Every five seconds, police arrest someone in the United States. That’s about 7 million arrests, most of which are for low-level, nonviolent offenses. Black and Latinx people make up a disproportionately high percentage of those totals.

This guide of Vera-verified information and resources was created to help people understand their rights before an arrest and to help the loved ones of people who have been arrested navigate the immediate aftermath. It also provides quick facts about how to build public safety and prevent crime.

READ MORE: Legal Resources for Immigrants, Advocates, Journalists, and Lawmakers

Know Your Rights When Interacting with Law Enforcement

The best way to protect your rights during an arrest is to be aware of them. The ACLU’s guides for different interactions detail your rights and what to expect in the event of an arrest.

• If you are stopped on the street or in a car, or if law enforcement officers come to your door, this guide explains how to reduce the chance of a situation escalating and includes a rundown of your rights in each type of situation.
• If you are protesting and are concerned about a potential arrest, this guide offers details on your rights at public events as an organizer, observer, or protestor.

If you are arrested, you have the right to remain silent. Attorneys and advocates encourage you to exercise that right, stressing that there is “nothing to gain” from talking to law enforcement officers without a lawyer present.

The Constitution guarantees the right to an attorney for anyone accused of a crime, even if they cannot afford to pay for one. Public defenders work to bring a measure of justice to the legal system. Public defender offices can sometimes also offer more than just an attorney for a single criminal case, like providing investigators, social workers, and attorneys to help address their clients’ immigration, housing, or family court needs.

• If you or someone you love has been arrested and cannot afford private counsel, your local jurisdiction will often assign a public defender to your case. You can contact your local public defender office to ask for more information. FindLaw’s database is a useful place to start.

What Happens After an Arrest

While not every jurisdiction moves someone who has been arrested through the legal system in the same way, New York City’s procedures illustrate the process used in many jurisdictions nationwide:

1. Officers detain the person they have arrested at the police precinct.
2. The person accused of a crime is transferred to a county or regional courthouse before their first court appearance.
3. There, they meet with a public or private defense attorney.
4. At arraignment—the first court hearing—they are formally charged and enter their plea (guilty or not guilty) into the official record.

At the same hearing, the judge decides what conditions the accused must face as they await their trial. If the judge imposes bail, the accused person is sent to jail until they, someone they know, or a bail bond agent can put up bail money. If the judge imposes some other form of pretrial supervision—including mandated services, such as a supervised release program—the court will make arrangements for it. And, if the judge rules that a person be released on their own recognizance, court officers will undo their handcuffs, and they are free to walk out of the courtroom.

• To learn more about what happens following an arrest, Vera’s explainer details each step in this process.

How to Find Someone After They’ve Been Arrested

Each jurisdiction handles the logistics of an arrest differently. Here’s how to find someone who is being held in custody after an arrest in some major cities:

• In Chicago, use the database created by the police department and the mayor’s office.
• In Houston, use the Harris County Sheriff’s Office database.
• In Los Angeles, use the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department website.
• In New Orleans, use the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office website.
• In New York, call 311 to locate someone in police custody. If someone has been in custody for more than 24-to-48 hours or has seen a judge already, you can locate them through the Department of Correction. You can also use the state’s court system search tool.
• In Philadelphia, use the city’s Incarcerated Person Locator.
• In Phoenix, use the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office website.
• In San Francisco, use the San Francisco Sheriff’s Office’s website.

If you know someone who has been arrested in a jurisdiction not listed above, try starting with the town, county, or city website or call the sheriff’s office or police department.

How We Can Build Safety Beyond Arrests

Every single person has a right to feel safe in their community. But for too long, we have turned to police, jails, and prisons as the sole providers of public safety. The costs of this failure—social and economic alike—are enormous.

Safety can’t simply be policed into existence. Lawmakers and leaders need to prioritize investments in affirmative solutions that build community, maintain people’s dignity, and prevent crime before it happens, rather than simply respond in its aftermath. Fortunately, we have proven tools that can do exactly that. These evidence-based tactics are already being used in communities across the country to decrease crime and build safety.

1. Civilian crisis response teams. Not every 911 call requires a police officer with a gun. In fact, no more than 7 percent of 911 calls are about a violent crime, and a substantial proportion of 911 calls do not require a police response at all. Police are generally not trained to respond safely and effectively to mental- and behavioral-health-related calls, and their presence can heighten the distress of someone in crisis. Police responses in these instances can lead to the arrest of someone who needs support, not incarceration, and—in tragic cases—have resulted in police shootings.
   
   Requiring police to respond to mental health needs also takes officers away from other duties. Many towns and cities are making smarter, data-informed choices about emergency response. Denver, Colorado; Minneapolis, Minnesota; New York City; Shreveport, Louisiana; St. Petersburg, Florida; and other cities have all implemented alternatives to police responses that are tailored to address common 911 calls that do not require law enforcement. Programs like these can handle a large portion of 911 calls and have been proven to reduce crime.
2. Neighborhood safety offices. Offices of violence prevention are government institutions that partner or contract with community members and organizations to reduce violence. They do this by building trusting relationships in their communities and working to prevent or intervene in cycles of violence. These offices have shown great promise in reducing violent crime. Richmond, California’s Office of Neighborhood Safety, one of the first such offices in the country, was founded in 2007. At the time, the city had one of the highest homicide rates in the state. During the first 15 years of its operations, homicides in Richmond dropped 62 percent and firearm assaults by 79 percent. If adequately resourced and empowered, these agencies can transform our public safety systems, serving as the government anchor for an ecosystem of community-centered strategies.
3. Support services. Incarceration is expensive, can increase the likelihood of future crime, and fails to address issues that regularly bring people in contact with law enforcement, like mental health needs or homelessness. Instead, officials should be investing in supportive housing and health care programs, which cost less than incarceration while delivering stability for people who may otherwise be caught in cycles of arrest and incarceration.
4. Housing and support for people leaving jails and prisons. Investing in services and support for people returning from incarceration dramatically reduces their likelihood of rearrest. Promising data from California, for instance, shows that 45 percent of people who left the state’s prisons between 2017 and 2018 were convicted for a new offense within three years; the reconviction rate for those who participated in community-based services (as part of a diversion or reentry program) was just 15 percent (though not all participants had been out for the full three years). Housing and transit access are particularly important in preparing people for success after leaving incarceration.
5. Eliminating low-level traffic stops. Police interactions often begin on the road. However, low-level traffic stops that have nothing to do with public safety—like those for tinted windows or expired tags—are an ineffective way to keep roads safe. And though they’re a substantial percentage of all traffic stops (in Philadelphia, eliminating non-safety traffic stops contributed to a 49 percent drop in stops overall), they rarely turn up weapons. They can also lead to people of color being pulled over at disproportionately high rates. At least 12 state and local governments have passed policies to limit stops unrelated to safety, including California, Illinois, New York, Oregon, and Virginia. More than 20 jurisdictions have limited these stops by police order or prosecutorial policy.

Leaders who are serious about building safety in their communities can turn to these proven solutions to do so. Continuing to pour billions of dollars into law enforcement is a failure of both imagination and policy.