Decatur Arrest Records: Who Makes Arrests, Where People Are Booked and How to Get the Report

Who Makes Arrests in Decatur

The FBI lists Decatur with an arrest reporting agency of its own, filed as Decatur Police Department. It reported 4,029 arrests for 2025. A city is listed separately whether the officers are the city's own or the sheriff's under contract; the FBI's list does not say which.

Outside the city, the Macon County Sheriff's Office is the county agency. It reported 681 arrests for 2024.

The FBI's agency list also places these agencies in Macon County: the Decatur Park District and Norfolk Southern Railway in Macon County (other); Richland Community College and Millikin University (campus police).

How Many Arrests Decatur Reports

The FBI publishes every agency's monthly arrest counts 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.

• Decatur: 4,029 for 2025, 4,160 for 2024, 3,544 for 2023, 3,418 for 2022 and 3,137 for 2021.

Decatur's 4,029 arrests in 2025 were down 3.1 percent from 4,160 in 2024.

Through August 2026, Decatur reported 2,217 arrests, against 2,942 in the same months of 2025.

Across Macon County, the three agencies with all twelve months of 2025 on file reported 4,153 arrests between them.

Booking: Where People Arrested in Decatur Are Held

A person kept in custody after an arrest in Decatur is held at the county jail, whichever agency made the arrest, apart from the short stay some city departments' own holding cells allow; a person cited and released at the scene is not booked at all. The jail's record of each person held, with the charges, is a public record of the arrest, and the court file takes over from there.

On an average day in 2023 the jail held about 320 people, up from about 300 in 2019. Its rated capacity in 2023 was 425 beds, and it ran at 76 percent of it that year. The figures are from the Vera Institute of Justice's Incarceration Trends data.

SearchSystems opened and checked the jail page of the Macon County Sheriff's Office at sheriff-macon-il.us/corrections (page title: Corrections | Macon County Sheriff), which answered when SearchSystems opened it on September 23, 2026.

A sentence of more than a year is served in state prison; the Illinois Department of Corrections lists its inmates at idoc.illinois.gov/offender/inmatesearch.html.

How to Find Out About an Arrest in Decatur

Whether someone was arrested in Decatur, and what came of it, shows up in two places: the case index of the Circuit Court of Macon County, which shows whether charges were filed and the next court date (the court records page SearchSystems verified is at apps.ilsos.gov/isairad/maconsrch.jsp); the State's Attorney, which decides whether an arrest becomes a charge (its page is at maconcounty.illinois.gov/departments/states-attorney, phone (217) 624-4312).

Illinois is one of the states that lets anyone look up another person's statewide criminal history: conviction information is public under the Uniform Conviction Information Act, through the Illinois State Police. 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 Decatur

An arrest report belongs to the agency whose officer wrote it, and that agency releases it, not the court or the jail. Under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act the agency must answer within 5 business days, with one 5-day extension, and it may charge copying only after the first 50 pages.

• An arrest by the Decatur police: the police records page SearchSystems verified at decaturil.gov/163/FOIA-Request (page title: FOIA Request | Decatur, IL), phone 217-450-2297, Monday through Friday 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., which answered when SearchSystems opened it on September 25, 2026.
• An arrest by the Macon County Sheriff's Office: ask its records unit.
• A defendant who has been charged gets the report through the case: the State's Attorney, (217) 624-4312, handles discovery for pending cases.
• The court file of a case that was filed: the Circuit Court of Macon County, through the court records page at apps.ilsos.gov/isairad/maconsrch.jsp.
• Your own statewide record: a name-based or fingerprint-based request to the Illinois State Police.

The Macon County guide covers every agency in the county: Macon County arrest records.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many arrests are made in Decatur each year?

Decatur reported 4,029 arrests to the FBI for 2025, its latest full year.

How do I find out if someone is in jail in Decatur?

Ask the Macon County Sheriff's Office; its jail page SearchSystems verified is at sheriff-macon-il.us/corrections.

Where are people arrested in Decatur booked?

Those kept in custody go to the county jail, run by the Macon County Sheriff's Office; a person cited and released at the scene is not booked.

Are arrest records public in Decatur?

The court files of criminal cases are public, and so is the statewide criminal history kept by the Illinois State Police: conviction information is public under the Uniform Conviction Information Act. The arrest report itself is released by the agency that made the arrest, under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.

How do I get a copy of an arrest report in Decatur?

From the agency that made the arrest: the Decatur police for its own arrests, the Macon County Sheriff's Office for the sheriff's. Under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act the answer is due within 5 business days, with one 5-day extension.

Is this the official Decatur website?

No. SearchSystems.net is an independent public records guide, online since 1997. It links to the official city, county, court and state offices described above and does not hold records, charge for them or take requests.