The police only have to think that you've committed a crime before applying for an arrest warrant from a Judge. Most people think that you have to actually do something wrong before you can get an arrest warrant but that's not true. The police could come and get you at any time whether you're a criminal or not. See below for an easy way to check if you have any active arrest warrants.

If you've forgotten to appear in court when you should have done or you didn't get proof of that community service that you did then the court may have issued a bench warrant for you. If you have any kind of active warrant outstanding then sooner or later the police will come after you and arrest you.

You can't afford to ignore an arrest warrant

If the cops come knocking at your door to arrest you then it will show on your record that the police had to hunt you down to serve the warrant on you. When you get to court this isn't going to look good for you. The judge will be influenced by the fact that you had to be dragged in to court. You can't afford to ignore an arrest warrant even if you are unaware that you have one.

It's not as uncommon as you might think to have warrants that you don't know about. It happens all of the time. Perhaps you failed to pay a fine or ran through a speed trap without realising it. You might have had your identity stolen and someone has been committing crimes on your behalf and giving your name to the police. Think about that for a moment, you can get arrested for something someone else did while they were using your name.

It's much better to give yourself up than wait for the cops to drag you in

Try to put yourself into the judges shoes. Do you think that he or she might be inclined to treat you more sympathetically if your record shows that you handed yourself in to the court as soon as you discovered that you had an arrest warrant? I'm betting that this would be the case no matter how hard the judge tried to be impartial. It's just human nature.

So find out whether you have active arrest warrants and take steps to engage a lawyer and give yourself up as soon as possible.

Check yourself out for warrants of arrest in the next few minutes

If you have an idea that you might have a warrant active and you know where it might have been issued then you can go and ask at the courthouse. This is easy enough but there's no guarantee that you'll get the right courthouse.

Whatever you do don't ask a police officer because they most likely will arrest you on the spot as soon as they find out that there is an arrest warrant out for you.

There is a better way to check for warrants. You can use an online website that specialises in collecting public records from all over. You can do one search that will cover a multitude of courthouses and find additional information from all kinds of sources.

Check for arrest warrants now and do it regularly to make sure you stay on the right side of the law.