Reviewed and updated October 9, 2026 by the SearchSystems.net editorial team. The arrest and crime counts are the ones each agency reported to the FBI, as the FBI held them on October 8, 2026. Every office link was opened and checked against the office's own site between September 24, 2026 and October 2, 2026.
Lake City, South Carolina, in Florence County, has about 5,900 residents (2024 Census Bureau estimate). In South Carolina the public criminal record is the court file, kept by the Clerk of Court; the statewide criminal history kept by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division is open to anyone who asks. This guide says where each record of a criminal case from Lake City is kept and how it is seen.
This guide covers the court file, the statewide record, local arrest records, the crimes behind the records, the prosecutor, sex offender registry, records requests, directory links and common questions.
Related guides: Lake City public records, Florence County criminal records, Lake City arrest records, Lake City warrants, Lake City inmate search, Lake City court records, South Carolina arrest records and South Carolina inmate search.
Criminal Cases in the Florence County Circuit Court
A criminal case from Lake City is filed in the Florence County Circuit Court or the Magistrate Court, which takes misdemeanors, traffic cases and civil cases up to $7,500, and the court file, kept by the Clerk of Court, is the record of it that the public may see.
The court records page SearchSystems verified for the county is at sccourts.org/case-records-search (page title: Case Records Search | South Carolina Judicial Branch), a site that blocks automated checks (HTTP 406), so open it in a browser.
South Carolina has no single public index of every trial court case; each court's records are looked up through that court.
The South Carolina Criminal History and Your Own Copy
South Carolina is one of the states that lets anyone look up another person's statewide criminal history: the CATCH service lets anyone run a name-based criminal record search online, for $25 a search, through the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. The result is the repository record, what agencies reported to the state, which is wider than one county's court index but can lag it. The search is on the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division site.
Arrest Records Kept Locally in Lake City
The Florence County Sheriff's Office and the agency that reports for Lake City (filed by the FBI as Lake City Police Department) keep the arrest records in and around Lake City: the report and the booking record of each arrest stay with the agency that made it, separate from the court file and from the state repository.
The FBI's agency list also places one other agency, five state agencies, one state police unit and one campus police department in Florence County (the arrest records guide names each one); each keeps the records of its own arrests.
Together, the seven agencies in Florence County with all twelve months of 2025 on file reported 5,013 arrests to the FBI that year; how each case ended is in the court file, not in the arresting agency's.
The agencies and their counts, year by year, are in Lake City arrest records.
The Crimes Behind the Records: Lake City in 2025
The agency that reports for Lake City had 108 violent and 221 property crimes reported for 2025; each one is a report on file with it, and each arrest that follows is the start of a criminal record.
The Solicitor for Florence County
The Solicitor decides which arrests in Florence County become charges and files them in the Florence County Circuit Court or the Magistrate Court; the office answers questions about pending prosecutions, and the case files themselves are court records.
The office's page SearchSystems verified is at florencecountysc.gov/offices/elected/solicitor.php (page title: Florence County SC | Elected Offices), which answered when SearchSystems opened it on September 24, 2026.
The Sex Offender Registry for Lake City
Registered sex offenders living in Lake City are listed on the South Carolina Sex Offender Registry, run by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division at scor.sled.sc.gov/ConditionsOfUse.Aspx. The registry is public and can be searched online; the county sheriff registers them.
Registration itself is done in person with the local agency where the registrant lives: the sheriff's office, or the city police in a city with its own department.
Asking an Agency in Florence County for a Record
An arrest report, a booking record or a local criminal history letter comes from the agency that holds it, not from the court.
Under the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act a county office must answer a request within 10 business days, or 20 for records more than two years old, and it may charge search, retrieval and copying at the agency's actual cost. The county records request page SearchSystems verified is at florencecountysc.gov/foia.php (page title: Florence County SC).
More Official Criminal Records Pages for Florence County
The SearchSystems directory, online since 1997, lists the official pages for Florence County and South Carolina. These criminal records pages from its Florence County listing were opened again on October 2, 2026 and each one still answers:
- Florence County Arrests (fcso.org)
Frequently Asked Questions
Are criminal records public in Lake City?
The court files of criminal cases are public, and so is the statewide criminal history kept by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division: the CATCH service lets anyone run a name-based criminal record search online, for $25. The arrest report itself is released by the agency that made the arrest, under the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act.
How do I get my own South Carolina criminal history?
Through the same CATCH search, run on yourself.
Who prosecutes crimes in Lake City?
The Solicitor, which files its cases in the Florence County Circuit Court or the Magistrate Court.
Is this the official Lake City website?
No. SearchSystems.net is an independent public records guide, online since 1997. It links to the official city, county, court and state offices described above and does not hold records, charge for them or take requests.