Rhode Island Criminal Records

Rhode Island is small enough to keep one of everything. One state background check, $5, from the Attorney General's Bureau of Criminal Identification. One judiciary database, reached through one Public Portal, for the District Court, the Superior Court and the Supreme Court. One prison complex, the Adult Correctional Institutions in Cranston, holding everyone in custody in the state, because Rhode Island has no county jails and no county government to run them. And one expungement chapter, which has been widened almost every session and no longer charges a fee. This page gives the Rhode Island rule and the Rhode Island search for each record, with government sources only.

The Attorney General's Bureau of Criminal Identification keeps the state repository, and its Customer Service Center in Cranston is "where Rhode Islanders can get background checks." The background check page sets the price and the terms: in person "you will need ONE of the following forms of ID. As well as a credit/debit card for the payment of $5.00," and by mail a "check or money order for $5.00, payable to 'BCI.' Credit cards and cash not accepted." A person may get a personal record with identification; a check on someone else requires that person's notarized authorization, and employers and licensing boards get the record through the programs the statutes authorize. What comes back is the Bureau's record of Rhode Island convictions and pending matters, with expunged and sealed cases left out. It is a name and date of birth search, and the criminal records page explains why a name match is a guess.

The Judiciary's case information page describes the single door: "The Rhode Island Judiciary Public Portal (Public Portal), which is separate from the case management system or the electronic filing system, is the point of entry for electronic access to case information from the Rhode Island Judiciary's database whether at the courthouse or remotely. The database is an electronic collection of court records." Felonies are tried in the Superior Court, sitting in Providence, Kent, Washington and Newport counties, and misdemeanors in the District Court's divisions, and the portal carries most criminal cases in both, with the Supreme Court's docket, by name or case number, free to search. The clerk of the court certifies the file, and the county pages on this site link each courthouse. A background check company's "Rhode Island court record" is a copy of the portal on the date it was pulled, and the criminal records page explains what a copy misses.

Rhode Island expunges under General Laws chapter 12-1.3. Section 12-1.3-2 sets the waiting periods: "a person may file a motion for the expungement of records relating to a misdemeanor conviction after five (5) years from the date of the completion of his or her sentence," and "a person may file a motion for the expungement of records relating to a felony conviction after ten (10) years from the date of the completion of his or her sentence," for the first offenders and the multiple-misdemeanor cases the section covers, with crimes of violence excluded. The motion goes to the court that entered the conviction, with notice to the Attorney General and the police department, and the state's Public Defender, which guides people through it, states the cost: "There is no filing fee to submit a Motion to Expunge in Rhode Island Courts," the $100 fee the chapter once required having been repealed. Rhode Island also seals without a motion: under General Laws 12-1-12, a person who is acquitted, or whose charge is dismissed, has the arrest record, fingerprints and photographs sealed by operation of law, so that a Rhode Island arrest that went nowhere leaves the public file without a petition. An expunged or sealed record may be denied, and a copy sold before the order or the sealing is reached through the federal rule on complete and up to date public records, on the criminal records page.

Rhode Island's Access to Public Records Act, General Laws chapter 38-2, exempts law enforcement records in 38-2-2(4) only so far as release would interfere with an investigation or a fair trial, disclose a source or endanger someone, and the same subsection provides that "records or reports reflecting the initial arrest of an adult and the charge or charges brought against an adult shall be public." Section 38-2-3.2 goes further than most states and requires every law enforcement agency to make its arrest log, with the name, address, age and charge of each adult arrested, available within 48 hours on business days. The City of Providence takes requests for Providence Police Department records under the act, and towns such as South Kingstown post an arrest report request form; the Department of Public Safety's regulation lists what the state agencies withhold, juvenile records first. Who is in custody is a state question: the Department of Corrections' incarceration search, "a service that is maintained by the Department of Corrections to provide certain incarceration information to the public," covers everyone held at the Adult Correctional Institutions, whose six facilities, "Intake Service Center, High Security, Maximum Security, Medium Security, Minimum Security and/or Women's Facility," hold the state's pretrial detainees and sentenced prisoners alike. The arrest records page covers what happens to a booking after it leaves the log.

A Rhode Island judgment lives twenty years. General Laws 9-1-17 provides that "actions on judgments" and actions on contracts under seal "shall be commenced and sued within twenty (20) years next after the cause of action shall accrue and not after," and 9-26-33 matches the lien to it: a levy of execution recorded against real estate is "discharged of record and no longer a lien upon the real estate therein described or referred to after the expiration of a period of twenty (20) years from the date of judgment." Land records in Rhode Island are kept by the cities and towns, not the counties, so the lien search is a town clerk search. The court records page covers where the judgments and the town land evidence records are searched.

Rhode Island is a single federal judicial district, the District of Rhode Island, under 28 U.S.C. 120, and court is held at Providence. A federal criminal case from any of the state's five counties is on that one docket and on PACER, whose prices and gaps are on the criminal records page.

Whether a person has a Rhode Island record: the Bureau answers it for $5, for the person, or with the person's notarized authorization.

Whether a person was charged in any Rhode Island court: the Public Portal answers it, District, Superior and Supreme, by name.

Whether a person was arrested: the initial arrest and the charge are public under the Access to Public Records Act, and the log is posted within 48 hours.

Whether a person is in custody now: the Department of Corrections' search answers it for the whole state, pretrial and sentenced.

Whether an old case can still be found: an expunged conviction and a sealed arrest may be denied, a judgment and its lien run twenty years, and a copy that predates the order is reached through the federal rule.