What Happens During Booking?

Booking records provide information about the people who are brought to jail. Because booking creates an official arrest record, arrested suspects who can post bail immediately often can't be released until after the booking process is complete. Even suspects who receive citations in lieu of being taken to jail often must go through a booking process within a few days of their arrest.

How Long Does Booking Take?

At its slowest, the booking process may take hours to complete. How long it takes depends on how many of the standard booking procedures are conducted (explained below), the number of arrestees being booked at the same time, and the number of police officers involved in the booking process.

10 Typical Steps in the Booking Process

Below are many of the usual procedures related to booking.

Step 1: Recording the Suspect's Name and Information

Recording the suspect's name, address, contact information, and other personal information is generally step one. Along with this information, the booking officer will enter the charges and statutory citations for the alleged crimes.

Step 2: Taking a Mug Shot

Booking involves taking a mug shot so police have a record of the suspect's physical appearance (eye color, race, tattoos) and height, along with the date, time, and place. Mug shots have other possible uses, as well. For instance, a mug shot can help to establish a suspect's physical condition at the time of arrest. The suspect's physical condition at arrest can be relevant to a claim of police use of unlawful force or to whether the suspect had been in an altercation before being arrested.

Step 3: Taking the Suspect's Clothing and Personal Property Into Custody

Jail officials may take the suspect's clothing and personal property and provide a jail uniform. Any articles taken from the suspect must be returned upon release from jail, unless they constitute contraband or evidence of a crime.

Example: Sticky Fingers is arrested for stealing a watch. The police seize the watch at the scene of the arrest. During the booking process, the police find a packet of illegal drugs and a stolen smartphone in Fingers's backpack. These items will not be returned to Fingers upon his release on bail. The watch and the smartphone are evidence of the crime of shoplifting. The drugs are illegal contraband; the police can take them regardless of whether drug charges are filed against Fingers.

Step 4: Taking Fingerprints

Fingerprints are a standard part of a booking record. The prints will typically be entered into a nationwide database maintained by the FBI and accessible to most local, state, and federal police agencies.

Step 5: Conducting a Full Body Search

Police officers routinely make cursory pat-down inspections at the time of arrest. Far more intrusive (and to many people, deeply humiliating) is the strip search that is often part of the booking process. To prevent weapons and drugs from entering a jail, booking officers frequently require arrestees to remove all their clothing and submit to a full body search.

Strip searches are typically legal even when the arrestee has been brought in for a relatively minor crime, such as an infraction, and even when there are no facts that would suggest that the arrestee is carrying a weapon or contraband. In a 2012 case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that such a search was legitimate even in the case of a person who was stopped for a traffic violation and arrested for failure to pay an outstanding fine (the fine had in fact been paid long ago). (Florence v. Bd. of Chosen Freeholders of Cty. of Burlington, 132 S. Ct. 1510 (2012).)

Step 6: Checking for Warrants

The booking officer checks to see if an arrestee has any other charges pending, ranging from unpaid parking tickets to murder charges in other states. Suspects with warrants pending are normally not released on bail.

Step 7: Health Screening

To protect the health and safety of jail officials and other inmates, the booking process may include X-rays (to detect tuberculosis) and blood tests (to detect sexually transmitted diseases, such as gonorrhea).

Step 8: Eliciting Information Relevant to Incarceration Conditions

To reduce the likelihood of violence and injuries, jail officials often ask arrestees about gang affiliations, former gang affiliations, and other outside relationships. Depending on the answers, an inmate may have to be placed in protective custody or housed in one section of a jail rather than another. Routine questioning along these lines might or might not constitute an "interrogation" that requires officers to give a Miranda warning to the suspect.

Information that suspects disclose in response to a booking officer's questions can be admissible in evidence under the routine-booking-question exception to Miranda. But in California, for one, incriminating information that an arrestee gives in response to a jailer's question about gang affiliation is generally inadmissible if the defendant hasn't been Mirandized. (Pennsylvania v. Muniz, 496 U.S. 582 (1990), People v. Elizalde, 61 Cal. 4th 523 (2015).)

Step 9: Taking a DNA sample

Suspects may be required to provide DNA samples that are entered in national DNA databases.

Step 10: Holding Cell or Release

Some suspects will be booked and released, whether on bail or their own recognizance. In other cases, a suspect may end up in a holding cell to await bail posting, a bail hearing, or arraignment.

Getting Legal Help

If you're suspected of committing a crime, contact a criminal defense attorney as soon as you can. At this early stage, a lawyer can protect your rights and help guide you through the complex criminal legal system. An attorney could argue for your release without bail or seek a reduced bail. Before answering any police questions, it's generally best to talk to an experienced criminal defense attorney or public defender.