Need an Illinois Criminal Records Search? Here's How to Do It

No matter why you’re conducting an Illinois criminal records search, there are several things you need to know if you want your search to be successful.

The biggest thing to know? Hiring a licensed private investigator makes all the difference in the world.

Having a license means that private investigators can access things that you can’t. In fact, they’re allowed to dig through information that’s normally just reserved for law enforcement! As a result, they’ll be able to give you the full story on your prospective tenant, employee, or anyone else you want to find out more about.

What will they dig through during your Illinois criminal records search?

– The Illinois Sex Offender Registry, which contains information about 29,000 offenders. In addition to the charges they were convicted of, the Registry also typically lists the victims’ age. New information is added to the Registry bi-weekly, so your private investigator will have access to the very latest details.

– Information from the Illinois Department of Corrections, which details each felon that has served time in an Illinois prison, along with information about felons who are on probation or parole. These records include details about the charges brought against the person in question, the county the crime was committed in, an official case number, and details about the court disposition. These records are updated every month.

– Specific county-level court and criminal records for Adams, Bond, Boone, Bureau, Carroll, Champaign, Christian, Clark, Clay, Clinton, Coles, Cook, Crawford, Cumberland, De Witt, Du Page, Edgar, Edwards, Effingham, Fayette, Ford, Franklin, Grundy, Hamilton, Henry, Iroquois, Jackson, Jefferson, Jo Daviess, Johnson, Lawrence, Lee, Logan, Macon, Macoupin, Marion, Mason, McLean, Mercer, Montgomery, Morgan, Moultrie, Ogle, Peoria, Piatt, Pike, Pope, Richland, Rock Island, Sangamon, Shelby, Stephenson, Tazewell, Union, Vermilion, Wabash, Washington, Wayne, White, Whiteside, Williamson, and Woodford Counties.

– Details about certain traffic offenses

Illinois Criminal Court Records

Best of all, a good private investigator will go through all of these records by hand. And, he’ll look closely to eliminate any false positives or any other less-than-accurate information.

That’s a big difference from most of the websites you see out there offering to do an Illinois criminal records search for you!

Because these websites aren’t run by anyone with a private investigator’s license — or anyone with an investigative background, period — they don’t have access to all of these things. The best they can do is buy some public records and upload them to their server so that they spit out information as soon as you type in a name.

If that sounds like a problem, that’s because it is!

Illinois Criminal Search

Because they’re going solely by what’s listed on their server, the odds of you getting outdated information are very high. Most of these websites are using records that are several years old! Even worse, they don’t include everything that a private investigator can access, so you could be missing out on valuable information right from the start. And, there’s no one double-checking these results before they’re sent off to you. Because everything is automated, you could wind up with information related to someone else.

Bottom line — there are several different ways that your person in question could turn up clean in one of these searches, even if he really isn’t.

Adding insult to injury, most of these websites will charge you an arm and a leg to get this potentially inaccurate information! Sure, they say you’ll get incredibly cheap Illinois criminal records searches — or even free searches — but what they don’t tell you is that only applies to the search itself. If you want to see the results, you’ll have to pay up first.

Another tactic that many of these websites use is to tell you that you’ll get unlimited criminal searches. However, what they fail to mention is that you have to sign up for an expensive subscription package to get access to them.

Once again, this is where a licensed private investigator sets himself apart. Instead of hiding a bunch of charges in the fine print, a good investigator will tell you upfront what it will cost to take advantage of his services. You’ll pay a one-time fee, and you’ll get access to all of the comprehensive details that only someone with a license can provide. You can even call your private investigator on the phone to ask him questions — something that’s unheard of on most of these websites.

In the end, the only way to do an authentic, affordable Illinois criminal court record search is to have a licensed private investigator do it.

Let the team at Docusearch handle your Illinois Criminal Search, and you’ll get comprehensive results within one business day!