Wanting to see someone’s background and criminal history is something every one of us experiences very often. It could be that your daughter is dating someone new or perhaps a new colleague at work seems suspicious.
Or maybe a new neighbor moved in the house next door in your Wisconsin neighborhood and they have some fishy feeling about them. After all, we all read in the news about the extremities of crime nowadays.
In either case, doing a background check can help you clear everything and resolve any doubts. It is important not just for your safety but for the safety of your family as well.
However, most people feel that it could be illegal or violate someone’s privacy. In reality, it is very legal and there are special laws in place for such arrangements.
Read on to find out more about it.
Wisconsin Public Records Laws
The access of public records to any individual is governed by the Wisconsin Public Records Law. According to this law, any citizen has full access to the records that relate to any information regarding the Government conduct in the state.
This law also encompasses the public records of the employees that are working for the government at any level as well as the public records of the elected officials.
Generally, this law prohibits the access of any non-government information for public disclosure. For example, it will not grant access to information related to a common individual or ongoing criminal investigation.
However, there are other ways to get the same.
Wisconsin Criminal Records, Arrest Records and Background Checks
Wisconsin’s Department of Justice monitors all the information regarding the criminal history or background check of any individual. If you want to know any information regarding the arrest record or charge sheet for any person, you can contact the Criminal Records Unit of the Department of Justice.
Generally, this information is made available to employers for the purpose of potential employee evaluation. The employer would need to fill out a form and submit a set of 10 fingerprints of the individual.
It can be very troublesome and most employers want to avoid this much hassle. This is why there is another easier solution.
BeenVerified Background Check
BeenVerified is a third party service that can give you complete information about a person. This includes everything from their name, age, phone number, address (past and present), criminal records, background history, and so much more.
And you don’t need any fingerprints for this. You can do this without the knowledge of the other person. Therefore, this makes it a much better method.
You can search for someone through a variety of means. These include:
Name:
Name search allows you to search for a person through their first name and last name. If you know their city of residence, you can enter that as well. This is the most commonly used method of searching for someone.
Phone Number
The reverse phone number lookup feature gives you the power to identify everything about a missed caller. All you have to do is enter the unknown number and hit search.
Address
Particularly useful in checking the history of suspicious neighbors. I use this feature very often. It will also let you know if any of them have been arrested or are in the sex offender list.
This feature will give you a complete insight about the person in the digital world. This includes their social media IDs like Facebook, Instagram, etc. You can learn a lot of things about any person through social media.
How it Works
BeenVerified is linked to countless government databases throughout the country. This gives it the power to access any individual’s information.
It has billions of entries in its database and it searches in that database to find all the things you need. This makes its information very accurate and reliable.
If you want to know someone’s background or search for your own, you can try BeenVerified as well. It is not just limited to Wisconsin state. It will give you the criminal history of the individual throughout the US.
Wisconsin Court Records
The court records of circuit courts in Wisconsin are monitored by Wisconsin’s Court System Circuit Courts Access Portal. However, it is not certain that every case would be available.
The availability of cases varies from county to county.
Juvenile records and other records like adoption certificates are exempted to be presented as information. These are not covered in the law.
Wisconsin Vital Records
Vital records in Wisconsin include birth, marriage, divorce, death, and domestic relationship records. These records are maintained by the Department of Health Services Vital Records Service.
However, to search for any person, you will need to have the person’s consent as well as a fee submission is required as well.
Takeaways
As is evident, it is possible to access some public records in Wisconsin. However, there are a lot of restrictions on most of the public records information.
Therefore, I personally go with BeenVerified over Wisconsin. This turns out to be a cheaper and easier method than anything else/. Further, it covers criminal records of a person in all of the US, not just the Wisconsin state.