Arrest Records for Bristol County, Massachusetts

Criminal court records in Bristol County live in two distinct systems: the Massachusetts Trial Court’s public docket portal covers case filings at Bristol County Superior Court — reachable by phone at (508) 823-6588 — while booking records sit with the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office. If you have a name and want to know what’s on file, the MassCourts docket search is the fastest online path for court-side records. For in-person requests, the James H. Sullivan Courthouse in Attleboro handles District Court matters and can be reached at (508) 222-5900 during weekday business hours.

If someone you know was just booked tonight, our Bristol County inmate-search page has phone-first contact info.

If your person has a history in other states

A Bristol County court search only surfaces Massachusetts records. Running a nationwide criminal background check catches out-of-state arrests, federal court cases, and records from jurisdictions that don’t feed into any single state portal. The preliminary scan is free; a full report requires creating an account.

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How to look up arrest records in Bristol County

Valid government-issued photo ID is the baseline requirement for any in-person records request in Bristol County — bring a driver’s license or passport, and ask the Clerk’s office for the records-request form when you arrive, since no county-specific form is published online. The court-side and Sheriff-side systems are separate, so knowing which one holds the record you need saves a trip.

MassCourts public docket search. The Trial Court’s MassCourts docket and case information portal is the online entry point for Bristol County criminal case dockets. Search by name or case number. The portal covers Superior, District, and other Trial Court departments. If you need help navigating the system, Mass.gov maintains a MassCourts help guide. Note that docket entries reflect court filings — they do not include raw booking data held by the Sheriff.

Bristol County Superior Court — in-person or by phone. Felony cases originating in Bristol County are heard at Bristol County Superior Court, located at 9 Court Street, Taunton, MA 02780. Call (508) 823-6588 to confirm current hours and any records-request fee before driving. The Clerk’s office can pull certified copies of docket entries and disposition records for cases adjudicated there.

James H. Sullivan Courthouse — District Court matters. Misdemeanor and lower-level felony arraignments in the Attleboro area run through the James H. Sullivan Courthouse at 88 North Main Street, Attleboro, MA 02703. Call (508) 222-5900 to confirm weekday hours and request the records-request form. Bristol County has multiple District Court locations — if the case was filed in New Bedford or Fall River, call to confirm which courthouse holds the docket.

Sheriff’s Office records request. Booking records — the arrest-side data that predates any court filing — are held by the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office. The Sheriff also operates the Bristol County Jail & House of Correction (Ash Street) in North Dartmouth; call (508) 995-6400 for records-related inquiries. The Sheriff’s website at Bristol County Sheriff’s Office has additional contact information. Records-request fees and form requirements: call to confirm before submitting.

Massachusetts DOC inmate lookup. If the person served state prison time rather than county jail time, the Massachusetts Department of Correction inmate lookup covers DOC facilities statewide. Bristol County residents sentenced to more than 2.5 years go to a DOC facility, not the Ash Street jail.

Are Bristol County arrest records public?

Under Massachusetts law, court records became subject to public-access rules well before the digital era — the controlling statute today is M.G.L. c. 66, § 10 (with c. 4, § 7, cl. 26), the Massachusetts Public Records Law, which establishes a default presumption of public access to government records. Bristol County court dockets filed in the Trial Court system are generally accessible to any member of the public under that framework.

The default-public rule has real limits, though. Sealed records are invisible to the public — a name search on MassCourts returns nothing for a sealed case. Expunged records go further: under M.G.L. c. 276, §§ 100E-100U, an expunged record is permanently destroyed, meaning it does not appear in any public-facing system. (The expungement pathway is covered in detail in the next section.) Juvenile records are categorically restricted and do not appear in public dockets. Victim-identifying information — addresses, contact details — is routinely redacted from publicly accessible filings under court rules designed to protect complaining witnesses.

Massachusetts is also governed by the CORI law, M.G.L. c. 6, §§ 167-178B, which tightly controls who can access a person’s full criminal history. A member of the public searching MassCourts sees only what the Trial Court makes publicly available in its docket system — not a complete CORI report. Employers, landlords, and licensing agencies access CORI through a separate credentialed system administered by the Department of Criminal Justice Information Services (DCJIS). That distinction matters: what you find on MassCourts and what an employer sees through CORI are not identical views of the same record.

Booking photos (mugshots) are a separate question from court dockets. Massachusetts does not have a statutory requirement to publish booking photos, and the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office does not maintain a publicly searchable online mugshot database — call (508) 995-6400 to ask about their current policy for photo release requests.

What’s in a Bristol County arrest record?

Pull up a Bristol County criminal case on MassCourts and you’ll see the court-side view of the record — not the booking entry. Those two documents are generated by different agencies and contain different fields, so knowing which one you’re looking at matters.

Court docket entries — the records accessible through MassCourts and at the Bristol County Courthouse — typically show: the case number (formatted by court division and year), the defendant’s name and date of birth, the charging statute and offense description, the arraignment date, each scheduled hearing date, the attorney of record (defense counsel and prosecutor), and the disposition. Disposition entries include guilty findings, not-guilty findings, dismissals, nolle prosequi entries, and continuances without a finding (CWOF). A CWOF is not a conviction under Massachusetts law, which matters for sealing eligibility. If a case is still pending, the docket shows the next scheduled event but no final disposition.

Booking entries — held by the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office — are generated at the time of arrest and intake at the Ash Street facility. A booking record typically contains: the arrest date and time, the arresting agency (which could be a municipal department like the Swansea Police Department, reachable at (508) 674-8464, or the Massachusetts State Police), the charges as written at booking, physical descriptors, and the booking number. Booking entries exist even when a case is later dismissed or never filed — the arrest happened, so the booking record exists. That’s a meaningful distinction: a dismissed case may still produce a booking record that shows up in background checks until the record is sealed.

The two systems don’t always sync cleanly. A case dismissed at arraignment may appear in the court docket with a disposition of “dismissed” while the Sheriff’s booking record shows only the original charge. Background-check vendors pulling from multiple sources may surface the booking entry without the dismissal notation. If you’re preparing for a background check, verifying both the court docket and the Sheriff’s booking record gives you the complete picture.

Case number formats vary by court division. The District Court case number format guide on Mass.gov explains how to read Bristol County District Court case numbers, which is useful when cross-referencing docket entries against booking records.

How to expunge an arrest record in Bristol County

Petitioning to seal or expunge an arrest record in Bristol County is a routine legal procedure — thousands of Massachusetts residents file each year, and the courts process them as standard civil matters. The governing statute is M.G.L. c. 276, §§ 100E-100U, added by the 2018 Criminal Justice Reform Act, which created the expungement pathway alongside the older sealing framework.

Sealing vs. expungement. Sealing hides a record from public view — it still exists in law enforcement systems, but a public MassCourts search returns nothing. Expungement permanently destroys the record. Expungement is the narrower option: the offense must have occurred before your 21st birthday, you may have no more than two records total, and certain offense categories are excluded entirely (offenses causing death or serious bodily injury, sex offenses, firearms violations, OUI, restraining-order violations, and domestic assault). Sealing has no age restriction and covers a broader range of cases.

Waiting periods. For sealing a conviction, the wait is 3 years for a misdemeanor and 7 years for a felony, measured from completion of the sentence — meaning the end of any incarceration or custody, not just the date of the court’s judgment. Sex offense convictions carry a 15-year wait. Non-conviction dispositions — dismissals, nolle prosequi entries, not-guilty findings, no-bills, and no-probable-cause findings — carry no waiting period at all. If your Bristol County case ended in a dismissal, you can petition to seal it now. The same 3-year/7-year windows apply to expungement of convictions, with the additional age-at-offense requirement.

Where to file. File the Petition to Seal at the court where the matter was adjudicated — for a Bristol County Superior Court case, that’s the Taunton courthouse at (508) 823-6588; for a District Court case, it’s the specific District Court location that handled the case. The Commissioner of Probation effects the order once the court grants it. There is no filing fee to petition for sealing under Massachusetts law.

Self-petition vs. attorney-assisted. The Petition to Seal form is available through the Trial Court and can be filed without an attorney. Many people handle straightforward dismissal cases on their own. For cases involving convictions, multiple records, or expungement petitions (which require meeting the stricter eligibility criteria), attorney assistance is worth considering. The Massachusetts lawyer referral service and the Committee for Public Counsel Services can help identify low-cost options.

What changes after sealing. Once a record is sealed, a public MassCourts search returns no results for that case. Standard employer background checks and landlord CORI checks no longer surface it. Law enforcement agencies retain access to sealed records — a sealed record is not invisible to police or prosecutors. An expunged record goes further: it is destroyed, and even law enforcement access is eliminated. If you’re preparing for a job application or housing application, sealing a qualifying Bristol County record removes it from the public-facing CORI check that most employers and landlords use.

Quick-contacts table

Frequently asked questions about Bristol County arrest records

How do I find out what arrest records exist under a name in Bristol County?

Run a name search on the MassCourts docket portal — that covers court-filed cases at Bristol County Superior Court and the District Courts. For booking records that may not have resulted in a court filing, contact the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office directly at (508) 995-6400. Sealed and expunged records do not appear in either public-facing system. If you need records from other states, a nationwide background check (see above) covers out-of-state and federal court cases that Massachusetts systems won’t show.

Can a Bristol County arrest record be sealed or expunged, and how long does it take?

Yes. Under M.G.L. c. 276, §§ 100E-100U, a Bristol County arrest record can be sealed or, in narrower circumstances, expunged. Dismissals and not-guilty findings carry no waiting period — you can petition to seal immediately. Conviction sealing requires 3 years (misdemeanor) or 7 years (felony) from the end of your sentence. File the Petition to Seal at the court where the case was heard — Bristol County Superior Court at (508) 823-6588 for felonies, or the relevant District Court for misdemeanors. There is no filing fee. Once granted, the Commissioner of Probation effects the seal, and the record disappears from public MassCourts searches and standard CORI checks.