Arrest Records for Catahoula Parish, Louisiana

When you need a Catahoula Parish arrest record, the trail runs through two distinct offices in Harrisonburg: the Catahoula Parish Clerk of Court, located at 301 Bushley St, Room 101, Harrisonburg, LA 71340, and the Catahoula Parish Sheriff’s Office, also at 301 Bushley St. The Clerk holds court filings — docket entries, charge sheets, and dispositions — while the Sheriff holds booking records and any mugshot documentation. The Clerk’s office is open Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and can be reached at 318-744-5497. No statewide online portal covers Catahoula Parish criminal case records; you will need to contact these offices directly or appear in person.

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

If your person has a history in other states

A Catahoula Parish records check only surfaces cases filed in this parish’s District Court — it cannot reach arrests made in other Louisiana parishes, neighboring states, or federal courts. A nationwide database search may help fill gaps that local portals often leave, and can surface records that pre-date the parish’s online window or involve name variants used in other jurisdictions. The preliminary scan is free; a full report requires creating an account.

Sponsored: Nationwide Criminal Background Check (we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you).

This tool is not a consumer reporting agency under the FCRA and may not be used to screen anyone for employment, housing, credit, or any other purpose covered by that law.

How to look up arrest records in Catahoula Parish

Louisiana’s Public Records Law took effect decades ago and has governed access to criminal records ever since — under it, arrest records generated by the Catahoula Parish Sheriff’s Office and the Seventh Judicial District Court are presumptively open to any member of the public. That presumption is what makes the pathways below available without requiring you to show a legal interest or explain your purpose.

Clerk of Court — court-side records. The Catahoula Parish Clerk of Court at 301 Bushley St, Room 101, Harrisonburg, LA 71340 is the custodian of all District Court criminal filings: indictments, bills of information, minute entries, and dispositions. The office is open Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Call 318-744-5497 to ask about the current records-request fee and whether the case you need is available for same-day inspection or requires a written request. Staff are generally helpful with locating documents — the Clerk’s office has a reputation for organized records and accessible staff. Confirm fees before visiting, as copy costs are set by the Clerk and can vary by page count.

Sheriff’s Office — booking records. Booking records, including the arrest date, charges at intake, and any booking photograph, are held by the Catahoula Parish Sheriff’s Office at 301 Bushley St, Harrisonburg, LA 71340. The main line is (318) 744-5411. Fingerprinting services — useful if you need a certified criminal history for your own record — run Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Plan your visit within those hours; arriving outside that window means rescheduling. The Sheriff’s Office administration fax is 318-744-6033 if you need to submit a written records request.

Louisiana Secretary of State — Clerk of Court locator. Louisiana does not operate a single statewide trial-court case search portal. The Secretary of State’s Clerk of Court directory can confirm contact details for the Catahoula Parish Clerk if you need to verify current information before calling or visiting. It does not display case records itself.

Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections — state prison records. If the person you are researching received a state sentence and is or was housed in a state facility, the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections maintains an inmate information lookup at doc.la.gov. Parish jail detainees — those held pretrial or serving short sentences locally — do not appear in the DOC system; for those, contact the Sheriff’s Office directly.

Practical note on courthouse logistics. Street parking is generally available around the courthouse square in Harrisonburg. The courthouse at 301 Bushley St houses both the Clerk’s office (Room 101) and the courtroom (3rd Floor). The hallway contains displays from the Catahoula Natural Museum, so the building is easy to navigate once inside. Confirm numbers and hours before visiting or calling, as schedules can shift around holidays.

Are Catahoula Parish arrest records public?

A judge’s name redacted from a protective order, a victim’s address stripped from a charging document — that is the narrow exception, not the rule.

Court filings and booking records are public records under La. R.S. 44:1, Louisiana’s Public Records Law. Any person may request them without stating a reason. The Catahoula Parish Clerk of Court and the Sheriff’s Office are both custodians of public records under that statute and must respond to written requests within a reasonable time.

The exceptions are specific and limited. Sealed or expunged records are removed from public view entirely — after a court grants an expungement under La. Code Crim. Proc. art. 971, the Clerk is required to seal the file and the Sheriff is required to remove the booking entry from public databases. Juvenile records are confidential by statute and are not accessible through the same public-records channels as adult arrests. Records involving ongoing investigations may be withheld temporarily if disclosure would compromise law enforcement operations, though this exception is narrow and time-limited.

Victim-protection redactions are the most common partial restriction you will encounter. When a case involves a sexual offense, domestic violence, or a minor victim, the victim’s name, address, and identifying details are routinely redacted from the publicly accessible version of the charging document. The charge itself, the defendant’s name, the case number, and the court’s docket entries remain public. You will see a complete record of what the defendant was charged with and how the case resolved — you simply will not see the victim’s personal information.

Booking photographs in Catahoula Parish are generally treated as public records under the same framework, but the Sheriff’s Office controls their release. Call the Sheriff’s Office at (318) 744-5411 to ask about the current mugshot release practice, as individual offices have discretion in how they fulfill photo requests.

What’s in a Catahoula Parish arrest record?

Look at the booking entry and the court docket as two separate documents — they live in different systems and show different things.

The booking entry is the Sheriff’s record. It captures the arrest date and time, the arresting agency (Sheriff’s Office, Louisiana State Police, or a municipal department), the charges as written at intake, the defendant’s physical description, and the booking photograph if one was taken. The charge language in a booking entry reflects what the arresting officer believed at the moment of arrest. It may differ from what the District Attorney ultimately filed in court.

The court docket is the Clerk’s record. It begins when the District Attorney files a bill of information or a grand jury returns an indictment. At the Catahoula Parish Clerk of Court, located at the Catahoula Parish Courthouse, 301 Bushley St, Harrisonburg, LA 71340, the docket entry will show the case number, the formal charge or charges, each court date, the attorney of record (defense counsel and the assigned prosecutor from the 7th Judicial District Attorney’s office), and — critically — the disposition.

The disposition is the final outcome of the case. It is the field that tells you whether the matter ended in a conviction, an acquittal, a dismissal, a nolle prosequi (the DA declined to prosecute), or a diversion agreement. The disposition appears in the Clerk’s minute entries, which are the official record of what happened at each court appearance. If you are checking a record to understand whether a case resulted in a conviction, the disposition field in the minute entry is the authoritative answer. A booking entry alone cannot tell you this — it shows only the arrest, not the outcome.

What you will not see in either system: sealed or expunged records (removed entirely), juvenile adjudications (held separately), and victim-identifying information in cases where redaction applies. Federal charges filed in the Western District of Louisiana also do not appear in the parish Clerk’s system — those require a separate search through the federal PACER system.

If the case you are researching is older and predates the Clerk’s digitized records, the physical file may exist only in paper form. Ask the Clerk’s office at 318-744-5497 whether older files are available for inspection and whether a copy fee applies.

How to expunge an arrest record in Catahoula Parish

Ninety days is the shortest wait Louisiana law allows for any expungement — that applies to a first marijuana-possession conviction under the statute that governs all expungements in this state.

Petitioning to seal an arrest record in Catahoula Parish is a routine legal procedure governed by La. Code Crim. Proc. art. 971. The petition is filed with the Catahoula Parish Clerk of Court at 301 Bushley St, Room 101, Harrisonburg, LA 71340, in the Seventh Judicial District Court. The Clerk’s office can confirm the current filing fee; an indigency waiver is available if you cannot afford the fee.

Non-conviction cases. An arrest that ended in dismissal, acquittal, or a refusal by the District Attorney to prosecute carries no elapsed-time waiting period. You can petition immediately after the case closes. This is the most straightforward expungement path — the record exists only because of the arrest, not because of any finding of guilt, and the statute treats it accordingly. An arrest that was never prosecuted at all requires waiting for the prescriptive period to run before filing.

Post-conviction cases. A conviction carries a waiting period measured from the completion of the sentence, probation, or parole — not from the conviction date itself. For a misdemeanor conviction, the wait is five years after completing the sentence. For a felony conviction, the wait is ten years. These are the timing rules the statute supplies; the court retains discretion in evaluating the petition, which is why post-conviction expungement is considered discretionary rather than automatic.

One non-conviction that does carry a hard wait: a DWI resolved through pretrial diversion requires five years from the date of arrest before you can petition, even though no conviction resulted.

What the petition process looks like. You file a Petition to Expunge with the Clerk, serve copies on the District Attorney’s office and the arresting agency (the Sheriff’s Office), and wait for any objection period to run. If no objection is filed and the court grants the petition, the Clerk seals the file and notifies the Sheriff and the Louisiana State Police to update their records. After sealing, the record is no longer visible to the public. Law enforcement agencies retain access to sealed records for their own purposes — the sealing removes public visibility, not the record’s existence in law enforcement systems.

You can file the petition yourself without an attorney. The Louisiana Public Defender may be able to assist if you qualify, and the Louisiana State Bar Association attorney finder can connect you with private counsel if you want legal representation. For cases with complicating factors — multiple charges, prior convictions, or a DWI diversion — attorney assistance is worth considering.

Frequently asked questions about Catahoula Parish arrest records

How do I find out what arrest records exist for a specific name in Catahoula Parish?

Contact the Catahoula Parish Clerk of Court at 318-744-5497 to request a name search of the District Court criminal docket. The Clerk’s office at 301 Bushley St, Room 101, Harrisonburg, is open Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. For booking-level records — arrest date, intake charges, booking photo — call the Catahoula Parish Sheriff’s Office at (318) 744-5411. Neither office has a public online case search; both requests are handled in person or by phone. If the person has lived in other parishes or states, a nationwide database search may surface records that the parish Clerk cannot show.

How do I get a Catahoula Parish arrest record expunged?

File a Petition to Expunge with the Catahoula Parish Clerk of Court under La. Code Crim. Proc. art. 971. If the arrest ended in dismissal or acquittal, no waiting period applies and you can petition immediately. A misdemeanor conviction requires five years after completing the sentence; a felony conviction requires ten years. A DWI resolved through pretrial diversion requires five years from the arrest date even without a conviction. The Clerk’s office at 318-744-5497 can confirm the current filing fee and whether an indigency waiver is available. The Louisiana Public Defender Board may assist eligible individuals, and the Louisiana State Bar Association can refer you to private counsel.