Disclaimer

1. We Are Independent

recentarrests.org/ is an editorial reference site run independently. We are not commissioned by, endorsed by, partnered with, or accountable to any sheriff's office, county jail, state corrections department, federal agency (Bureau of Prisons, U.S. Marshals Service, FBI, DEA, ICE), court, prosecutor's office, defense bar, victim-advocacy organization, bail bond agent, or commercial background-check service. The information we publish is gathered from public sources — primarily the official portals run by those agencies — and presented in a consistent, practical format.

2. What We Are Not

• A sheriff’s office, police department, or municipal law-enforcement agency
• A county jail, state corrections department, or federal Bureau of Prisons
• The U.S. Marshals Service, FBI, DEA, or any other federal law-enforcement agency
• A court, court clerk’s office, or court records department
• A prosecutor’s office (district attorney, state’s attorney, U.S. Attorney’s Office)
• A public defender’s office or licensed criminal defense attorney
• A bail bondsman or bail bond agency
• A victim-advocacy organization (and not a substitute for the federal VINE / state Victim Notification system)
• A licensed private investigator or skip-tracer
• A Consumer Reporting Agency under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)
• A commercial background-check service
• A repository of arrest records, mugshots, or jail-roster databases — those are held by the agencies themselves

For anything that requires action by an official body, you must use the official channel. Every county, state, and federal page on this site links straight to those official channels.

3. Not Legal Advice

Content on this site is general informational material about U.S. arrest-record systems and the legal framework around them. It is not legal advice. In particular:

• If you have been arrested or are facing charges, contact a licensed criminal defense attorney in the state where the case is pending. Most criminal defense attorneys offer free initial consultations. If you cannot afford an attorney, public defender services are available for defendants who qualify financially under Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963).
• If you are seeking sealing or expungement of an arrest or conviction record, the procedure is state-specific and often requires a court motion. Consult a licensed attorney in that state. Many state bar associations operate lawyer-referral services and reduced-fee panels.
• If you have a question about the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act — particularly its seven-year limit on reporting non-conviction arrest records and the EEOC’s guidance on arrest records in employment — consult a licensed attorney experienced in employment or consumer-protection law.
• If you have a federal-court matter, federal sentencing question, or post-conviction relief question, consult a licensed federal-criminal-practice attorney.

4. We Are Not a Consumer Reporting Agency Under the FCRA

5. Defamation, Accuracy, and Reliance

Arrest records on official sheriff and jail portals reflect the facts at the time of booking — they do not reflect later case dispositions. A person whose arrest record appears on a public portal may have had charges dropped, may have been acquitted at trial, or may have had the record sealed or expunged after the fact. Treat any arrest record as a snapshot, and verify the case disposition with the relevant court before relying on it in any context.

If you publish, repost, or share arrest information about a specific named person and that information turns out to be inaccurate or out-of-context, you may be exposed to defamation claims under state law. Public-figure plaintiffs face the actual-malice standard from New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964); private-figure plaintiffs face a lower standard. Consult a media-law attorney before publishing.

6. Information Timeliness

Sheriff offices, jails, corrections departments, and federal agencies all change continually:

• Jail rosters update in real time, daily, or weekly depending on the agency — a person listed as in custody this morning may have been released by this afternoon, and vice versa
• Inmate-locator systems show current custody status only — they do not reflect prior releases, prior bookings, or post-release supervision
• Court dispositions are recorded by the court clerk, separately from the arrest record at the sheriff’s office
• Sealed and expunged records may still appear on third-party sites that have not been updated
• Sheriffs are elected on four-year cycles in most states; office-holders, websites, and policies change
• State public-records laws are amended in nearly every legislative session

We review pages quarterly, but the official agency’s own page is always the source of truth for the current state. Click through to the official portal from any page to confirm.

7. No Fugitive Enabling

8. Victim and Witness Safety

If you are a victim of crime or a witness with safety concerns, the federal Victim Notification System (VNS) and state-level VINE (Victim Information and Notification Everyday) systems provide custody-status notifications. Information from recentarrests.org/ or any sheriff portal we link to is not a substitute for these notification systems. Contact your local victim-witness coordinator at the prosecutor's office or call the National VINE service at 1-866-277-7477 (where available in your state). For emergency safety concerns, call 911.

9. Minors and Juvenile Records

Juvenile arrest and adjudication records are confidential in most states under state juvenile-justice statutes. We do not publish or aggregate information about minors. If you encounter what appears to be a juvenile-record entry on a sheriff or jail portal — particularly photos or identifying information about a minor — contact the agency to request review, and consult a licensed attorney about state-specific juvenile-confidentiality protections. We support the work of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and report exploitation concerns to NCMEC’s CyberTipline at 1-800-843-5678 or report.cybertip.org.

10. Sealed and Expunged Records

11. External Links

We link extensively to U.S. sheriff and jail portals, state corrections departments, the federal Bureau of Prisons, the U.S. Marshals Service, PACER, the EEOC, the FTC, and other authoritative sources. We have no control over those sites and cannot guarantee:

• That they will remain online or at the same URL
• That their content is current at the moment you click through
• That their security and privacy practices match ours
• That their accessibility meets the standard we apply to our own pages

12. Advertising Disclosure

recentarrests.org/ is funded by display advertising. Advertisements are served by recognized ad networks and labeled where required. We do not allow advertisers to dictate editorial content; verified sheriff and jail portals always come first on every page. We do not accept advertising from operations that charge to remove arrest information from the public record, and we condemn pay-for-removal practices. Where any commercial relationship exists, it is disclosed in context per the FTC’s Endorsement Guides at 16 C.F.R. Part 255.

13. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law:

• The site and all content on it are provided “as is” and “as available.” We make no warranty that content is complete, accurate, current, fit for any particular purpose, or free from error.
• We are not liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, or special loss or damage arising from your use of, or reliance on, this site — including any harm flowing from misuse of arrest information for FCRA-regulated decisions, defamation exposure, or any other consequence.
• Nothing in this disclaimer excludes or limits liability for fraud, fraudulent misrepresentation, or any other liability that cannot be excluded under applicable law.

The full liability framework is set out in our Terms of Service.

14. Prohibited Uses

15. Names and Trademarks

Sheriff office names, county jail names, state corrections department names, and federal agency names (“Federal Bureau of Prisons,” “U.S. Marshals Service,” “FBI,” “DEA”), county and state names, and any associated seals belong to the relevant body. We use those names to identify the agency or office each page covers. We do not claim sponsorship, endorsement, or affiliation, and we do not reproduce official seals or logos.

If a sheriff’s office, jail, corrections department, or federal agency believes our use of its name on a page is misleading or improper, please contact us and we will respond promptly.

16. If Something on This Site Is Wrong

We treat reader corrections as a priority. If you find an error — a wrong portal URL, an outdated procedure, a wrong sheriff’s name — please email us with the page URL and what you believe is incorrect.