The California Department of Justice offers an automated service for criminal background checks that individuals may use for employment, certifications, visa, out of the country adoptions and the likes.  Please note that access to criminal records in California is restricted by law; it cannot be released to the public and is reserved for legitimate law enforcement purposes and maybe accessed only by authorized applicant agencies. However, an individual can request for a copy of his or her own criminal history record; any third party requests will not be entertained by the California DOJ. All applicants must submit their fingerprint images and pay a processing fee amounting to $25 to the Department of Justice.  They can opt to submit their request electronically or manually since forms are readily downloadable from the website maintained by the Office of the General Attorney (http://ag.ca.gov).  For manual submissions, the properly filled-out forms along with the payment should be sent to:

California Department of Justice
Record Review Unit
P.O. Box 903417
Sacramento, CA 94203-4170

Applicants are highly encouraged to view the Office of the General Attorney‘s website for complete instructions on how to procure an individual criminal history record.