Emergencies: Call 911

Non-Emergency & General Inquiries: (902) 563-5151

Serving With You - For You

We serve and protect for safe and healthy communities through leadership, partnerships and engagement and we believe in maintaining law and order through: ethics and professionalism, accountability and transparency, inclusion and diversity, and collaboration and community spirit.

Records

The Records and Court Services Unit is responsible for maintaining and storing police information. A strong records system is important to provide our police service and other agencies with the ability to gather, analyze, protect, and share credible and timely information and intelligence to identify, investigate, prevent, deter, and defeat criminal activity.

Records personnel perform a wide variety of clerical tasks for the police service. The moment a person calls for police, a computerized police record is created; as police investigate, more information is gathered and placed within that record. This information is all used to determine whether or not a charge will be laid and if so, the information is all shared with the Court system. Any outcomes from Court are then recorded in the original police record as well as the national Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC) record so that monthly statistics can be sent to the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics at Statistics Canada.

Records staff are responsible for handling public requests for copies of police reports, criminal records, fingerprinting services, vulnerable sector checks, pardon requests and Freedom of Information Act requests. They also manage check-ins for Undertakings and the payment of certain Court Summonses.

Effective December 1st - January 3rd, Customer Service hours for the public are from 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM, Monday through Friday (excluding holidays).

*Payment: we can accept only debit card for payment at our counters. If required, cash payments can be arranged through the Customer Service Center at City Hall. 

Criminal Record Check

A Criminal Record Check can be conducted in person at the Myles F. Burke Police Headquarters (865 Grand Lake Road, Sydney).

One piece of government issued photo ID (ie. driver’s license) is required, in addition to a fee of $30 ($15 for students) payable at the time of application.

When requested for volunteer purposes, a Criminal Record Check is free if you provide a letter of confirmation from a not-for-profit agency confirming you as a volunteer.

Please allow 7 days to process a Criminal Record Check, after which time you can return to Police Headquarters for pick-up.