Reviewed and updated October 9, 2026 by the SearchSystems.net editorial team. The arrest counts are the ones each agency reported to the FBI, as the FBI held them on October 8, 2026. The jail figures are from the Vera Institute of Justice's Incarceration Trends data. Every office link was opened and checked against the office's own site between September 23, 2026 and September 27, 2026.
Denver County, Colorado, has about 729,000 residents (2024 Census Bureau estimate), and arrests there are reported to the FBI by one city agency and two campus, state or other agencies. An arrest leaves the same records whoever makes it: the arresting agency's report, the record of anyone held at the county jail, and, if the District Attorney files charges, a case in the Denver County District Court. This guide says who keeps each one, what it costs and who may see it, with the arrest counts each agency reported.
This guide covers who makes arrests, how many arrests, booking and the jail, finding an arrest, copies, cities and common questions.
Related guides: Denver County public records, Colorado arrest records, Colorado inmate search and Colorado criminal records.
Who Makes Arrests in Denver County
The FBI lists one city in Denver County with a reporting agency of its own:
- Denver, 729,019 residents: 23,766 arrests reported for 2025.
A city on that list is reported separately whether the officers are the city's own or the sheriff's under contract; the FBI's list does not say which.
The FBI's agency list also places these agencies in Denver County: the Regional Transportation District (other); Auraria Higher Education Center (campus police).
How Many Arrests Denver Reports
Each agency reports its arrests to the FBI by month, and the FBI publishes them on the Crime Data Explorer. These are the full-year totals, all offenses, as the FBI held them on October 8, 2026; a year with months missing or not reported is left out.
- Denver: 23,766 for 2025, 24,357 for 2024, 22,185 for 2023, 19,560 for 2022, 18,659 for 2021 and 20,044 for 2020.
Denver's 23,766 arrests in 2025 were down 2.4 percent from 24,357 in 2024.
Through August 2026, Denver reported 16,365 arrests, against 16,315 in the same months of 2025.
Booking: Where People Arrested in Denver County Are Held
The county jail is where a person arrested in Denver County and kept in custody ends up, whichever agency made the arrest, though a city department may hold someone in its own cells first and a person cited and released at the scene is never booked. The jail's record of each person held, with the charges, is a public record of the arrest, and once the person is released or sentenced the record continues in the court file.
On an average day in 2025 the jail held about 920 people, down from about 1,900 in 2019. Its rated capacity in 2025 was 2,417 beds, and it ran at 38 percent of it that year. The figures are from the Vera Institute of Justice's Incarceration Trends data.
SearchSystems opened and checked the custody page of the sheriff's office at denvergov.org/inmatesearch (page title: Inmate Search | City and County of Denver), which answered when SearchSystems opened it on September 23, 2026.
That page is the place to look for someone who was booked recently; a person cited and released at the scene, or held only a few hours by a city department, will not be on it.
A person sentenced to prison serves the sentence in a facility of the Colorado Department of Corrections, whose inmate locator is at cdoc.colorado.gov.
How to Find Out About an Arrest in Denver County
Whether someone was arrested in Denver County, and what came of it, shows up in three places: the custody page of the sheriff's office described above, for anyone booked into the county jail; the case index of the Denver County District Court, kept by the clerk of the combined court, which shows whether charges were filed and the next court date; the District Attorney, which decides whether an arrest becomes a charge (its page is at denverda.org).
The court records page SearchSystems verified for the county, at public.denvercountycourt.org (page title: DCC PublicPortal), phone 720-865-8259, belongs to a lower court, not to the Denver County District Court.
Colorado is one of the states that lets anyone look up another person's statewide criminal history: the state runs an online name-based criminal history check open to the public, through the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. That record shows what agencies reported to the state, which is wider than one county's court index but can lag it.
Getting a Copy of an Arrest Record in Denver County
An arrest report belongs to the agency whose officer wrote it, and that agency releases it, not the court or the jail. Under the Colorado Open Records Act the agency must answer within 3 working days, extendable to 7 when there are extenuating circumstances, and it may charge research and retrieval time after the first hour, plus copying.
- An arrest in Denver: the records unit of the agency that reports for that city.
- An arrest by the Regional Transportation District or Auraria Higher Education Center: the records office of the agency involved.
- A defendant who has been charged gets the report through the case: the District Attorney handles discovery for pending cases.
- The court file of a case that was filed: in the Denver County District Court it is kept by the clerk of the combined court. The court records page SearchSystems verified for the county, at public.denvercountycourt.org, phone 720-865-8259, is a lower court's.
- Any county record that is not posted: the county records request page SearchSystems verified is at denvergov.org (page title: Request Public Records | City and County of Denver).
- Your own statewide record: a name-based or fingerprint-based request to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
Cities in Denver County: Who Reports the Arrests
The FBI lists a separate arrest reporting agency for Denver, the one city in Denver County.
Wherever in the county the arrest happens, a person kept in custody goes to the county jail and the case goes to the Denver County District Court.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many arrests are made in Denver County each year?
Denver reported 23,766 arrests to the FBI for 2025, its latest full year.
How do I find out if someone is in jail in Denver County?
Look on the custody page of the sheriff's office at denvergov.org/inmatesearch. It covers people booked into the county jail.
Where are people arrested in Denver County booked?
Those kept in custody go to the county jail; a person cited and released at the scene is not booked.
Are arrest records public in Denver County?
The court files of criminal cases are public, and so is the statewide criminal history kept by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation: the state runs an online name-based criminal history check open to the public. The arrest report itself is released by the agency that made the arrest, under the Colorado Open Records Act.
How do I get a copy of an arrest report in Denver County?
From the agency that made the arrest: the sheriff's office or the city's police. Under the Colorado Open Records Act the answer is due within 3 working days, extendable to 7 when there are extenuating circumstances; the county records request page SearchSystems verified is at denvergov.org.
Is this the official Denver County website?
No. SearchSystems.net is an independent public records guide, online since 1997. It links to the official county, court and state offices described above and does not hold records, charge for them or take requests.