How to Check if Someone Has a Criminal Record

A criminal record doesn't define a person, but certain records matter a great deal when you're deciding whether to trust someone with your safety, your home, or your finances. This guide explains what criminal history is public, how to search it yourself, what a service like VerifyMyDate adds, and how to read what you find without overreacting or underreacting.

What's public and what isn't

• Convictions and many court cases are public. Felony and many misdemeanor cases are searchable through county and state court portals.
• Sex offender registries are public. Free, searchable by name and ZIP code in every U.S. state.
• Arrests without conviction are often limited. Many states restrict access to arrest records that didn't lead to a conviction.
• Sealed and expunged records are not public. A clean search doesn't prove a clean past — it proves no public record exists.
• Juvenile records are generally sealed.
• Federal cases are separate. The PACER system covers federal court; county portals cover most local cases.

1. The free checks you can run yourself

• Search the national sex offender public website (nsopw.gov) by name and location.
• Search the county court portal for the person's city and any past cities — most are free and online.
• Search the state's Department of Corrections inmate locator for past incarceration.
• Google the full name plus "arrest," "charged," "lawsuit," or "sentenced" — local news often covers serious cases.
• Check the federal PACER system if the person has a multi-state or white-collar profile.

2. What a service adds

Manual searches are slow and incomplete — you can only search the counties you think to check, and common names produce false matches. VerifyMyDate aggregates across jurisdictions and applies identity matching (age, location, middle name) to reduce false positives. Every finding is labeled with its source and a confidence level, so you know what's confirmed and what's only a possible match.

3. Which records matter most for dating safety

• Domestic violence and assault convictions. Directly relevant to your physical safety.
• Stalking and protective-order violations. A pattern of harassment is a serious warning.
• Fraud, theft, and embezzlement. Relevant the moment money enters the relationship.
• Sex offenses. The registry is public for a reason — check it.
• Repeat DUIs. Relevant to safety in a car together.

Records unrelated to dating safety — an old shoplifting charge, a dismissed case — may not matter at all. Context and recency are everything.

4. Reading results fairly

• Confirm it's the same person. Match the full name, age, and location before drawing any conclusion.
• Check the disposition. A charge is not a conviction; a dismissed case is not a record of guilt.
• Consider recency. A 15-year-old offense is different from one last year.
• Consider the pattern. A single old mistake is one thing; a string of recent related charges is another.
• Don't conflate categories. A traffic ticket is not violence; a financial crime is not a threat to your safety.

5. What a clean result means

No public record doesn't mean no past. It means nothing was recorded, sealed, or digitized in the jurisdictions searched. Treat a clean criminal check as one input — combine it with identity, photo, and marriage verification for a fuller picture.

6. What you cannot do with the information

• Don't use it for employment, tenant screening, credit, or insurance — those require an FCRA-compliant consumer report.
• Don't harass, threaten, or publicly expose someone based on a record.
• Don't assume a record makes someone permanently dangerous — people change, and the law reflects that.

Let VerifyMyDate check it for you

VerifyMyDate's report includes criminal and sex-offender searches alongside identity, marriage, and photo checks — every finding labeled by source and confidence, and the person you search never notified.