The Bureau of Criminal Identification sits inside the Rhode Island Office of the Attorney General, and its background check page prices a state check at $5, payable by check or money order to BCI when mailed, with cards or cash accepted only at the service window. Every adult check is done at the Customer Service Center at 4 Howard Avenue in Cranston, at the corner of Pontiac Avenue, and the office works one state check per person at the window, asking anyone with a stack of names to mail them or drop them in batches and allow two business days.
A mailed request for your own record needs the signed release and disclaimer form, a copy of a valid photo identification such as a state license front and back, a state identification card or a United States passport, the $5 payment and a self addressed stamped return envelope, and BCI asks for 14 days for mailing and processing; an urgent request should include a prepaid overnight envelope with tracking. For the police departments and the Adult Correctional Institutions that hold the arrest itself, the Rhode Island county pages list the local offices.
- $5: the state BCI check, by check or money order payable to BCI, with the release form, a copy of photo identification and a return envelope, answered in about 14 days by mail.
- 60 days: the deadline in section 12-1-12 for destroying the fingerprints, photographs and identification records of a person acquitted, dismissed, no billed or otherwise exonerated.
- Notarized release for a third party: a check on someone else needs their notarized release and identification from the agency or person the results are released to.
- Five and ten years: a first offender may move to expunge a misdemeanor five years after finishing the sentence and a felony after ten, never a crime of violence.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Rhode Island's own systems: the Rhode Island Attorney General page on getting a background check, the Attorney General page on expunging a criminal record, the Rhode Island Judiciary page on access to case information, the Rhode Island Judiciary Public Portal, the Department of Corrections incarceration search, Rhode Island General Laws section 12-1-12 on destruction or sealing of records of persons acquitted, Rhode Island General Laws section 12-1.3-2 on the motion for expungement, Rhode Island General Laws section 12-1.3-3 on the expungement hearing, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
Checks on other people, schools and overseas use
A third party check from BCI requires a signed and notarized release from the person being checked, attached to the facility's letterhead when a facility asks, a copy of that person's photo identification, payment, and a return envelope if mailed, and the office stresses that the requester must present identification from the agency or individual the notarized disclaimer is released to. School volunteers use a separate notarized volunteer form, pay the same $5, and never see the result, which goes straight to the school district named on the form.
A person who needs the check for travel abroad gets the state check first and then takes it to the Secretary of State at 148 West River Street in Providence for the apostille. Questions about state checks go to the BCI state mailbox, and the Rhode Island background check guide covers the employers and licenses that require one.
National checks and fingerprint cards
A growing list of Rhode Island laws requires a fingerprint based national check for employment, running a business or serving as a caregiver, and BCI publishes a guide to which purposes it covers. The in person national check at Cranston costs $45 by credit or debit card, the Cranston window is open weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. with fingerprinting stopping at 4 p.m., and a limited number of appointments can be booked online.
A long term care applicant for an adult day program, assisted living residence, home care or nursing provider, hospice, long term care hospital, nursing facility or nursing service agency must first be registered by the employer and bring the eligibility letter with its registration number. By mail, including from out of state, the packet is the notarized release, the completed fingerprint form, the BCI certification of fingerprints signed by the agency that rolled them, the card itself, a photo identification copy and $45 payable to BCI, with seven business days to process.
The prints go electronically to the FBI, the FBI report comes back to the Attorney General, and the technician emails the employer or state agency only a qualified or disqualified answer; no record information is passed along, and a disqualified applicant may come in to collect a copy of the record. BCI will also capture a person's prints on an FD-258 card for $15.80, printed from the livescan machine rather than inked, for use elsewhere, but that card is not submitted to the FBI and the office cannot send or receive prints electronically for that purpose.
The 60 day rule for people who were not convicted
Section 12-1-12 is the reason a dismissed Rhode Island arrest can vanish quickly. Any fingerprint, photograph, physical measurement or other identification record taken of a person under arrest, by the Attorney General, the State Police or a city or town police department, must be destroyed by every office holding it within 60 days after an acquittal, dismissal, no true bill, no information or other exoneration, and the clerk of the court where the exoneration happened places all records of the person in the case under seal, including the records of the division of criminal identification.
The same duty covers people detained but never charged and people whose filed charges have expired. A person who violates the section may be fined up to $100. One carve out matters: a domestic violence complaint filed on a plea under section 12-10-12 waits three years from the filing date before the records can be expunged, sealed or destroyed. The Rhode Island criminal records guide explains the filing disposition that triggers that wait.
Expunging a conviction
The Attorney General's expungement page describes expungement as destroying or sealing the record of a conviction so the court treats it as never having occurred, notes that only some misdemeanors and certain non violent felonies qualify, and offers an online eligibility form in place of the in person clinics it has postponed. The statute, section 12-1.3-2, lets a first offender move in the court of conviction to expunge a misdemeanor five years after completing the sentence and a felony after ten, never for a crime of violence and only once every court fee, fine, cost and assessment is paid or waived.
A person with more than one but fewer than six misdemeanors and no felony may move to expunge them ten years after the last sentence ended, provided the ten years before the motion brought no felony or misdemeanor conviction or arrest and excluding domestic violence and the driving under the influence sections. A completed deferred sentence can be expunged on completion after a hearing, and an offense later decriminalized can be expunged without cost once the sentence is shown complete.
At the hearing under section 12-1.3-3 the court looks for good moral character and rehabilitation consistent with the public interest, orders all index references removed from public inspection when it grants the motion, and warns that unclaimed bail money escheats to the state.
The Public Portal and the courthouse terminals
The Rhode Island Judiciary keeps its Public Portal separate from the case management and e-filing systems. The public, self represented litigants and parties can reach the register of actions, the docket sheet of parties, events and filings, from anywhere, but not other electronic case information, which requires the terminals in the clerks' offices of the Supreme, Superior, Family, District and Workers' Compensation Courts and the Traffic Tribunal during business hours.
Only Rhode Island admitted attorneys and approved state or federal agencies get remote access to documents, after emailing the Judicial Technology Center a signed subscription agreement. The Smart Search takes a record number or a name in last, first, middle format with wildcards of three letters for a last name and one for a first, can filter by birth date range, FBI number, state identification number or booking number, and offers a warrants search by type, status and issue date beside the case search.
The Rhode Island court records guide covers each court, and Rhode Island wants and warrants covers the warrant filters.
Custody at the Adult Correctional Institutions
Rhode Island has no county jails; the Department of Corrections runs both pretrial detention and sentenced custody at the Adult Correctional Institutions, so its incarceration search is where a recent arrest shows up as a person held. The department presents the search as a voluntary public service, not an official record, declines to confirm its contents by telephone, and warns that unauthorized attempts to change the information are prosecutable under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and state law.
Users must accept the disclaimer before the search opens. The Rhode Island inmate search guide covers the search and the facilities in Cranston.
What the police hold and BCI does not
The BCI check is a state criminal history drawn from arrests and dispositions reported to the Attorney General. The arrest report, the booking photograph and the incident narrative stay with the city or town police department or the State Police barracks that made the arrest, and those are the records section 12-1-12 orders destroyed after an exoneration. The court that heard the case holds the file the clerk seals. A reporter or landlord looking at a fresh arrest therefore reads the police log and the Public Portal docket, while an employer with a notarized release reads the BCI check, and the two can differ by exactly the records the 60 day rule has removed.
The Rhode Island public records law guide covers the Access to Public Records Act that governs the police side.
Questions about Rhode Island arrest records
Related Rhode Island records
Rhode Island readers can continue with the Rhode Island background check guide for the employers and licenses that require one, Rhode Island court records for the Public Portal and each court, Rhode Island inmate search for the Adult Correctional Institutions, the Rhode Island sex offender registry guide, the Rhode Island public records law guide, and the Rhode Island county pages for every police department and clerk.