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Indiana background screening law

How the courts here are organized

Indiana codifies its trial courts one county at a time. Title 33, Article 33 is a single article of ninety-two chapters, numbered 1 through 92, and each chapter is a named county: "IC 33-33-1 Chapter 1. Adams County" through "IC 33-33-92 Chapter 92. Whitley County", alphabetical, with no gaps and no chapter in the sequence that is not a county. That is not a summary of the structure, it is the structure. The practical consequence is that a question about an Indiana trial court is a question about which county, because the answer is written in that county's own chapter.

Above the county chapters sits a general superior court article that the county chapters may switch off. IC 33-29-1-1 provides: "Except as otherwise provided in IC 33-33, this chapter applies to standard superior courts established in IC 33-33." The 2026 Code contains fifty-four declarations that a county's superior court "is a standard superior court as described in IC 33-29-1", and nineteen clauses reading "IC 33-29-1 does not apply to this chapter". St. Joseph County is the plain example: IC 33-33-71-1 reads in full, "Sec. 1. IC 33-29-1 does not apply to this chapter." Wayne County carries the same clause at IC 33-33-89-1. A superior court in one of those counties is not a standard superior court, and a description of Indiana superior courts written from IC 33-29-1 alone will not fit them.

The judicial circuits are set the same way, county by county, rather than in one list. IC 33-33-82-2 states that "Vanderburgh County constitutes the first judicial circuit". Clark County "constitutes the fourth judicial circuit" at IC 33-33-10-2. Wayne County is unusual in its drafting: IC 33-33-89-2 reads "Wayne County constitutes the seventeenth circuit", omitting the word judicial, a variance that is in the text and worth knowing if a quotation is being checked against it. Greene County "constitutes the sixty-third judicial circuit" at IC 33-33-28-1, a section titled "Judicial district; magistrate" rather than the "Judicial circuit" title the other counties use. The ninety-two counties sit in ninety-one circuits, and the reason is that one circuit has two counties: IC 33-33-15-1(a) and IC 33-33-58-2(a) both provide that "Dearborn County and Ohio County constitute the seventh judicial circuit", the statement appearing once in Dearborn County's chapter and once in Ohio County's.

Below the circuit and superior courts there is a tier that exists only where a municipality has chosen to create it, and that can be removed the same way. IC 33-35-1-1(a) provides that "During 2026, 2030, 2034, 2038, 2042, and every fourth year after that, a second or third class city or a town may by ordinance establish or abolish a city or town court", and subsection (d) allows a court in existence on 1 January 1986 to "continue in operation until it is abolished by ordinance". Where such a court exists, IC 33-35-2-3 gives it "Jurisdiction of all misdemeanors and all infractions". A misdemeanor disposition in Indiana can therefore sit in a court whose continued existence depends on a municipal ordinance that comes up for decision every four years, and which the municipality must give notice of to the office of judicial administration, the secretary of state and the circuit court clerk of the county holding the greatest share of its population.

The routing consequence is specific rather than general. An expungement petition goes to the court of the county of conviction, not to a state court: IC 35-38-9-2(d) and IC 35-38-9-3(d) each require the petitioner to "file the petition in a circuit or superior court in the county of conviction". The order then has to travel from that county to the state repository, and the State Police describe that leg in their own words: "Once an expungement/seal is granted, the verified petition and order granting the petition is forwarded to the Indiana State Police Expungement Section by the local court for processing. Processing of an expungement will be delayed if not all required paperwork is submitted." Ninety-two county chapters is the reason that sentence matters. Whether the paperwork moved is a county-level fact, and the repository's own record is downstream of it.

The courts publish no statewide criminal case search that this pass could verify, and the county-by-county filing that the structure implies is a real cost rather than a theoretical one. What is verified is the shape: ninety-two county chapters, ninety-one circuits, a standard and a non-standard superior court track, and a municipal tier that exists at the option of the municipality. A search model built on a single Indiana court of general jurisdiction does not fit, and a model that treats the county as the unit does, because the jurisdiction that produced the record and the court that must forward the expungement order are both county institutions.

The repository is the State Police, and the statute says so in one line. IC 10-13-3-24(a): "The department shall act as the official state central repository for criminal history data." Subsection (b) puts the reporting duty on the counties and their agencies: "A sheriff, police department, or criminal justice agency in Indiana shall report to the department, on forms provided by the department, all arrests for reportable offenses." The repository is therefore built from county and municipal submissions, which is the statutory reason the agency can say of its own product that completeness depends on county participation.

What the repository sells to a non-law-enforcement requester is a defined and narrow product. IC 10-13-3-11(a) provides that "limited criminal history" means "information with respect to any arrest or criminal charge, which must include: (1) a disposition; and (2) a photograph of the person who is the subject of the limited criminal history, if a photograph is available." Subsection (b) then carves out the recent past: "However, the term includes information about any arrest or criminal charge that occurred less than one (1) year before the date of a request even if no disposition has been entered." An Indiana limited criminal history therefore carries open arrests inside the last year, which is a fact a hiring process should hold before it treats a pending arrest as a resolved one.

Access is by an enumerated list, not by request. IC 10-13-3-27(a) begins: "Except as provided in subsection (b), on request, a law enforcement agency shall release a limited criminal history to or allow inspection of a limited criminal history by noncriminal justice organizations or individuals only if the subject of the request" satisfies one of sixteen grounds, which include that the subject "has applied for employment with a noncriminal justice organization or individual", "has volunteered services at a public school ... that involve contact with, care of, or supervision over a student enrolled in the school", and "is or was required to register as a sex or violent offender under IC 11-8-8". The same section closes with a federal limit: "However, limited criminal history information obtained from the National Crime Information Center may not be released under this section except to the extent permitted by the Attorney General of the United States."

Subsection (b) is the second door and it is much narrower than the first. It requires release to "the following noncriminal justice organizations": "Federally chartered or insured banking institutions", "Officials of state and local government for any of the following purposes: (A) Employment with a state or local governmental entity. (B) Licensing", and "Segments of the securities industry identified under 15 U.S.C. 78q(f)(2)". A private employer that is none of those, and a screening firm acting for one, has to come through the subject-grounds list in subsection (a). Subsection (c) puts teeth on the purpose limit: "Any person who knowingly or intentionally uses limited criminal history for any purpose not specified under this section commits a Class C infraction. However, the violation is a Class A misdemeanor if the person has a prior unrelated adjudication or conviction for a violation of this section within the previous five (5) years."

The price is set by statute and it is low, which tells you what kind of product this is meant to be. IC 10-13-3-30(a)(2) directs the agency to "Collect a three dollar ($3) fee to defray the cost of processing a request for inspection", and (a)(3) to "Collect a seven dollar ($7) fee to defray the cost of processing a request for release", with the fee waived for sex and violent offender registry matters and the request form "maintained for two (2) years and shall be available to the record subject upon request". The subject also has a direct right under IC 10-13-3-31(a): a criminal justice agency maintaining criminal history data "upon request and proper identification of the person about whom criminal history data is maintained, shall provide that person with a copy of the person's criminal history data for a reasonable fee", and (b) provides that "Any person may challenge the information contained in the person's criminal history data file."

The State Police describe the product's limits more sharply than the statute does, and the descriptions are worth carrying because they are the agency's own. The Limited Criminal History "contains only felonies and misdemeanor arrests within the State of Indiana", the search "is based upon a subject's name, date of birth, race, and gender, and if needed, Social Security Number and place of birth", and "This report does not give the most comprehensive information, as it does not include criminal history information from other states." The agency restates the point twice: "As a reminder, the Limited Criminal History product is name and date of birth check of Indiana only records", and "Completeness of this information is based upon county participation." Results come back as "ON FILE", "INCONCLUSIVE RESULTS" or "NO RECORDS FOUND". The fingerprint alternative is the National Full Criminal History, taken through the state's INkless electronic fingerprinting network, which the agency says "contains all reported arrests, charges, and dispositions from all state and federal jurisdictions in the United States" and which requires the applicant to schedule an appointment and pay by card, cashier's check or money order.

The expungement route runs through the county court and then stops being a court matter. The State Police explain their side of it: "The Indiana State Police is the central repository for criminal history information in Indiana. Records contained within an individual's criminal history file may be expunged or sealed under Indiana law. A petition for expungement or seal can be filed with a local court of jurisdiction in Indiana by an individual (pro se) or by private legal counsel." Then the county step: "Once an expungement/seal is granted, the verified petition and order granting the petition is forwarded to the Indiana State Police Expungement Section by the local court for processing. Processing of an expungement will be delayed if not all required paperwork is submitted." The agency also states plainly that it "cannot give legal advice regarding the filing of a petition".

The routing conclusion that follows is narrower than the one a reader might expect. A state limited criminal history is a name and date of birth match against records the counties have reported, limited to Indiana, carrying a disposition requirement that bends for arrests under a year old, and released only on one of sixteen grounds or to one of three categories of organization. It is not a comprehensive Indiana criminal history and the agency does not present it as one. The fingerprint product is the complete one, and it is initiated by the applicant rather than by the employer. Where a search needs a court record rather than a repository record, the county is the unit, because the county chapter is where the court is defined and the county of conviction is where the expungement petition is filed. A process that cannot say which of those three sources answered the question cannot say what it holds.

The federal baseline

Federal law sets the floor here as it does everywhere. It is at 15 U.S.C. §1681 et seq., it binds the agency and the employer separately, and it does not vary by state. The FCRA article covers it section by section, including the seven-year limits, the salary threshold and the adverse action sequence, so that this page does not restate any of it.

What follows is only the overlay: what Indiana adds on top of that floor, and where it departs from it.

What Indiana law adds

Reporting limits at a glance

Every figure below is against Indiana law. Where a row says “federal only”, the state has set nothing and 15 U.S.C. §1681c governs.

Adverse action here

The federal sequence applies unchanged: pre-adverse action notice with a copy of the report and the summary of rights, a reasonable opportunity to dispute, then the adverse action notice with the agency's details and a dispute route. The FCRA article sets it out in full.

Indiana adds no state adverse-action notice duty. No provision was located in Title 22, Title 24 or Title 10 that requires a state-specific notice before or after an employment decision based on a criminal history report. The state overlay is on the reporting side rather than the decision side, which changes where a letter has to be careful.

The reporting-side duty is the one that can be breached before the decision is made. IC 24-4-18-6(a) bars a provider from knowingly reporting an expunged record, a court-restricted record, a reduced Class D or Level 6 felony shown as a Class A misdemeanor, or a record the provider "knows is inaccurate", and IC 24-4-18-7(a) bars reporting information that fails to reflect material changes to the official record "occurring sixty (60) days or more before the date the criminal history report is delivered". IC 35-38-9-12 applies the first of those directly to an expunged conviction. A letter that reports a record the provider was barred from reporting cannot be cured by giving the person a chance to dispute it, because the defect is in the report and not in the decision.

The two-track expungement rule decides what a dispute can achieve. Where the expungement was under IC 35-38-9-2 or -3, the record is permanently sealed under IC 35-38-9-6(b) and the repository is under an order to prohibit its release, so a dispute should end with the record gone and the provider in breach for having reported it. Where the expungement was under IC 35-38-9-4 or -5, the record "remains public" under IC 35-38-9-7(b) and carries an expunged marking, so a court search will still return it and the provider's obligation rests on IC 24-4-18-6(a)(1) and the marking rather than on the record's absence. A dispute letter that asserts a marked record should not appear at all will be wrong on the face of the statute, and the letter should say instead that the record is marked as expunged and that IC 24-4-18-6(a)(1) bars its inclusion.

The county step is where an expungement most often fails to take effect, and it is worth checking before a letter is written. The State Police state that "the verified petition and order granting the petition is forwarded to the Indiana State Police Expungement Section by the local court for processing", and that "Processing of an expungement will be delayed if not all required paperwork is submitted." Indiana has ninety-two county court chapters and ninety-one circuits, and the petition is filed under IC 35-38-9-2(d) or -3(d) "in a circuit or superior court in the county of conviction". Where a report shows a conviction that a court order sealed or marked, and the repository still carries it, the question to ask is whether the order reached the Expungement Section, and the agency provides a direct contact route for it.

A name-based state result has to be read for what it is before it is acted on. The State Police describe the Limited Criminal History as "name and date of birth check of Indiana only records" whose "Completeness of this information is based upon county participation", returning "ON FILE", "INCONCLUSIVE RESULTS" or "NO RECORDS FOUND". An inconclusive result is neither a clear nor a hit, and treating it as a clearance is an adverse decision taken on no evidence. The limited criminal history also includes, under IC 10-13-3-11(b), any arrest or charge occurring "less than one (1) year before the date of a request even if no disposition has been entered", so a recent open arrest can appear with no outcome attached, and IC 22-2-17-4(a)(3) is the provision that speaks to what may then be done with an arrest that did not result in a conviction.

Where the subject disputes what the state holds, the statutory route is statutory and short. IC 10-13-3-31(b) provides that "Any person may challenge the information contained in the person's criminal history data file", and (a) requires the agency to provide the person with a copy of their own data for a reasonable fee on proper identification. IC 10-13-3-30(a)(1) requires the request form to be retained two years and to be "available to the record subject upon request", so the subject can also establish who asked. None of this runs through the employer, and none of it has an Indiana deadline attached.

Screening in Indiana: what your process needs

• Do not import a ban-the-box rule into Indiana, and read the definition before assuming the preemption is about convictions. IC 22-2-17-3 bars a political subdivision from prohibiting an employer from asking about criminal history at the initial application stage, so there is no application-stage prohibition to satisfy and no conditional-offer trigger to observe; and IC 22-2-17-1 borrows IC 5-2-4-1(1), which reaches "arrests, detentions, indictments, informations, or other formal criminal charges, and any disposition arising therefrom", so the protected inquiry covers arrests.
• Retire the three bad citations in the file. IC 5-2-5 is repealed: the repository chapter is IC 10-13-3, which is where the pre-2003 recodification markers point. IC 16-42-19 is the Legend Drug Act and IC 16-42-19-13 is not a cannabis provision: the low-THC hemp extract chapters are IC 24-4-21 and IC 24-4-22, and the definition is at IC 35-48-1.1-27. And Title 24 does have a dedicated reporting article, IC 24-4-18, titled Criminal History Providers.
• Decide which of the three Indiana sources answered the question and say so. A limited criminal history from the State Police, a fingerprint-based National Full Criminal History, and a county court record are three different things with three different coverage rules, and the state product is expressly limited to Indiana.
• Treat an "INCONCLUSIVE RESULTS" return as neither a clear nor a hit. It is one of the three result codes the State Police publish for the name and date of birth product, alongside "ON FILE" and "NO RECORDS FOUND", and acting on it as a clearance is a decision taken on no evidence.
• Read IC 10-13-3-11(b) before treating a pending arrest as resolved. The definition of limited criminal history includes any arrest or criminal charge occurring "less than one (1) year before the date of a request even if no disposition has been entered".
• Check the access ground before requesting a state limited criminal history. IC 10-13-3-27(a) requires one of sixteen subject-based grounds for a noncriminal justice organization or individual. Subsection (b) is a second door limited to banks, state and local government officials for employment or licensing, and segments of the securities industry. Knowing use for an unspecified purpose is a Class C infraction under (c), and a Class A misdemeanor on a prior violation within five years.
• Do not ask the state repository for the whole story. The State Police say the product "does not include criminal history information from other states" and that "Completeness of this information is based upon county participation". Where completeness matters, the fingerprint product is the one the agency calls the most complete available.
• Route an applicant-initiated national check through the correct section. IC 10-13-3-28 permits the repository to process a national fingerprint-based check on the request of an individual who has applied for employment or to volunteer, on submission of fingerprints and payment of a fifteen dollar fee.
• Split expungements into the two tracks before acting on one. IC 35-38-9-6(b) permanently seals records expunged under the misdemeanor and Level 6 felony sections. IC 35-38-9-7(b) leaves records expunged under the more serious felony sections public, marked as expunged. The first can be reported by nobody; the second is public and barred to a provider by IC 24-4-18-6(a)(1).
• Use the statutory question form where an application asks about criminal record. IC 35-38-9-10(d) permits questioning "only in terms that exclude expunged convictions or arrests, such as: 'Have you ever been arrested for or convicted of a crime that has not been expunged by a court?'".
• Do not refuse to employ on the basis of an expunged or sealed record. IC 35-38-9-10(b) makes it unlawful discrimination, (f) makes it a Class C infraction with contempt available and injunctive relief as of right, and law enforcement agencies and probation or community corrections departments are carved out for their own hiring only.
• Check whether the expungement order actually reached the repository. The State Police state that the local court forwards the verified petition and the order to the Expungement Section, and that processing "will be delayed if not all required paperwork is submitted". The county is the actor and there are ninety-two county chapters.
• Run the currency rule before delivery, not after a dispute. IC 24-4-18-7(a) bars reporting information that fails to reflect material changes to the official record occurring sixty days or more before delivery, with the safe harbor at (b) for changes not in the official record at least sixty days before delivery.
• Do not report a reduced or converted felony as a felony. IC 24-4-18-6(a)(3) bars a provider from knowingly reporting a Class D or Level 6 felony conviction "entered as a Class A misdemeanor conviction" or "converted to a Class A misdemeanor conviction", and 'entered as' and 'converted to' are two different events.
• Do not treat the Indiana Consumer Data Protection Act as a screening law. IC 24-15-2-8(b) excludes "an individual acting in a commercial or employment context" from the definition of consumer, so the article does not reach an employment screening decision. The gap was flagged in this project's own file and is now closed on the section text.
• Do not rely on an Indiana lookback, salary-history or credit-check rule. None was located in the titles read in full, which were 5, 10, 16, 22, 24, 33 and 35 of the 2026 Code. That is a finding about those titles and not a statement that no rule exists.

Related states

• Michigan. Michigan lets an applicant withhold a misdemeanor arrest that led to no conviction even when answering under oath, and its state criminal history product deletes each result after seven days while warning it may not be accepted. Its limited-jurisdiction courts sit on city and township lines rather than county lines, so the county is not the unit of search.
• Wisconsin. Wisconsin forbids every employer in the state, from one employee up, to ask an applicant, an employee or any other individual, on an application form or otherwise, to supply information about any arrest record, and its definition of arrest record runs from a police questioning and being held for investigation through charge, indictment and trial, so the ban is not an application-stage rule and does not lift at an interview. The state’s circuit court docket is published at no charge to anyone, without asking who is requesting it or why.
• Minnesota. Minnesota requires a report to reach the consumer within 24 hours of going to the employer, and its ban-the-box law binds private employers with no size threshold.

What we do

Indiana runs the other way on the question at the front of the hiring process. IC 22-2-17-3 provides that a political subdivision may not prohibit an employer from obtaining or using criminal history information during the hiring process, or from making the inquiry or requiring disclosure at the initial application stage, and the definition it borrows reaches arrests and not only convictions. The state then regulates the reporting end instead: IC 24-4-18 bars a criminal history provider from reporting an expunged record, a court-restricted record, a reduced felony shown as a misdemeanor, or a record the provider knows is inaccurate, and requires material changes to the official record to be reflected once they are sixty days old, with a violation actionable as a deceptive act. Indiana expunges in two tracks and only one seals: misdemeanor and Level 6 felony records are permanently sealed under IC 35-38-9-6(b), while records of more serious felonies "remain public records" under IC 35-38-9-7(b), marked as expunged. The state product is a name and date of birth search of Indiana records whose completeness the State Police say depends on county participation, returning "ON FILE", "INCONCLUSIVE RESULTS" or "NO RECORDS FOUND". And the courts are ninety-two county chapters across ninety-one circuits, with the expungement petition filed in the county of conviction and the order forwarded to the State Police Expungement Section by the local court. Our Indiana work keeps the repository product, the fingerprint product and the county court record apart, checks whether an expungement order actually reached the repository, and treats an inconclusive state return as the open question it is rather than as a clearance.

Sources

• Indiana Code 2026, Title 22, Article 2, Chapter 17, Use of Criminal History Information in Employment, including the political subdivision preemption at IC 22-2-17-3 and the employer evidentiary limit at IC 22-2-17-4
• Indiana Code 2026, Title 5, Article 2, Chapter 4, IC 5-2-4-1(1), the definition of criminal history information adopted by IC 22-2-17-1, and the repealed chapters IC 5-2-5 and IC 5-2-5.1
• Indiana Code 2026, Title 24, Article 4, Chapter 18, Criminal History Providers, IC 24-4-18-1 to -8
• Indiana Code 2026, Title 24, Article 5, Chapter 0.5, IC 24-5-0.5-4, the deceptive act remedy including the five hundred dollar minimum
• Indiana Code 2026, Title 24, Article 15, the Indiana Consumer Data Protection Act, including IC 24-15-1-1 and the employment exclusion at IC 24-15-2-8
• Indiana Code 2026, Title 24, Article 4, Chapter 21 and Chapter 22, low THC hemp extract, and IC 35-48-1.1-27 for the definition
• Indiana Code 2026, Title 35, Article 38, Chapter 9, expungement, IC 35-38-9-0.5 to -12, including the sealing and marking tracks and IC 35-38-9-10
• Indiana Code 2026, Title 10, Article 13, Chapter 3, criminal history information, including the repository at IC 10-13-3-24, the limited criminal history definition at -11, the access rules at -27, the national check at -28, the fees at -30 and the subject access right at -31
• Indiana Code 2026, Title 33, Article 33, the ninety-two county court chapters, including IC 33-33-71-1 for St. Joseph County and IC 33-33-15-1 and IC 33-33-58-2 for the seventh judicial circuit
• Indiana Code 2026, Title 33, Article 29, IC 33-29-1-1, the standard superior court article that IC 33-33 may disapply
• Indiana Code 2026, Title 33, Article 35, city and town courts, including establishment and abolition by ordinance at IC 33-35-1-1 and jurisdiction at IC 33-35-2-3
• Indiana Code 2026, Title 16, Article 42, Chapter 19, the Legend Drug Act, read to check a citation
• Indiana State Police, Get Limited Criminal History, the product description, the three result codes and the county participation statement
• Indiana State Police, Get National Criminal History, the INkless fingerprinting network and the National Full Criminal History description
• Indiana State Police, Expunge Criminal History, the central repository statement and the local court forwarding step
• Route note: iga.in.gov renders an empty shell to a reader proxy and its search interface is a JavaScript application, but the Code is served as static files at https://iga.in.gov/ic/, one file per title within a year folder (https://iga.in.gov/ic/2026/Title_35.html is one of them), and was read directly for the 2026 Code, in full, for Titles 5, 10, 16, 22, 24, 33 and 35. That route was found by reading the application bundle rather than by guessing, and it replaced Internet Archive replay, whose Indiana Code coverage is limited to a 2019 Title 35 PDF and a scattering of chapter PDFs. No Indiana case law was read: no case-law source was reachable from this environment, and the session search budget was exhausted. The State Police pages were read live from www.in.gov.

Last reviewed 23 September 2026. This page is checked on a quarterly cycle, because state screening law changes every legislative session. Nothing here is legal advice; see the terms of use.