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

Who Makes Arrests in Owensboro

The FBI lists Owensboro with an arrest reporting agency of its own, filed as Owensboro Police Department. It reported 2,946 arrests for 2023, its latest complete year. 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 Daviess County Sheriff's Office is the county agency. It reported 1,514 arrests for 2025.

The FBI's agency list also places one more agency in Daviess County: Daviess County Public Schools (other).

How Many Arrests Owensboro 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.

• Owensboro: 2,946 for 2023, 3,344 for 2022, 3,710 for 2021, 3,414 for 2020 and 5,310 for 2019.

Owensboro's 2,946 arrests in 2023 were down 12 percent from 3,344 in 2022.

Across Daviess County, the two agencies with all twelve months of 2023 on file reported 4,623 arrests between them.

Booking: Where People Arrested in Owensboro Are Held

A person kept in custody after an arrest in Owensboro 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.

So far in 2026 the jail has held about 560 people on an average day, down from about 710 in 2019. Its rated capacity is 699 beds, and it is running at 80 percent of it. The figures are from the Vera Institute of Justice's Incarceration Trends data.

SearchSystems opened and checked the jail page of the Daviess County Sheriff's Office at dcsoky.gov (page title: Daviess County Sheriff's Office | Kentucky), phone 270-685-8444, 212 Saint Ann Street, Owensboro, KY 42303, which answered when SearchSystems opened it on September 24, 2026.

A sentence of more than a year is served in state prison; the Kentucky Department of Corrections lists its inmates at kool.corrections.ky.gov/.

How to Find Out About an Arrest in Owensboro

An arrest in Owensboro can be traced in two places, depending on where the case stands: the case index of the Daviess Circuit Court, which shows whether charges were filed and the next court date (the court records page SearchSystems verified is at kycourts.gov/Courts/County-Information/Pages/Daviess.aspx, phone 270-687-7329); the Commonwealth's Attorney, which decides whether an arrest becomes a charge (its page is at daviessky.org/elected-officials/county-attorney/civil, phone 270-685-8442).

Kentucky is one of the states that lets anyone look up another person's statewide criminal history: the Administrative Office of the Courts, not the state police, sells name-based criminal record reports to the public, for $25 a search, through the Kentucky Administrative Office of the Courts. 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 Owensboro

The report of an arrest is released by the agency that made it; the jail and the court hold their own records of the same event, but not the report. Under the Kentucky Open Records Act the agency must answer within 5 business days, and it may charge the actual cost of copying, 10 cents a page for standard copies.

• An arrest by the Owensboro police: the police records page SearchSystems verified at owensboro.org/departments/police/records_and_reports/index.php (page title: Owensboro KY), phone (270) 687-8845, which answered when SearchSystems opened it on September 26, 2026.
• An arrest by the Daviess County Sheriff's Office: ask its records unit, reached through the office at 270-685-8444.
• A defendant who has been charged gets the report through the case: the Commonwealth's Attorney, 270-685-8442, handles discovery for pending cases.
• The court file of a case that was filed: the Daviess Circuit Court, through the court records page at kycourts.gov, phone 270-687-7329.
• Your own statewide record: the same request described above, for your own name.

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

Frequently Asked Questions

How many arrests are made in Owensboro each year?

Owensboro reported 2,946 arrests to the FBI for 2023, its latest full year.

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

Ask the Daviess County Sheriff's Office at 270-685-8444; its jail page SearchSystems verified is at dcsoky.gov.

Where are people arrested in Owensboro booked?

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

Are arrest records public in Owensboro?

The court files of criminal cases are public, and so is the statewide criminal history kept by the Kentucky Administrative Office of the Courts: the Administrative Office of the Courts, not the state police, sells name-based criminal record reports to the public, for $25. The arrest report itself is released by the agency that made the arrest, under the Kentucky Open Records Act.

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

From the agency that made the arrest: the Owensboro police for its own arrests, the Daviess County Sheriff's Office for the sheriff's. Under the Kentucky Open Records Act the answer is due within 5 business days.

Is this the official Owensboro 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.