I was a police and courts reporter for 5 years in Madison, WI, and am now an editor who handles numerous police and courts stories every week for our websites.
In every U.S. jurisdiction I know of arrest records ARE public records. The reason is so that authorities are not able to secretly arrest and detain someone -- a common occurrence in all too many countries across the globe.
Of course, just because a person is arrested does not mean they will even be formally charged with a crime, much less convicted. Police do NOT criminally charge anyone -- that is the job of prosecutors such as the local district attorney.
We typically use something such as "arrested on a tentative charge of" or "police requested a charge of" in our stories.
If Jeff was arrested in Las Vegas, I could find no such record ... or perhaps his proper name is not Jeff or Jeffrey, which is how I searched.
The No. 1 source for bowling news, analysis and opinion is my blog, The 11th Frame, which is here:
http://host.madison.com/sports/recreation/bowling/
Edited by riggs on 12/2/2011 at 9:16 AM
Edited by riggs on 12/2/2011 at 9:18 AM