Is their a way to find the name of a US citizen, recently incarcerated
in a US prison---where they are incarcerated, and details about the
criminal charges?  Is this public record and available freely on the
net?
 ( I see some proprietary companies , e;g. web-detective charge for such services)

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 12 Apr 2004 16:36 PDT

prp-ga,

When you say "US prison", do you mean, specifically, a federal prison?
 That is, people convicted of crimes in federal courts (e.g. for
criminal racketeering, or insider trading) go to federal prisons. 
These are readily searchable for prisoner names.

More local crimes (e.g. theft, or even a local murder) are dealt with
in state and local courts.  It's much harder to find a particuar
prisoner in these cases, unless you know the specific state or county
in which they are incarcerated.

Let us know as much as you can about the particulars, and perhaps we can assist you.

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Clarification of Question by prp-ga on 12 Apr 2004 16:47 PDT

Ok-I have seen the site where I can search for anyone in a  federal
prison an dhave located the individual.  But I cannot find out how to
see what the charges were, length of sentence, etc.  My question --is
that an easily accessible public record?
or do i need to pay $29.95 to one of these net detective sites???

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Request for Question Clarification by journalist-ga on 13 Apr 2004 19:39 PDT

You might search for news stories for the charges if you know the city
the inmate is from.

Greetings 

I located a "prison inmate search" link list at
http://www.lawresearchservices.com/firms/torts/inmate-search.htm
and another at http://www.ancestorhunt.com/prison_search.htm -- the
latter was most comprehensive.  I tested many of the links at both
sites to be certain they worked efficiently.

Are these resources useful to your search?  

I hesitate posting this information as an answer because, not knowing
which state's inmate population you are seeking, I'm not certain if
that state's database is on the list.  If my research does result in
an answer to your question, I'll be happy to post these findings as an
answer.

Best regards,
journalist-ga

SEARCH STRATEGY:

"prison inmate" search
"inmate population" search
"department of correction" "inmate search"

Thanks--the Prisoner Search looks like just the link i needed (and yes
it is appropriate for California) for identifying location, etc.

But it does not provide details on the criminal charges-those appear
to all be fee-for-service sites.  Maybe paying is the only way to
obtain that information--but if not-i'd like to know.

Thank you

Greetings Prp:

If it is possible, I didn't locate it.  I did find this site by searching 
"criminal charges" database
http://pimall.com/nais/n.crim.html

The text there reads in part "Recently some posted an inquiry
concerning how criminal records are offered nationwide. Here is how
it's done. Although there has been some posts recently concerning the
use of NCIC to conduct criminal records checks, for the most part;
that's off limits to private investigators. The only other "nationwide
criminal records" database is that newspaper index which only lists
posts that have been made in major newspapers. Since the overwhelming
majority of criminal charges and convictions are not listed in
newspapers, this database is just not that useful. Most criminal
records searches are done on the local county level by accessing the
records at the county courthouse. Nineteen states permit access in the
private sector of criminal conviction records from state
repositories."

It then goes on to list the states that have public access (and
telephone numbers) but California is not among them.

I then searched
"criminal charges" california search
and located only reports for a price.

Best regards,
journalist-ga