While it's reassuring to see so many websites on the net posting Public Arrest Reports for people's awareness and information, it's also disturbing to note the rate of occurrence of such incidents. These reports send informative and cautionary messages simultaneously to both the public and potential delinquents alike. They can also be individually retrieved for its own specific purpose.

Arrest Reports are official documentation of arrests made by enforcement authorities that result in detention or confinement. They comprise a list of all the offenders arrested, their personal particulars, details of the incidents and the resultant charges if any. On its own, each individual report forms part of the arrestee's criminal records.

The Police are largely the ones to generate Public Arrest Reports and that's why they are often called Police Arrest Reports also. Having that said, the compilation and issuance of these reports are performed directly by the Sheriff Office in several locales as well. There are other enforcement agencies which also hold the capacity to issue Public Arrest Reports such as Narcotics, Vice, Traffic, Military and so forth.

By procedures, an Arrest Report is prepared shortly after an arrest is made to record the incident in official document. It is then submitted to an assigned Case Intake official, who is usually the assigned Prosecutor for subsequent action. The report would detail all the facts pertaining to the arrest. In general, they present the personal particulars and bio-data of the arrestee, the time and place of occurrence, case number and type, witness information, surrounding factors like weather conditions, crowd, noise and so forth.

There is no fixed format or frequency with which Public Arrest Reports are provided to the public. However, the general duration is around one week and the issuing agency is either the County Police Department or Sheriff Office. Arrests are usually listed collectively on a single main report and cumulative to-date lists and those of previous years are often attached. Expunged records and those arrestees under a certain age would not be shown also.

The primary purpose of Public Arrest Reports is to document those incidents on record. Being effectively an official statement, it is also often used as evidence or substantiation to make charging decision by the Prosecutor or Grand Jury. Although it is well known that Public Arrest Reports are almost always one-sided, it will still have a strong bearing upon the Prosecutor in his willingness to plea bargain, trial tactics and case approach.

Public Arrest Reports are a public service. They are accessible by anyone and information further to what is posted can be requested from the responsible government departments. They can also be privately purchased from commercial information providers who basically derive them from the same government sources but value-add with data refinement and extras from private and proprietary sources.