An arrest order is simply a judicial document that authorizes the police to detain a person for questioning, present him/her in front of the court for a bail hearing, and face trial for crimes committed.
Although the judiciary issues a warrant at the sole discretion of a criminal court’s sitting magistrate in Lafayette County, LA, the police department gets the ball rolling by making a formal request for a warrant.
If the Sherriff’s Department has probable cause to suspect an individual in a felony or misdemeanor, a representative of the law enforcement agency approaches the court with a written statement explaining the probable cause for the crime and for an individual’s involvement in the occurrence.
Any available witness testimony and evidence are crucial at this point as they will be closely analyzed before an arrest order is issued. In most cases, the judge will only consider the writ for the issuance of a warrant; however, the magistrate may ask to speak with the witnesses in some scenarios.
A signed document thus released which authorizes the police to arrest the person in whose name it has been issued carries the legal term- active arrest warrant. If this warrant is not used to make an arrest for some reason, it goes through a change in terminology and is then known as an outstanding arrest warrant, which is stored in the national database of crime.
All information on active and outstanding warrants issued in Lafayette County, Louisiana, can be found with the Sherriff’s Department. You can walk in to request a warrant search at 316 W Main St, Lafayette, Louisiana 70501. Call them ahead of your visit to know the procedure that you will be expected to follow before you are handed the arrest records. A less cumbersome approach is to fill the form given above for an online search.
Who should you contact if you need information on recent arrests and warrants in Lafayette Parish? (By 2021)
- To find out about Parish arrests, contact the local Jail-
- To request criminal records, including incident, accident and arrest report, contact the Sheriff’s Office-
- To learn more about arrest warrants, contact the Lafayette City Court-337-291-8720.
- To seek help offered to crime victims, contact the District Attorney’s Office- 337-232-5170.
- To obtain a criminal background check or judicial records, contact the Clerk of Court-337-291-6400.
Crime statistics of Lafayette Parish
Lafayette Parish’s yearly crime average busted through the 1700-incident level in 2018. Violent crimes led to the filing of nearly 300 of these complaints. Among these were 28 occurrences of rape and 242 cases of serious assault. Larceny-theft accounted for 919 of the property crime complaints, while burglaries accounted for 332 of them.
Older crime statistics
Lafayette’s annual crime average was observed to be at approximately 9000 incidents starting in 1999 up to 2008. Of these occurrences, more than 10% were of violent nature. The county’s ten-year crime figures were calculated to be around 92,000 incidents, with nearly 100 murders and 1100 sexual assaults included in these statistics.
However, the truly alarming numbers come from thefts and robberies, with an unprecedented average of almost 63,000 cases. All in all, nearly 24 criminal complaints are lodged in the area every day, and in the majority of these incidents, the victim is no more than a mile from his home or office when he/she is targeted.