What Is the Booking Process Like?
When it comes to arrests and bail, most people have a lot of questions. For instance, many people wonder what happens when a person is arrested. They often expect the arrest to happen quickly, however that is rarely the case. There is a whole process to booking someone into jail and it usually takes some time to complete.
The booking process proceeds as follows:
- Information is recorded. When a person is brought into a police station, their information is recorded. This includes things such as why the person was arrested, as well as their name, birthday, and home address.
- Picture time. Next the person’s mug shot is taken. The picture is important for identifying two different people who may share the same name. The mugshot also establishes the person’s physical condition at the time of arrest
- Fingers get dirty. After that, fingerprints are taken. These are typically entered into the national database maintained by the FBI.
- Belongings are confiscated. After the mugshot, officers will confiscate anything that is on the person, which can include clothes, which will be replaced with an orange jumpsuit. This also includes a full-body search to ensure that no contraband enters the jail. Any belongings taken from the arrested individual will be returned when the person is released, provided the item wasn’t contraband.
- In for anything else? As all the other stuff is going on, someone else will use the given information to check for any warrants out for the person’s arrest. If a person does have other warrants out for their arrest, they likely won’t be given bail.
- Time for a checkup. Next comes a health checkup to make sure the person is healthy and not bringing any diseases into the jail. A DNA sample may be taken and added to the national database.
- Play well with others? Lastly, officers will make sure that the arrested person won’t cause trouble in the jail. This is done by asking if the person has ever had any gang affiliations, or other outside relationships, that might pose a problem with other inmates.
There are a lot of steps to booking someone into jail, and not every station does them in the same exact order. On top of that, different stations are dealing with more arrests than others. This means that the booking process can be done in under an hour at some stations, but take several at others. It all depends on when and where the person was arrested.
Once a person has been booked in, they may be given a bail amount. Once that happens, Absolute Bail Bonds can help you bail that person out of jail. All you have to do to get started is talk to one of our bail agents. They will help you with the bail and answer all of your questions about the bail process.
You can talk to an agent for free at any time, just call 1-800-793-2245 or click Chat With Us now.
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