Fingerprintable charges in Georgia are every felony arrest plus a specific list of misdemeanors named in O.C.G.A. 35-3-33: certain drug, property, weapons, sex, and gambling offenses, along with contributing to the delinquency of a child. If your charge falls in one of those categories, the arresting agency is required to take your prints during booking and send them to the Georgia Crime Information Center (GCIC), where they become part of a statewide criminal history record that can surface on background checks for years.
The Misdemeanors That Trigger Fingerprinting
Felonies are simple: every felony arrest requires fingerprinting, with no exceptions. Misdemeanors work differently. Rather than applying a general rule, O.C.G.A. 35-3-33 names specific offenses:
- Drug offenses involving dangerous drugs, marijuana, and narcotics
- Property crimes: dealing in stolen property, burglary tools, and worthless checks
- Weapons offenses involving firearms, dangerous weapons, and explosives
- Prostitution, pandering, and sexual offenses where children are victims
- Commercial gambling and dealing in gambling devices
- Contributing to the delinquency of a child
A disorderly conduct charge also triggers fingerprinting when the underlying conduct connects to one of these categories. If police book you for disorderly conduct but the arrest actually stems from drug activity, your prints still get taken.
The statute reaches further in a few specific situations. Fingerprinting applies to anyone arrested as a fugitive from justice, anyone confined to a prison or penal institution, career or habitual offenders, and anyone charged with an offense the Attorney General has designated as fingerprintable. That last category lets the state add offenses without a legislative change.
What Happens During Booking
The arresting agency collects your prints during booking, usually through an electronic livescan device rather than ink and paper. The digital prints go to the GCIC, which stores them in a centralized database and verifies they’re linked to the right person and the right charges. That verification matters. A mismatch can attach someone else’s history to your record, or yours to theirs.
Once stored, the prints become part of your criminal history record, which the GCIC maintains and shares with authorized agencies for investigations, background checks, and identification. Every criminal justice agency in Georgia is required to submit prints for qualifying arrests, along with descriptions, photographs when requested, and other identifying data.
Juveniles Are Covered by a Separate Statute
Fingerprinting for children falls under O.C.G.A. 15-11-702, which applies to any child charged with an offense that would be a felony if committed by an adult. The statute sets no minimum age. A 12-year-old charged with a felony-equivalent offense is subject to the same requirement as a 16-year-old. Children whose cases are transferred to adult court are also fingerprinted.
The difference is on the back end. If no delinquency petition is filed, the case is dismissed, or the child is found not delinquent, the child can apply to have the prints and photographs removed from the file and destroyed. When destruction is ordered, the court notifies the GCIC, and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation treats those records the way it handles restricted adult records.
Getting the Record Restricted After a Non-Conviction
Georgia does not offer traditional expungement. What it offers is “record restriction,” which limits who can see the arrest and disposition. For arrests that didn’t lead to a conviction, restriction is the most accessible path, but the process depends on when the arrest happened.
Arrests On or After July 1, 2013
If your arrest was on or after July 1, 2013, and the case resolved without a conviction, restriction is supposed to be automatic once the clerk of court or prosecutor enters the disposition into the GCIC database. No application required. In practice, dispositions sometimes aren’t entered promptly, and the arrest can stay visible on your record longer than it should. If your case was dismissed, ended in a not guilty verdict, or was never prosecuted, and the record still shows up, contact the prosecuting attorney’s office to push the disposition through.
Automatic restriction applies when charges were dismissed or nolle prossed, you were acquitted, the grand jury returned two no bills, or the arrest was never referred for prosecution and specified waiting periods have elapsed. Those waiting periods are two years for misdemeanors, four years for most felonies, and seven years for serious violent felonies or certain sexual offenses involving victims under 16.
Arrests Before July 1, 2013
Older arrests don’t get automatic restriction. You have to submit a written request to the arresting agency, which forwards it to the prosecuting attorney. The prosecutor has 90 days to decide whether the arrest qualifies under O.C.G.A. 35-3-37. If approved, the agency restricts the record within 30 days. If the prosecutor declines, you can file a civil action in superior court, but you’ll need to show by clear and convincing evidence that the arrest qualifies and that your privacy interest outweighs the public interest in keeping the record available.
Restriction When the Case Ended in a Conviction
Restriction after a conviction is harder to get, but there are limited pathways.
Misdemeanor Convictions
Under O.C.G.A. 35-3-37(j)(4), you can petition the sentencing court to restrict a misdemeanor conviction if you’ve completed your sentence, have gone at least four years without a conviction in any jurisdiction (excluding minor traffic offenses), and have no pending charges. There’s a lifetime cap of two misdemeanor restriction petitions. If a petition is denied, you can refile on the same conviction after two years.
Felony Convictions
Felonies require a pardon first. You apply to the State Board of Pardons and Paroles five years after completing your sentence, provided you’ve lived a law-abiding life during that period. With the pardon in hand, you then petition the original sentencing court. Some offenses are permanently excluded from restriction even with a pardon, including murder, armed robbery, kidnapping, rape, and several sexual offenses involving children.
Special Dispositions
Some sentences carry their own restriction routes. Conditional discharge for drug offenses under O.C.G.A. 16-13-2 allows the court to order restriction at sentencing, or restriction becomes available after you complete probation. The same applies to certain underage alcohol offenses sentenced under O.C.G.A. 3-3-23.1. Successful completion of a drug court, mental health court, or veterans treatment program followed by dismissal also qualifies.
What Restriction Actually Hides
A restricted record becomes invisible to most of the outside world. Private employers, landlords, and licensing boards running standard background checks won’t see it. But restriction is not erasure. Law enforcement agencies and judicial officials retain access for criminal investigations and law enforcement hiring decisions, and certain government entities can still view restricted records under circumstances laid out in O.C.G.A. 35-3-37.
This distinction catches people off guard. A restricted record can still surface in a future prosecution, and prosecutors and judges can reference it when setting bail or sentencing. It just won’t appear on a commercial background check.
Checking and Correcting Your GCIC Record
You have the right to inspect your own criminal history under O.C.G.A. 35-3-37 by submitting a written application to the GCIC. The center charges $10 if your fingerprint cards are already on file, or $25 if prints need to be taken at GBI headquarters.
If the record contains information that’s inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading, you can request a formal review. The GCIC is required to prescribe a process for inspecting and correcting records, and it verifies your identity through fingerprinting before granting access. Because disposition data often lags behind actual case outcomes, particularly for the post-2013 automatic restriction cases, checking your record periodically is worth the modest cost.
A Note for Non-Citizens
Non-citizens arrested for fingerprintable charges face risks the state system doesn’t measure. Several of the misdemeanor categories in O.C.G.A. 35-3-33, including dealing in stolen property, drug offenses, and worthless check charges, can qualify as crimes involving moral turpitude under federal immigration standards, which can make a non-citizen inadmissible.
Georgia record restriction does not cure this. Federal immigration authorities apply their own definition of “conviction” that can survive a state expungement or restriction. A conviction that disappears from a GCIC background check may still appear in federal databases and can still support removal, visa denial, or a bar to naturalization. If you’re not a citizen, treat the immigration dimension as seriously as the criminal one.