The Louisiana State Police Bureau of Criminal Identification and Information keeps the Louisiana Computerized Criminal History system, LACCH, which holds arrests, their dispositions, probation and parole bookings and incarceration entries for anyone booked in the state, plus the civil entries of people fingerprinted for jobs and permits. Every entry starts with a fingerprint submission through the statewide AFIS, which the bureau says now covers more than 100 livescan booking sites. R.S. 15:587 governs who may see the file, and the bureau states plainly that Louisiana is a closed record state: LACCH is not available for release to the public, only to criminal justice agencies and to the non criminal justice agencies, employers and licensing boards that a statute specifically allows.
That leaves three real routes for a member of the public. The first is a Right to Review, which the subject of a record, or an attorney or representative that person authorizes, can obtain under R.S. 15:588. The second is the court file, because the arrest leads to a charge in one of the 43 district courts, 48 city courts or three parish courts, and dispositions live with the clerk of court, district attorney or city prosecutor in the parish where the case was heard. The third is the Department of Public Safety and Corrections locator for anyone serving a state sentence, which is covered in the Louisiana inmate search guide. For the sheriffs and clerks in each parish, see the Louisiana parish pages.
- $31 by fingerprint: the Right to Review fee, which includes the $5 technology fee added December 1, 2024 under R.S. 15:587 D(1), with $12 more for an FBI check and a $3 federal increase from October 1, 2026.
- Closed to the public: LACCH, the state criminal history file, goes only to criminal justice agencies and to employers and boards that a statute names, never on a name only request from a stranger.
- $550 cap on an expungement: $250 to the state police bureau, $50 each to the sheriff and district attorney and up to $200 to the clerk, all nonrefundable and all paid when the motion is filed.
- No fee after an acquittal: a district attorney certification of an acquittal, a dismissal or a prosecution that never came, with no felony on the record, waives every processing fee.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Louisiana's own systems: the Louisiana State Police Bureau of Criminal Identification and Information page, the bureau page on fingerprints and background checks, the bureau page on expungements, the Louisiana State Police forms and documents page, the background check authorization form with the current fees, Code of Criminal Procedure Article 983 on the costs of an expungement, the Department of Public Safety and Corrections frequently asked questions, the Louisiana judicial branch chart on the official state site, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
The Right to Review and its two delivery options
R.S. 15:588 gives a person the right to a certified copy of his or her own Louisiana criminal history, and the bureau runs that request through the Louisiana Applicant Processing System. An applicant books a fingerprint appointment at an IdentoGO site, pays there, and picks how the report comes back. The mailed copy is printed by bureau staff, stamped True Copy, signed and embossed with a raised state seal, which is the version agencies such as the Secretary of State insist on and the one the bureau recommends for any official use, expungements included.
The electronic copy arrives as a secure link to an email address, opens once, prints only from a computer, cannot be saved to a phone and expires after 30 days. Lose the security question set during enrollment and the only remedy is a new appointment, because the results can be retrieved one time only.
Walk in service at the Baton Rouge headquarters on Independence Boulevard ended; the fingerprints and background checks page says all routine scheduling now goes through the IdentoGO network, with the office reachable by phone for emergencies and open Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., subject to early closure when the lobby is full. Someone physically unable to reach a site can mail inked cards with the Right to Review Authorization form and the Right to Review Disclosure form from the forms page, adding the Attorney or Authorized Representative form when a lawyer is to receive the result.
What the check costs and how to pay
The bureau's authorization form states the price in capital letters: $31 for a state background check, including the $5 technology fee that R.S. 15:587 D(1) added on December 1, 2024, and $12 more where an FBI check is authorized or required. A notice on the bureau's own page adds that from October 1, 2026 every federal check carries a $3 increase passed through from the FBI, while the state portion stays the same. Mailed payments must be a cashier's check, a business check with a preprinted name or a money order; a credit card works only in person at headquarters.
The form warns that it must be filled out in ink and that fingerprints are necessary for a positive identification, which is why the bureau offers no name only lookup to the public.
Employers and boards that are entitled to criminal history by statute use the same fee schedule with their own disclosure forms, a general one for ordinary employers and a Rap Disclosure form for boards such as nursing, pharmacy, medical examiners and the alcohol and tobacco control board.
Why the booking date on the rap sheet matters
The date the state record carries for an arrest is the day the booking agency collected the fingerprints, not the offense date and not the court date. Any paperwork that must match the record, an expungement motion above all, has to use that date, and the bureau's expungement page lists a mismatched date as the first common reason a motion cannot be processed. The same rule applies when a disposition is missing: the bureau adds an outcome to LACCH only from an original, unaltered, certified copy issued by the court or the district attorney, showing a date of arrest within one day of the booking entry, the original charges at booking, any amendment, and a disposition for every count.
A person who finds an arrest with no outcome on a Right to Review has to collect that certified paper from the parish and send it in, since the bureau will not take a photocopy.
Court files stay in the parish
Louisiana has no single statewide docket that a name can be run through. The state judicial chart counts 43 district courts under five circuits, plus five family or juvenile courts, 48 city courts and three parish courts, and the bureau itself directs anyone needing a disposition to the clerk of court, the district attorney or the city prosecutor in the parish of conviction. In practice an arrest is traced by asking the sheriff's office that booked the person, then the clerk of the district court for that parish, or the city court clerk for a municipal charge.
The Louisiana court records guide walks through those clerks, and the Louisiana criminal records guide covers what a disposition certificate from a clerk looks like.
Where someone goes after the arrest
The Department of Public Safety and Corrections explains in its frequently asked questions why a person with a state felony sentence may still sit in a parish jail: more than 30,000 people are serving time for state felonies while state run prisons hold just under 19,000, so the department pays parish and private facilities to house the rest. Its Locate a Person Incarcerated tool is the lookup for anyone in the department's custody, wherever that person is housed.
New arrivals at state facilities pass through the Adult Reception and Diagnostic Center at Elayn Hunt Correctional Center, or the Louisiana Correctional Center for Women, before a permanent assignment. A person arrested and held before trial, with no state sentence, appears only on the sheriff's roster for that parish, which is why the parish page is the first stop for a recent arrest.
Expunging an arrest and what it costs
Article 983 of the Code of Criminal Procedure sets the price of a court ordered expungement. The total may not exceed $550: a $250 processing fee to the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Information, $50 to the sheriff, $50 to the district attorney and a clerk's fee of up to $200. The clerk collects everything when the motion is filed, every fee is nonrefundable even if the judge denies the motion, and one fee covers all offenses arising from the same arrest, misdemeanors and felonies alike.
Payment is by postal or bank money order or a check from a law firm, and the bureau asks that its $250 money order be one that stays valid for at least a year, because an altered money order is refused. A separate $300 cap for a first offense marijuana possession misdemeanor was written to terminate on August 1, 2026 and has now lapsed.
The fee disappears in defined cases. Article 983 F says an applicant pays nothing to the clerk, the bureau, the sheriff or the district attorney when a certification from the district attorney shows no felony convictions and no pending felony bill or indictment, and one of these applies: an acquittal after trial, a dismissal or refusal to prosecute with the district attorney's consent and no pretrial diversion, an arrest never prosecuted within the time limits, or an arrest that turned out to be identity theft against the applicant.
Human trafficking victims with a prosecutor's certification, people found factually innocent and compensated, and people granted a pardon other than a first offender pardon are also exempt, and anyone else may ask to proceed in forma pauperis. The bureau's page adds that a prior felony conviction, even one already expunged, bars a fee waiver, that the Right to Review should be pulled first so the motion matches the rap sheet line by line, and that an expunged record stays reachable by the agencies listed in Article 973.
Filing the motion in the right parish
Forms and supporting documents go to the clerk of court in the parish of arrest or conviction, using the uniform forms in Article 986, with the original booking charge entered even when the bill of information later changed, every count listed, misdemeanor and felony convictions placed in their own sections, and the dispositions, district attorney certifications and any fee waiver attached. An order missing identifying information or the arrest date cannot be processed, and an amended motion needs an amended order.
Once the court signs, the bureau removes the arrest from access except as Article 973 allows, a process it describes as complex and labor intensive, so the sealed status reaches the state file well after the judge's signature. Anyone checking whether a Louisiana arrest also reached the sex offender file can use the Louisiana sex offender registry guide, and the Louisiana background check guide explains which employers hold statutory access.
Questions about Louisiana arrest records
Related Louisiana records
Louisiana readers can move on to the Louisiana criminal records guide for conviction files, the Louisiana court records guide for the parish clerks, the Louisiana inmate search guide for the corrections locator, the Louisiana public records law guide for the public records statute, and the Louisiana parish pages for every sheriff and clerk.