If you have a friend who works for the police, a private investigator or the relevant government department, you can ask them to do the searching for you. This is an easy and faster way to search police records for free. But if this is out of the question for you, then you may have to consider other methods of getting access to police records.

Your first step is to try to find free sources that you can use. Some states can provide types of record for free or for a small fee. Contact the State Police Bureau for information specific to your state or town.

You can also use one of the large online investigation websites. They tend to be very expensive but if you only want to do a single search, you may want to look at their services. You can normally find them by doing a search on any of the main search engines such as MSN, Google, and Yahoo or Ask. Using these services, you can get reports on police records, traffic accidents and arrest records. Expect to get results in approximately 1-3 weeks. Fees range from $55-$100 depending on the site.

A faster, cheaper and more efficient method is to use a searchable public records database that allows public access. These databases have billions of records from multiple sources including courts, government departments, other legal sources and more. You can look up police reports, traffic accident reports, criminal records and arrest records. You can conduct your own police records searches and get results in seconds. Most websites that offer these databases to the general public require you to join as a member before you can get access to the database. Expect to pay $29-$59 for a lifetime membership. Police search results are often instant.

So if you're looking for ways to search police records, you can use a private investigator, use online private investigation websites join membership based service that maintains public records databases.

Click here to see an example of a good searchable public records database that you can use.