Indiana Arrest Records and Warrant Search

Indiana law makes arrest records, court filings, and jail rosters public — but the records themselves are not in one place. They are distributed across 92 county Sheriff offices, 92 Clerk of Court offices, and several separate statewide portals, each maintained on its own schedule and with its own search interface. This site maps that landscape. It identifies which official source holds the record you need, explains what each source will and will not show, and routes you to the right county or statewide system without detours.

What you can look up here

Three types of records make up the core of this site.

Arrest records begin as booking records created by a county Sheriff or a municipal police department when someone is taken into custody. They document the date, the charges as listed at booking, and basic identifying information. They are not court judgments. The county where the arrest occurred holds the primary record, which is why searching the right county matters.

Active warrants are court orders authorizing an arrest. Checking whether a warrant exists is a legitimate use of public records — including checking your own name. If a search turns up an active warrant, the appropriate next step is to contact an attorney before taking any other action. This site explains how to read warrant information and where it originates.

Inmate and jail lookups cover two separate systems. County jails hold people awaiting trial or serving short sentences, and each county Sheriff maintains its own roster. State prisons are a different matter entirely and are covered by the Indiana Department of Correction’s own locator. The county-by-county index below this page leads to a dedicated page for each of Indiana’s 92 counties, with direct links to that county’s official sources.

Where Indiana records actually live

Understanding the split between county-held and statewide records saves time and prevents a false negative from being mistaken for a clean result.

Court case records — charges filed, hearings, dispositions — live in the Indiana trial court system and are searchable through MyCase, the public portal maintained by the Indiana Office of Judicial Administration. MyCase covers most Indiana courts and is the fastest way to see whether charges were filed after an arrest and what happened to them. It does not show booking records, and it does not show cases that have been sealed or expunged by court order.

For anyone in state prison rather than a county jail, the authoritative source is the Indiana Department of Correction. Its offender search tool shows current custody status, facility location, and projected release information for people serving state sentences. It does not cover county jail populations, which remain with each individual Sheriff.

Criminal history records at the statewide level are maintained by the Indiana State Police. The ISP holds the central repository for fingerprint-based criminal history and administers the process for certified background checks. Its records reflect what has been reported to the state, which means very recent bookings or local records that were never forwarded may not appear.

County Sheriff booking logs and Clerk of Court case files remain the ground-level sources. When a statewide search returns nothing, the county source is the next place to check.

Before you search

Most searches work best with a full legal name and, where possible, a date of birth. A common name without additional identifiers will return multiple results, and sorting through them takes care.

A county search covers only that county. An arrest in Marion County will not appear in a Hamilton County search. If the county of arrest is unknown, starting with a statewide court search through MyCase is a reasonable first step, then narrowing to the county level if needed.

An arrest record is not a conviction. Booking creates a record; a court decides guilt. Many arrests result in charges being reduced, dismissed, or never filed at all. Reading an arrest record without the corresponding court outcome gives an incomplete picture.

Record systems update on their own schedules. A booking that happened in the last 24 to 48 hours may not yet appear in an online roster. If a very recent event is the subject of a search, calling the county jail directly is more reliable than an online lookup.

Sealing and expungement are real legal processes under Indiana law, and they affect what appears in public searches. The county records pages on this site explain how those processes work — but the specific eligibility rules are not summarized here, because this is not the right place for legally actionable details.

How we keep this current

Every record source cited on this site is an official government source. We link to primary sources directly, we date what we verify, and we update pages when agency URLs change or search tools are restructured. Public records infrastructure changes more often than most people expect — a county Sheriff may migrate to a new jail management system, or a court portal may reorganize its search fields. That makes this ongoing work rather than a one-time effort.

If a link is broken or information on a county page is out of date, the fastest fix comes from a reader who notices it. Use the Report an Error link to flag it.

This site is an informational guide to public records. It is not legal advice and is not a law firm. It is not a government agency or court, and it has no affiliation with any. It cannot access private or sealed data, and it cannot remove, seal, or alter any official record.