While the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency leads the Commonwealth’s efforts on justice planning, the Pennsylvania Access to Criminal History is a special program that struggles to keep PA residents satisfied in terms of access to criminal records. The Pennsylvania Access to the Criminal History System or PATHC in short enables people to gain access to criminal history records. The system has been created in accordance with Pennsylvania’s Criminal History Information Act contained in Chapter 91 of Title 18, Crimes Code. It is currently being managed following the same Act and it is able to accurately direct The Pennsylvania State Police in disseminating criminal history data to criminal justice agencies, non-criminal justice agencies and individuals. Moreover, criminal justice agencies are also allowed to check out individual criminal history record information.
Those PA residents who require the notarized copies of Criminal History Record Checks will be required to send their requests using the specially mailed SP4-164 Form, together with a $10.00 money order. The money order needs to be paid to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The requestors are also recommended to send a written request along with it. Their written request should mention the fact that they would like to receive a notarized copy as well. The form also contains the mailing address.
As for those residents who are requesting Individual Access and review, they are also asked to mail the SP4-164 Form, check the right block, and of course cover the $10 fee, which is payable to the Commonwealth of PA. The Individual Access and review option enables viewers to gain access to one’s criminal history, featuring non-conviction data.
All interested organizations and individuals are entitled to use the special PATCH program in order to complete criminal record checks. Visa, Master Card, American Express and Discover are accepted for payments. There might also be organizations looking to make several criminal record checks – either because they need to hire several workers or for different reasons. When this occurs, registration requests need to be submitted to PSP. Those organizations that are registered will be able to ask for a monthly bill for their record check transactions and requests. They will also be granted access to online financial transaction history. Registration will not be charged; online registrations need to be submitted to the Pennsylvania State Police for the approval. After these requests are approved, PSP will send an email with the user ID and password to the respective organization.
By simply providing your name and date of birth, you’ll be able to gain access to the Criminal Records. Next, you will need to ensure that you know the minimum identity information of the individual you want to check. This includes his or her name, date of birth, social security number, maiden name, gender, race, aliases etc.
In terms of the response to your requests, you need to know that it will be based on the data comparison processes that will occur. The comparison is going to be done between the information you have provided against the one present in the files of the Pennsylvania State Police Central Repository. As a side note, remember that this data should be considered valid only for the date and time you made the initial request. Local, State or Federal Criminal Justice Agencies might also hold additional criminal records of the person you are interested in verifying. The responses you might receive are: Pending, No Record or Request under Review.