Arkansas Criminal Records

Arkansas sells its state criminal history for $22 a search, online, to anyone who holds the subject's signed consent, and its courts post their dockets and many of their documents on one public portal. What it does not do is clear anything on its own: Arkansas seals convictions only on petition, under a 2013 act that dropped the waiting period for most misdemeanors and set five years for the felonies it allows, and a sealed Arkansas case stays sealed rather than erased. This page gives the Arkansas rule and the Arkansas search for each record, with government sources only.

The Arkansas State Police's background check page asks one question before it sells: do "you have the signed consent of the subject you are searching for? Go to Criminal Background Checks, $22 per search." The search runs through the state's online criminal background check system, which the state directory describes as a search "for Arkansas criminal record using name or National/FBI fingerprint record" that "requires subscription," and the system's own notice adds that "there will be a fee increase in the FBI portion of all background checks effective October 1, 2026," the state portion unchanged. By mail, the State Police's forms page says to "include a properly completed ASP-122 request form; a check or money order in the amount of $25.00, made payable to the Arkansas State Police," with no fingerprint card needed for the Arkansas-only check, and the ASP-122 form carries the consent line the subject signs: "I give my consent for the Arkansas State Police to conduct a criminal record search on myself and release any results." What comes back is the Identification Bureau's record of Arkansas arrests and dispositions, by name and date of birth, sealed cases left out. It is a name search, and the criminal records page explains why a name match is a guess and what the fingerprint version adds.

Felonies are tried in the circuit courts, one for each of the state's judicial circuits, and misdemeanors and traffic in the district courts. The Administrative Office of the Courts' Search ARCourts, at caseinfo.arcourts.gov, is the public portal for the courts on the state's case management system, and it "also links to documents for some public court records so you can see the actual filings in the case," with the caveat that "some information in court cases is not considered public information under Arkansas Supreme Court Administrative Order 19," the order that governs what the courts put online. A court not yet on the state system is searched through its own clerk, and the county pages on this site link each circuit clerk and district court. A background check company's "Arkansas court record" is a copy of the portal's index on the date it was pulled, and the criminal records page explains what a copy misses.

Arkansas seals under the Comprehensive Criminal Record Sealing Act of 2013, Act 1460, at Arkansas Code 16-90-1401 and following, and it does nothing automatically; every sealing is a petition to the court where the case was heard. For most misdemeanors there is no waiting period once the sentence is complete, court costs, fines and restitution included, and the prosecutor has thirty days to object; a short list of misdemeanors, among them a driving while intoxicated conviction, waits five years. The felonies the act allows, generally Class C, Class D and unclassified felonies, may be sealed five years after the sentence is completed, with ninety days for the prosecutor's objection, and the Class Y, A and B felonies and the offenses listed in 16-90-1408 cannot be sealed at all. A sealed Arkansas record is closed to the public, removed from the public index and the State Police's public response, and the person may state that the conduct did not occur, but the record continues to exist for the courts, law enforcement and the licensing purposes the act names. A copy sold before the order keeps the case, and the federal rule on complete and up to date public records, on the criminal records page, is what forces the copy to catch up.

The Arkansas Freedom of Information Act, Arkansas Code 25-19-105, opens public records to any citizen and closes, in subsection (b)(6), "undisclosed investigations by law enforcement agencies of suspected criminal activity," a narrow exemption that ends when the investigation is disclosed, usually by the arrest itself. The State Police take requests through their FOIA page, which asks that "the request shall be sufficiently specific to enable the custodian to locate the records," and the Little Rock Police Department sends incident report requests to its records section under 25-19-105(d)(3)(A)(iii). So an Arkansas arrest report is public once the arrest is made, and the investigative file behind it is not while the investigation is undisclosed. Who is in custody is in the Division of Correction's inmate search, which lets anyone "search our inmate population using any combination of the following options or download the full inmate database," a whole-file download that few states offer, with the Division's inmate page behind it; the county jails, the Pulaski County Sheriff's for Little Rock among them, post their own rosters, linked from the county pages. The arrest records page covers what happens to a booking after it leaves the roster.

An Arkansas judgment is a lien on the debtor's land in the county where it is entered or filed under Arkansas Code 16-65-117, and the section sets the lien's life in its own words: the liens "shall continue in force for ten (10) years from the date of the judgment and may be revived" under 16-65-501, while "an act or circumstance that may toll or renew the limitations period provided by 16-56-114 for the underlying judgment shall not revive or extend the duration of a lien." The judgment itself must be acted on within the ten years of 16-56-114, and a payment tolls that period but not the lien. The court records page covers where the judgment records and the circuit clerks' lien indexes are searched.

Arkansas is divided into two federal judicial districts under 28 U.S.C. 83, each in divisions. The Eastern District's Central Division covers the counties of Cleburne, Cleveland, Conway, Dallas, Drew, Faulkner, Grant, Jefferson, Lincoln, Lonoke, Perry, Pope, Prairie, Pulaski, Saline, Stone, Van Buren, White and Yell, with court at Little Rock; its Delta Division covers Arkansas, Chicot, Crittenden, Desha, Lee, Monroe, Phillips and St. Francis, with court at Helena; and its Northern Division covers Clay, Craighead, Cross, Fulton, Greene, Independence, Izard, Jackson, Lawrence, Mississippi, Poinsett, Randolph, Sharp and Woodruff, with court at Jonesboro. The Western District's Texarkana Division covers Hempstead, Howard, Lafayette, Little River, Miller, Nevada and Sevier, with court at Texarkana, which the statute allows to "be held anywhere within the Federal courthouse in Texarkana that is located astride the State line between Texas and Arkansas"; its El Dorado Division covers Ashley, Bradley, Calhoun, Columbia, Ouachita and Union, with court at El Dorado; its Fort Smith Division covers Crawford, Franklin, Johnson, Logan, Polk, Scott and Sebastian, with court at Fort Smith; its Harrison Division covers Baxter, Boone, Carroll, Marion, Newton and Searcy, with court at Harrison; its Fayetteville Division covers Benton, Madison and Washington, with court at Fayetteville; and its Hot Springs Division covers Clark, Garland, Hot Springs, Montgomery and Pike, with court at Hot Springs. A federal case from any Arkansas county is on one of those two dockets and on PACER, whose prices and gaps are on the criminal records page.

Whether a person has an Arkansas state record: the State Police answer it for $22 online or $25 by mail, with the person's signed consent.

Whether a person was charged in a county: Search ARCourts answers it for the courts on the state system, often with the documents, and the clerk certifies the answer.

Whether a person was arrested: the arrest report is open under the FOIA once the investigation is disclosed.

Whether a person is in custody now: the county sheriff's roster answers it, and the Division of Correction's search, or its full database download, for state prison.

Whether an old case can still be found: a sealed case is closed to the public but not destroyed, a judgment lien lapses at ten years unless revived, and a copy that predates the sealing is reached through the federal rule.