What is an arrest warrant record in Georgia?

Georgia’s arrest warrants operate much like those in other states, serving as legal instruments for law enforcement. At their core, these warrants empower Georgia police to detain individuals, a crucial step in upholding state law.

Beyond a simple authorization, arrest warrants represent the state’s authority to enforce justice, providing those accused of crimes face trial. This process is fundamental to maintaining the rule of law within Georgia, where criminals are apprehended and brought before the courts, affirming the state’s commitment to justice.

So that a Georgia arrest warrant can be created, police forces of a county in the state must collect evidence that implicates an individual in a crime. Once they believe that they have enough, they must appear before a judge or a magistrate and testify that all of the information they have collected is true. If the magistrate or judge determines that probable cause exists against the suspect, then they will issue an arrest warrant, granting the police the authority to locate, apprehend, and arrest the suspect.

There are other kinds of warrants, such as bench warrants, which can be issued when an individual fails to appear before a scheduled court hearing.

In Georgia, as with other states, an arrest record is an explanation of the arrest that was made against a given suspect. Often, Georgia arrest records will contain varying levels of information, but the name of the suspect, the crime that was committed, and an explanation of the event in question will almost always be present.

How can I locate Georgia arrest records or arrest warrants?

The best way to make an inquiry about an arrest warrant is to get into contact with the sheriff or the court system of the county that you live in or where you believe a crime was committed and arrest warrant filed. This is because Georgia lacks a statewide database of active arrest warrants. Most sheriff’s departments will help you determine if a particular individual has an active arrest warrant.

However, Georgia does provide a most wanted persons listing. Any person on this list will have an active Georgia arrest warrant, and you can locate it at http://www.dcor.state.ga.us/InmateInfo/MostWantedFugitives/MostWanted. You are also able to perform a Georgia Offender Search at http://www.dcor.state.ga.us/GDC/OffenderQuery/jsp/OffQryForm.jsp, which will allow you to look at the arrest and criminal records of persons currently in prison or former offenders.

Finally, you can perform a full background check for persons in Georgia at https://gta.georgia.gov/georgia-felon-search. Please note that this utility requires a $15 fee.

Georgia Crime Statistics

If you would like to see how crime levels are changing in Georgia, then you will want to visit the website of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s statistics page at https://gbi.georgia.gov/crime-statistics. Below we will list some of the more pertinent statewide statistics, but you can see details for every county as well.

In 2010, there were 522 reported murders, which is a rate of 5.4 per 100,000. There were 2,051 rapes, which is as high as 21.2 per 100,000. In the aggravated assault category, there were 23,071 instances. The highest level of criminal activity however was larceny, of which there were 218,499 cases, which means that there were 2255 arsons per 100,000 people.