Jailhouse Booking

The booking process involves taking information and personal effects from arrestees; it includes fingerprints, mug shots, and a search of the person.

What Happens During Booking

Booking records provide information about the people who are brought to jail. Because booking creates an official arrest record, arrested suspects who can post bail immediately often can’t be released until after the booking process is complete. Even suspects who receive citations in lieu of being taken to jail often must go through a booking process within a few days of their arrest.

How Long Does Booking Take?

At its slowest, the booking process may take hours to complete. How long it takes depends on how many of the standard booking procedures are conducted (explained below), the number of arrestees being booked at the same time, and the number of police officers involved in the booking process.

Typical Steps in the Booking Process

Step 1: Recording the suspect’s name and the crime for which the suspect was arrested

In olden days, this information became part of a handwritten police blotter; now virtually all booking records are computerized.

Step 2: Taking a “mug shot”

Mug shots have a variety of possible uses. For instance, a mug shot can help to determine which of two people with the same name was arrested. A mug shot can also help to establish a suspect’s physical condition at the time of arrest. The suspect’s physical condition at arrest can be relevant to a claim of police use of unlawful force or to whether the suspect had been in an altercation before being arrested.

Step 3: Taking the suspect’s clothing and personal property into police custody

At a suspect’s request, some booking officers allow suspects to keep small personal items like a wristwatch. Any articles taken from the suspect must be returned upon release from jail, unless they constitute contraband or evidence of a crime.

Example: Sticky Fingers is arrested for stealing a calculator. The police seize the calculator at the scene of the arrest. During the booking process, the police find a packet of illegal drugs and a stolen camera in Fingers’s backpack. These items will not be returned to Fingers upon his release on bail. The calculator and the camera are evidence of the crime of shoplifting. The drugs are illegal contraband; the police can take them regardless of whether drug charges are filed against Fingers.

Step 4: Taking fingerprints

Fingerprints are a standard part of a booking record, and are typically entered into a nationwide database maintained by the FBI and accessible to most local, state, and federal police agencies. Comparing fingerprints left at the scene of a crime to those already in the database helps police officers identify perpetrators of crimes.

Step 5: Conducting a full body search

Police officers routinely make cursory pat-down inspections at the time of arrest. Far more intrusive (and to many people, deeply humiliating) is the strip search that is often part of the booking process. To prevent weapons and drugs from entering a jail, booking officers frequently require arrestees to remove all their clothing and submit to a full body search.

Step 6: Checking for warrants

The booking officer checks to see if an arrestee has any other charges pending, ranging from unpaid parking tickets to murder charges in other states. Suspects with warrants pending are normally not released on bail.

Step 7: Health screening

To protect the health and safety of jail officials and other inmates, the booking process may include X-rays (to detect tuberculosis) and blood tests (to detect sexually transmitted diseases such as gonorrhea and AIDS).

Step 8: Eliciting information relevant to incarceration conditions

To reduce the likelihood of violence and injuries, jail officials often ask arrestees about gang affiliations, former gang affiliations, and other outside relationships. Depending on the answers, an inmate may have to be placed in protective custody or housed in one section of a jail rather than another. Routine questioning along these lines does not constitute an “interrogation” that requires officers to give a Miranda warning to the suspect. Information that suspects disclose in response to a booking officer’s questions may be admissible in evidence under the “routine booking question exception” to Miranda (Pennsylvania v. Muniz, U.S. Sup. Ct. (1990)).

Step 9: DNA sample

Suspects may be required to provide DNA samples that are entered in national DNA databases.

This article was excerpted from The Criminal Law Handbook, by Paul Bergman, J.D., and Sara J. Berman, J.D.

Your Rights During Booking

Defendants in criminal cases have a constitutional right to legal representation at every critical stage of the proceeding, but courts regard booking as a routine administrative procedure, not a crucial event warranting legal counsel.

Example: Cliff Hangar is arrested and taken to jail. He refuses to participate in the booking process, demanding that the police let him phone for a lawyer. However, the police do not have to allow Cliff to call a lawyer until the completion of the booking process. Until then, Cliff should just answer the booking officer’s questions, and should not talk about his case.

Suspects Should Be Cautious When Volunteering Information

For many suspects, the booking process is impersonal, long, and humiliating, which leaves them extremely vulnerable. With no attorney to provide comfort and advice, people being booked are prone to start talking to the police officers who suddenly hold sway over them. These voluntary statements can be used as evidence in court. Therefore, regardless of the psychological pressures of booking, suspects are well advised to say nothing about their case until they’ve spoken to an attorney.

Phone Calls

Laws in many states allow suspects to make one or more free local calls as soon as booking is completed. (See, for example, Cal. Penal Code §  851.5.) Suspects typically call attorneys, bail bond sellers, or friends and relatives, in an effort to make bail or at least hear a friendly voice. However, suspects need to be very careful about what they say over the phone, because police officers and other people may overhear their conversations or even monitor the calls.

This article was excerpted from The Criminal Law Handbook, by Paul Bergman, J.D., and Sara J. Berman, J.D.

Getting Information About and Helping Booked Arrestees

Booking records are public records, which are accessible by anyone. The way to get information about a booked suspect, and to relay important information about the health status and needs of someone recently booked, will depend on many factors, such as the size of the jail, the number of suspects being processed, and the sophistication of police procedures.

Finding Out Whether Someone Has Been Taken to Jail

Usually, you can get this information. Police officers normally take arrested suspects to the closest jail. The quickest way to find out if someone has been taken to jail may be to contact a bail bond office in the vicinity of a jail and ask the bonding agent for information. A bonding agent may not receive information until after the booking process is over, but bonding agents are generally “wired in” to jail procedures and can get information as soon as it is available. Most bail bond agents will help you whether or not you ultimately purchase a bail bond from them.

You can also seek information in person, directly from a jail facility. Ask to speak to a desk officer (who might be called a watch commander) to find out whether a particular person has been arrested and is in the jail.

When making inquiries, remember that people may be booked under a name that they don’t usually use. For example, a woman’s driver’s license may have been issued in her married name even though she has gotten divorced and no longer uses her married name in everyday interactions. So if an initial inquiry comes up empty, consider other names a person might have been booked under.

Helping a Booked Arrestee Who Has Health Issues

Recognize first that most jails routinely assess newly arrested people for mental and physical health issues. If you know that an arrestee has physical or mental health issues and have an opportunity to speak with police officers and jailers, advise them about the person’s condition, including specific diagnoses and need for medications. If you can talk to the arrestee personally, tell the arrestee that it is okay to discuss the condition with police officers. At the same time, remind them not to discuss the facts of a case with police officers without first talking to a lawyer.

If an arrestee needs medication, ask jail officials whether you can bring it to the jail facility. If an arrestee’s situation is critical, insist that he or she receive medical attention, whether by a jail physician or a hospital or clinic. For example, if your son was arrested for being under the influence of illegal drugs, insist that he be evaluated for care in a jailhouse or outside detox facility.

When speaking to jail officials, obtain the arrestee’s booking number and the email address or fax number of the jail facility. You may need this information to give the jailers information about the arrestee’s health or mental fitness.

You might also obtain and fill out a jail’s “Inmate Health Form” if one is available. If not, prepare your own note advising jailers of an arrestee’s:

• name, birth date, and booking number
• diagnosis
• doctor contact information, and
• needed medications (drug name, dose, and time to be taken). If known, mention a drug’s side effects and the likely effects of missed dosages.

Be sure that you don't write anything about the charges; include only medical information. Keep a copy of what you have written and give a copy to the arrestee’s defense lawyer.

Finally, if an arrestee with physical or mental health needs is likely to remain in jail for an extended period of time, ask whether a medical or mental health caseworker can be assigned to the arrestee.

This article was excerpted from The Criminal Law Handbook, by Paul Bergman, J.D., and Sara J. Berman, J.D.