Your local police station can usually provide you with all the information you need regarding your convictions or your criminal record. Many Canadians contact us and do not remember their exact convictions, or know what would appear on their criminal record, and we often send them to their local police station for more information. Attending a police station can sometimes be daunting for those who have had difficulties with police in the past, but it’s definitely worth it in order to begin the process of obtaining a Pardon with all the proper information necessary. Be aware that while a police station may be able to provide some guidance on how to apply for a Pardon (formerly known as a Record Suspension), it is still best to contact Pardon Services Canada directly to learn how to apply.
If you wish to obtain either a US Entry Waiver or a Record Suspension (formerly known as a Pardon), you will be required to know certain things about your offences to determine eligibility. Fortunately, the officers at your local police station have access to many police tools and databases that can confirm this information such as arrest dates, exact charges, etc. Your local police station can also offer a variety of related services such as federal record checks, local record checks, and often fingerprinting services as well. Note that in some cases your eligibility cannot be determined solely by the information held at a police station and will instead require information from the courts, which is quite an involved process. For assistance with assessing your eligibility, we encourage you to contact our offices. Contact AllCleared Canada.
Fingerprints
Nearly every police station in Canada is equipped with the facilities to conduct fingerprints, which are required as part of any Pardon (Record Suspension), or US Entry Waiver application. In addition to the traditional “ink and roll” method of fingerprinting, your police station may or may not be equipped with electronic fingerprinting equipment. Electronic fingerprinting is a much faster process because the results are automatically submitted to the RCMP Records Unit from your local police station.
Federal Record Check
While an official federal record check is compiled with your fingerprints as per the process described above, your local police station can also generally conduct an unofficial check of CPIC (The Canadian Police Information Centre) based on your name and date of birth. Conducting this sort of check at a police station is a good first step in order to determine what someone would see when they conduct a criminal record check on you- such as an employer or the United States Border Officials.
Local Police Record Check
Sometimes the records of an arrest or conviction may not have been properly transferred from the records at your local police station, up to the federal records stored on CPIC. This can cause problems in the Pardon (Record Suspension) process, and so it can be useful to attend your regional police station and ask them to conduct a check of their local records. If they are the police department which had jurisdiction over an offence for which you were charged, they will still have records of this incident stored at the police station.
What Next?
Now that you have attended your local police station and confirmed exactly what is on your record, the next step should obviously be to get it removed! To do this you will need to obtain a Record Suspension, and we encourage you to contact our offices as soon as possible to get that process started. Simply relay the information you obtained at your police station to one of our client specialists, and we will be able to request all the documentation necessary in order to make the process as smooth as possible, and clear your record as quickly as possible.