Your Virginia Criminal Records Search Needs These 4 Things

If you’re going to do a Virginia criminal records search, you need to do it correctly. That means you’ve got to have these 4 things:

1. A licensed private investigator

Being licensed means that your investigator can access information that most people can’t. In fact, licensed private investigators can dig through all of the databases and information that are normally reserved for law enforcement.

When you turn to a website that’s not run by licensed investigators (and, sadly, most of them aren’t!), you’ll never be able to get the same caliber of information for your person in question. Because they can’t get into the official records, they settle for the next best thing – basing their Virginia criminal searches on public records that tend to be several years out of date.

Virginia Criminal Court Records

2. The very best resources

Simply hiring a licensed investigator isn’t good enough. Before you turn over something as important as your Virginia criminal records search, you need to make sure that your investigator is going to take full advantage of the special access that he has. That means he needs to dig through:

– Data from Virginia’s Administrative Office of Courts, which has records related to felony convictions handed down in the state’s General District and Circuit Courts.

– Criminal court records that come directly from Fairfax County. This county is the only one that doesn’t report to the Administrative Office of Courts, so a thorough search will have to include the records that are maintained by the County Clerk’s Office.

– Information from the Virginia Department of Corrections, which lists all of the offenders who are currently on parole. In addition to specific parole-related details, your investigator will also get to see some information regarding the crime that was committed.

– Information from the Virginia Sex Offender Registry, which includes a listing of the state’s violent sex offenders, as well as offenders who have committed crimes against children.

3. Work that’s done by hand

The best licensed investigators don’t take any shortcuts. Not only will they access all of these resources, but they’ll go through them all by hand. That way, they can eliminate any false positives or other inaccuracies that may pop up along the way. As a result, you can rest easy knowing that the information you get will be completely accurate – something you definitely need if you’re using the data to make an important decision about someone.

When you deal with websites that automatically churn out information in the time it takes to make a few mouse clicks, you don’t get this same attention to detail. No one’s doing anything to verify the accuracy of the information before it’s passed onto you. For all you know, you’re really getting search results for someone who has a similar name or birthday to your person in question!

Even worse, those websites aren’t using the resources we just talked about to generate your results. In order to work instantly, all of the information has to already exist on the website’s server. Because they tap into their own resources – instead of the ones we just talked about – you know right off the bat that you’re not getting the most recently updated information.

Luckily, you don’t have to wait long to get the thorough results that a licensed investigator will give you. No, you won’t get answers instantly, but you will get them quickly. (For example, here at Docusearch, our investigators can run your Virginia criminal records search and get the results to you within one business day.)

Virginia Criminal Search

4. A one-time fee

As if those other websites didn’t have enough drawbacks, there’s another big one that you need to know about – hidden fees. Use one of these websites, and you’ll very likely spend way more money than you originally planned!

How is that possible?

These websites like to brag about offering free searches, but that’s really just a play on words. Yes, you’ll be able to physically type someone’s name into the search box for free, but when you actually want to see the results, you’ll have to pay for them. Some websites take things a step further and force you to sign up for an expensive subscription service that you don’t need or want!

On the other hand, good licensed investigators won’t resort to these tricky tactics. Instead, they’ll charge you an affordable fee before they start working, and they won’t ask you to spend another cent. You’ll be given full access to the search results and given a chance to ask any questions you may have, and you’ll never have to dig back into your wallet.

Ready to turn your Virginia criminal records search over to the best team? Turn it over to the team of licensed private investigators at Docusearch!