After a Magistrate approves an arrest warrant, police officers step in to handle its execution. That warrant remains enforceable until it’s either fulfilled or voided. Once the warrant is carried out, the suspect is taken into custody and presented to a Magistrate for an initial hearing. If you’re looking for Berkeley County arrest records, your first point of contact will be the Magistrate Court.
Berkeley County warrant search
To obtain copies of active warrants and criminal records, you should contact the Magistrate Court that issued the original warrant. However, unless you know the judge that signed the warrant, knowing which Magistrate Court to contact may be difficult. Therefore, it is best to begin your search with the Public Index system for Berkeley County. Through this online system, you can find the status of active and closed criminal cases in Berkeley County. Once you locate the criminal case, it is easier to determine which judge issued the original warrant. To get copies of court records, it is best to contact the Clerk of Court for Berkeley County.
Another source for searching outstanding warrants is the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office. The Sheriff’s Office handles serving warrants within the county and maintains records of arrests. If you suspect that a person has already been arrested, you can search the current inmate list to confirm your suspicion.
Finding details on Berkely County active warrants and arrest records over the phone (in 2021)!
Although a lot of information on arrests and warrants is available online, if you are looking for details about a specific subject or more recent matters, you may be looking for phone numbers that can be used to get the information you need.
Whether you get the details you want over the phone will depend on the type of information you seek. Listed below are updated phone number (2021) and the information you can expect to get by using them:
- The Berkeley County Jail: For arrest records, you can call the Detention Center at (843) 719-4557. If you are looking for information on recent arrests or bookings-related data, you can get in touch with the County Jail at (843) 719-4876.
- The Sheriff’s Office: The Law Enforcement agency does not entertain requests for background checks locally. So, if you are interested in a criminal history report, you will have to go through SLED. That said, you can approach the office for information on a specific criminal case or arrest warrants against a certain person. To learn more about this, call on (843) 719‑4465
- The Office of the Clerk of Court: This agency handles the court dockets for criminal and civil cases. However, they may not give out all the information they hold over the phone. Yet, it is worth calling them on (843) 719-4406.
- The Magistrate’s Court: They will rarely field a direct inquiry for criminal records. However, if you call this agency, you will be guided on how to get this information. You can contact them on (843) 719-4050 (For the Berkeley Centralized Criminal Domestic Court) or on (843) 719-4050 (For the Berkeley Central Traffic Court).
Berkeley County, SC crime data
If you set aside two crime categories, there seems to have been much improvement in the law and order scenario of Berkely County in 2019. As compared to 2018, there was a significant drop in the rates of property crimes with all incident categories displaying a decrease of at least 30%.
Overall, the occurrence rate of property crime plunged from approximately 4500 complaints in 2018 to about 3900 in 2019. However, this was overshadowed by the rise in the number of murder and sexual battery cases.
Between 1999 and 2008, there were approximately 40,000 crimes reported in Berkeley County. During that time, crime rates rose by over 80%; however, the largest increase occurred between 2003 and 2004. Between these two years, crime rates tippled within the county and remained high for the remainder of the period. Murder was the least reported crime, with only 64 murders committed during the 10-year period.