USA - Police Record

[purplehaze]

In the U.S. when someone is arrested they file it on a record in a computer. This can be accessed for background checks when hiring for companies etc.

When going to court and paying fines for the charge which goes on the record they always tell you that it will be off your record in so many years etc.

Youthfull (sp) offenders are supposed to be wiped clean too.

However Phaze has family who works in law enforcement and when he was younger he was in a situation which led to him being held at the jail with one of his LE family members and they were accessing the inmates records and youthfull offenders showed up for this person aswell as every other arrest record.

Why do they lie and say that it won't be on the record or it will go away if it is permanent.

Every charge for the person showed up on a computer with a tag

Like

YO - DUI

Etc.

Phazes record is completely clean because he has never been arrested, but he knows many people that have, and from experience knows that the record is for life.

Does he have the wrong idea. Any information or opinions are welcome.

[newgrower]

If its a first offender's program swim believes sometimes they are suppose to remove it at some point but a lot of times it's probably overlooked. Never assume the court system has done anything it's suppose to do. One may need a lawyer just to get them to do what they agreed.

Swim has never been told that a charge will be off his record after a period of time. A trespassing charge from 20 years ago still shows up every time he applies for a job (along with a lot of other stuff too).

He's looked into getting a pardon (for some more serious convictions) from the governor which usually costs around 5000 (in the right campaign contributions) but this won't clear your record, it'll STILL show up. It'll just have a note that it's been pardoned.

Now that they have the records electronically, once you've been convicted it will never come off your record in the US unless it's part of a plea agreement. Wonder why they have so many repeat offenders.

Some countries automatically clear your record after a period of time. As far as swim knows that isn't the case for any US state even if there are only non-violent crimes.

[old hippie 56]

Been a lot of talk about this lately. BusinessWeek had a 4 page article about it a couple of months ago. About inaccuracies and such from such companies like ChoicePoint and others.