | | | | employing potential candidates for some of |
| that are not reported at the federal level. | | | | positions. |
| Accessibility to county criminal records is relatively | | | | State court criminal records, on the other hand, |
| fast when compared to the records of state and | | | | have high accessibility via the Internet. Some |
| federal courts. A person called a court record | | | | state courts prescribe a range of fees for |
| retriever takes 72 hours to retrieve information | | | | accessing their records online and some state |
| and search most of these records manually. | | | | courts do not. These records contain the data |
| Federal court criminal records include the data | | | | given by county indexes. These records also |
| relating to drug crimes, immigration crimes, and | | | | exclude the sensitive personal information of |
| crimes relating to weapons. It is highly difficult to | | | | defendants like federal court criminal records. The |
| have the accessibility of these records online. | | | | best option in the hands of a searcher is to make |
| Even if a person has the accessibility, he can have | | | | countywide and statewide index search combined |
| the data only to a limited extent not covering the | | | | to have the full spectrum of the criminal record. |
| personal information of the accused and the | | | | |