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peppercannon: 11 months ago | Last edited at 4:08AM on 7/5/2012

If police records are public then how can sites charge you to see them. how do they obtain rights to charge for public info?

is it possible to see "public records" for free? if so, where?

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Answer 1

LuraLeigh: 11 months ago via iPhone

Police records are public but getting them require work. An example is if you have a car accident and want a copy of the police report it's necessary to go to the correct station to get see it. If you want a copy, they may charge a small fee (e.g., $3) for the extra service. So, your time, parking fee, copy fee, etc. adds up. The folks charging you do all the work for you. Very few police stations have the computer systems in place to allow citizens Internet access to their records. Everything is very manual.

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Answer 2

winetastergirl: 11 months ago

These sites are offering a different way to access your records. They are private companies, giving them the right to charge for their services. I believe you can go online and look up the records on government websites. I did try it once and the site was not that user friendly. I was looking for death certificate records. You can google the town or county and .gov and see what pops up.

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Answer 3

carlcab: 11 months ago

Arrest records are free - however people's individually arrest records are not free .

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