Pennsylvania Criminal Records

Pennsylvania is one of the easiest states in the country to check, and one of the fastest to change. The court system posts every criminal docket sheet online, free, from the magisterial district courts up. The State Police sell a name check of the state repository to anyone for $22. And since 2019 the Clean Slate law has been sealing records automatically, on a schedule, so that a case visible on a docket sheet today can be gone from public view next year while the copies made of it stay wherever they went. This page gives the Pennsylvania rule and the Pennsylvania search for each record, with government sources only.

Pennsylvania's Unified Judicial System runs a single web portal for the whole state. Its case information service lets anyone "search and view individual court case information (including docket sheets)" for free, as the judiciary's public records page puts it, across the criminal courts of common pleas in all 67 counties, the magisterial district courts that hear summary offenses and preliminary hearings, and the Philadelphia Municipal Court. A docket sheet shows the charges, the dates, the bail, the disposition and the sentence, and the portal is searched by name, by docket number, by date filed or by citation number. Beyond the public sheets, the portal notes that "secure docket sheets," with "additional content not accessible for public viewing," exist for approved users with a login, which is where the sealed and limited access cases go.

That single portal is why Pennsylvania criminal records are so easy to collect in bulk, and why a background check "Pennsylvania criminal record" is usually a copy of a docket sheet on the day it was pulled. The criminal records page on this site explains what such a copy misses, and Pennsylvania adds a twist below: the sheets change.

The Pennsylvania State Police keep the state's central repository and sell a name-based check of it through PATCH, Pennsylvania Access to Criminal History. The Department of Education, which requires it of every teacher, states the price: "Fee: $22.00 payable to Commonwealth of Pennsylvania," and the PATCH site adds that "effective April 22, 2026, all PATCH checks requested online through the EPATCH website will incur a 2% fee per credit card transaction," while "registered users and mail-in PATCH requests paying by check will not be charged a fee." The State Police's request page draws the line every PATCH result carries: "All online and mail-in requests are checked against Pennsylvania law enforcement agency criminal history records only, not federal records." Anyone may request a PATCH check on anyone; a notarized version is $27 on form SP 4-164. It is a name and date of birth search, and the fingerprint version exists for the applicant programs the statutes name.

Pennsylvania's Clean Slate law, 18 Pa.C.S. 9122.2, "automatically seals certain criminal records from public view," as Montgomery County's court explains: "eligible cases won't show up in background checks for jobs, housing, or school, but they are still visible to law enforcement and courts." Non-conviction cases, summary convictions and, after a waiting period, many misdemeanor convictions are placed on limited access by the courts and the State Police without any petition, and the expanded law since 2024 reaches some felonies. Expungement, which destroys a record rather than hiding it, is still by petition to the court of common pleas for non-conviction cases, summary offenses after five years, and people over 70.

The practical effect is unusual. A Pennsylvania docket sheet that was public and copied last year may be limited access this year, off the portal and out of the PATCH result, while the copy sits in a database that never went back. That is exactly the situation the federal rule on complete and up to date public records, on the criminal records page, was written for, and the docket sheet's current status is the document that proves it.

Pennsylvania's Right-to-Know Law makes agency records public, and the Attorney General's office lists the exemptions that matter here: "some records are exempt, including active investigative materials, privileged communications, and information protected by law." Police blotters, the fact of an arrest and the charges are public; the investigative file is not. Who is in custody is posted by the Department of Corrections' inmate locator for state prison, which "contains information about each department supervised individual currently under the supervision of the Department of Corrections" and, as the Commonwealth's page notes, "those who are incarcerated in another state or in a county facility cannot be found using the locator." County jails post their own, Philadelphia's through its incarcerated person locator. The arrest records page covers how those rosters feed the databases and why an arrest is not a conviction.

A Pennsylvania judgment is entered with the county prothonotary, and its lien on real property must be revived on a five-year clock. The Pennsylvania Code's rules on revival of judgment liens explain that "a proceeding to revive which continues or creates the lien of a judgment may be commenced by filing with the prothonotary of the county in which the judgment has been entered" a writ of revival or an agreement to revive, and the accompanying note states that "section 5526(1) of the Judicial Code, 42 Pa.C.S. § 5526(1), requires that an action for revival of a judgment lien on real property must be commenced within five years." A judgment in a Pennsylvania docket with no revival in five years has lost its lien, though not the judgment itself, and the court records page covers where the civil dockets are searched.

Pennsylvania is divided into three federal judicial districts under 28 U.S.C. 118. The Eastern District covers the counties of Berks, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Lancaster, Lehigh, Montgomery, Northampton and Philadelphia, with court held at Allentown, Easton, Lancaster, Reading and Philadelphia. The Middle District covers the counties of Adams, Bradford, Cameron, Carbon, Centre, Clinton, Columbia, Cumberland, Dauphin, Franklin, Fulton, Huntingdon, Juniata, Lackawanna, Lebanon, Luzerne, Lycoming, Mifflin, Monroe, Montour, Northumberland, Perry, Pike, Potter, Schuylkill, Snyder, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Tioga, Union, Wayne, Wyoming and York, with court held at Harrisburg, Lewisburg, Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and Williamsport. The Western District covers the counties of Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Bedford, Blair, Butler, Cambria, Clarion, Clearfield, Crawford, Elk, Erie, Fayette, Forest, Greene, Indiana, Jefferson, Lawrence, McKean, Mercer, Somerset, Venango, Warren, Washington and Westmoreland, with court held at Erie, Johnstown and Pittsburgh. A federal case from any Pennsylvania county is on one of those three dockets and on PACER, whose prices and gaps are on the criminal records page.

Whether a person was charged anywhere in Pennsylvania: the UJS portal answers it, free, statewide, by name, with the docket sheet, unless the case has gone to limited access.

Whether a person has a Pennsylvania record at the repository: the $22 PATCH check answers it, state records only, by name and date of birth.

Whether a person is in custody now: the Department of Corrections locator answers it for state prison, and the county jail rosters for the rest.

Whether an old case can still be found: a Clean Slate case is off the portal and out of PATCH by operation of law, an expunged case is destroyed, a judgment lien lapses at five years without revival, and a copy that predates the sealing is reached through the federal rule.