Arrest Records Lookup: Vermilion Parish, Louisiana

When you need to pull an arrest record for Vermilion Parish, your two primary sources are the Vermilion Parish Sheriff’s Office — which maintains booking records and runs the parish jail — and the Vermilion Parish Clerk of Court, which holds the court-side docket for criminal cases filed in the 15th Judicial District. The Sheriff’s Office records portal at Prisoners is the fastest online path for booking data. The Clerk of Court at Vermilionclerk handles criminal case filings; the Clerk accepts cash, check, credit card, or debit card for processing fees.

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

If your person has a history in other states

The Vermilion Parish Sheriff’s Office and Clerk of Court only hold records originating in this parish — cases filed in other Louisiana parishes or in other states won’t appear in their systems. A nationwide search tool may surface records from jurisdictions that don’t publish online, including federal cases and records predating a portal’s online window. 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 Vermilion Parish

Vermilion Parish has no single portal that combines booking data with court dispositions. The Sheriff’s Office records the arrest and runs the jail; the Clerk of Court records what happens in court afterward. You may need both to get the full picture on a name.

Sheriff’s Office — booking records and prisoner search. The Vermilion Parish Sheriff’s Office maintains an online prisoner search at Prisoners. This is the county-official source for current and recent booking data. The Sheriff’s administrative office hours are 8:00 AM–4:00 PM; the Investigations division runs 8:30 AM–4:30 PM. Reach the main line at (337) 893-0871. The Sheriff’s Office also offers a mobile app — search “Vermilion Parish Sheriff” — for on-the-go access to records and prisoner information.

Clerk of Court — criminal case docket. Court filings for felony and misdemeanor cases in Vermilion Parish are held by the Clerk of Court at Vermilionclerk. The criminal records section is at Criminal. The Clerk also maintains traffic citations at Traffic. Payments for certified copies are accepted by cash, check, credit card, or debit card. Parking at the Clerk’s office is limited — plan accordingly if you’re visiting in person.

State Clerk of Court portal — statewide fallback. The Louisiana Secretary of State hosts a statewide Clerk of Court case search that covers participating parishes. It is a state-level fallback, not a replacement for Vermilion Parish’s own Clerk portal — coverage and update frequency vary by parish. Use it to cross-check or to search for cases that may have been filed in an adjacent parish.

Louisiana DOC — state prison records. If a sentence resulted in state prison time rather than parish jail, the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections maintains an inmate lookup at Inmate Information. Parish jail records and DOC records are separate systems; a person may appear in one but not the other.

Records request by phone or mail. For certified copies of arrest records or incident reports, call the Vermilion Parish Sheriff’s Office at (337) 893-0871 to confirm current request procedures and any applicable fees before visiting or mailing a request. The Vermilion Parish Courthouse can also be reached at (337) 893-0871; a second courthouse number — (337) 788-8881 — appears in published records but is pending verification, so confirm before relying on it.

Are Vermilion Parish arrest records public?

“All books, records, writings, accounts, letters and letter books, maps, drawings, photographs, cards, tapes, recordings, memoranda, and papers” held by public bodies are presumptively open — that is the plain language of Louisiana’s public-records framework. Under La. R.S. 44:1, arrest records maintained by the Vermilion Parish Sheriff’s Office and the Clerk of Court are public records, available to any person who requests them.

Arrest records and conviction records are both public, but they live in different systems. An arrest record is generated by the Sheriff at booking — it documents that a person was taken into custody and charged. A conviction record is generated by the court after a guilty plea or verdict — it lives in the Clerk of Court’s docket. A person can have an arrest record with no corresponding conviction if charges were dismissed, refused by the prosecutor, or resolved by acquittal.

Several categories of records are withheld or redacted under Louisiana law. Juvenile records are not public — cases involving persons under 17 are handled in a separate system and are generally sealed by statute. Records that have been successfully expunged are removed from public view, though law enforcement retains access. Victim-identifying information in certain case types — sexual assault, domestic violence — may be redacted from copies provided to the public. Ongoing investigations may also have portions withheld if disclosure would compromise the case.

Booking photos (mugshots) taken by the Vermilion Parish Sheriff’s Office are generally treated as public records under the same framework. For the Sheriff’s current release policy on specific booking photos, call (337) 893-0871 — the policy isn’t detailed on the public-facing website.

What’s in a Vermilion Parish arrest record?

A booking sheet from the Vermilion Parish Sheriff’s Office and a criminal docket entry from the Clerk of Court contain overlapping but distinct information — pulling both gives you the most complete picture.

The Sheriff-side booking record typically includes: the subject’s full legal name, date of birth, and physical descriptors; the booking date and time; the arresting agency (VPSO, a municipal department such as the Erath Police Department, or Louisiana State Police); the charges as listed at booking, with statute citations; bond amount set at first appearance; and a booking photo. The prisoner search at Prisoners displays current and recent bookings. Older records that predate the portal’s online window may require a direct records request to the Sheriff’s Office.

The Clerk-side docket entry — accessible through Criminal — adds the case number assigned by the 15th Judicial District Court, the formal charges as filed by the District Attorney (which may differ from booking charges), all docket events and hearing dates, the attorney of record for the defense, and the disposition: guilty plea, conviction after trial, dismissal, acquittal, or nolle prosequi. Disposition data is the most important field for a records check, because it tells you whether the arrest resulted in a conviction.

Arrest records in Louisiana carry no automatic expiration. A booking that occurred decades ago remains retrievable through the Clerk’s docket and through the Sheriff’s records division, subject only to expungement orders. The Vermilion Parish Courthouse holds the physical case files for the 15th Judicial District; older paper records that haven’t been digitized require an in-person or written request. The eClerks LA system, accessible through the Vermilion Clerk of Court’s website, provides online access to criminal records and background check data for cases that have been entered into the electronic system.

One practical note: the booking charge and the filed charge sometimes differ. Prosecutors may reduce, add, or substitute charges after reviewing the case. Always check both the Sheriff’s booking record and the Clerk’s docket to see what was actually charged and how it resolved.

How to expunge an arrest record in Vermilion Parish

Louisiana’s expungement statute took its current shape over several legislative sessions, and the waiting periods are measured from the end of the sentence — not from the arrest date or the conviction date.

The controlling authority is La. Code Crim. Proc. art. 971, which governs expungement of criminal records statewide. A petition to expunge is filed at the District Court through the Clerk of Court for the parish where the case originated — for Vermilion Parish cases, that means filing with the Vermilion Parish Clerk of Court at Vermilionclerk.

Arrests that did not result in conviction — dismissed charges, acquittals, and cases where the prosecutor refused to charge — carry no elapsed-time waiting period. You can petition immediately after the case closes. An arrest that was simply never prosecuted requires waiting for the prescriptive period on the underlying offense to run before petitioning. These non-conviction expungements are among the most straightforward to pursue and are worth filing as soon as the case resolves.

Misdemeanor convictions become eligible five years after completion of the sentence, probation, or parole — whichever ends last. Felony convictions require ten years from the same endpoint. A first marijuana-possession conviction has a shorter path: eligibility begins ninety days after sentence completion.

One specific non-conviction does carry a waiting period: a DWI resolved through pretrial diversion requires five years from the date of arrest before a petition can be filed. Additionally, a DWI dismissal under Code of Criminal Procedure article 894 is available only once in a ten-year period, and an article 893 felony dismissal is available only twice in a person’s lifetime — those are limits on the dismissal mechanism itself, not on expungement frequency.

To file, you’ll need a Petition to Expunge, which the Clerk of Court can provide. The filing fee applies at the Clerk’s office; the Clerk accepts cash, check, credit card, or debit card. If you cannot afford the fee, ask the Clerk about an indigency waiver — the statute provides a path for fee waiver based on financial hardship.

Self-petitioning is legally permitted. Many people handle straightforward non-conviction expungements without an attorney. For felony convictions or cases with complicated histories, an attorney familiar with the 15th Judicial District can reduce the risk of procedural errors. Find a licensed Louisiana attorney through the Louisiana State Bar Association attorney search, or locate a public defender through the Louisiana Public Defender Board.

After a successful expungement, the record is removed from public view. Law enforcement agencies retain access to the sealed record. It will not appear in the Clerk’s public docket or in the Sheriff’s public prisoner search. The practical effect is that the arrest no longer shows in standard public-records searches.

Frequently asked questions about Vermilion Parish arrest records

Where do I pay bond for someone arrested in Vermilion Parish, and who sets the amount?

Bond is set by a judge at first appearance, typically within 24 hours of booking. The Vermilion Parish Sheriff’s Office handles bond payments for the parish jail — call (337) 893-0871 to confirm the current amount and accepted payment methods before going in person. The Sheriff’s Bonds and Fines line uses the same number. If a commercial bail bond is needed, the Louisiana Department of Insurance licenses bail bondsmen statewide; verify a bondsman’s license through the Louisiana Department of Insurance bail bond program before signing any agreement.

How do I find out who set bond and what the current bond amount is for a Vermilion Parish case?

The bond amount and the judge who set it appear in the Clerk of Court’s criminal docket for the case. Search the docket at Criminal using the defendant’s name or case number. The Sheriff’s prisoner search at Prisoners may also display the bond amount for current bookings. If neither source shows a current figure — which can happen when a bond has been modified after initial setting — call the Sheriff’s Office at (337) 893-0871 to confirm the live amount.