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

Who Makes Arrests in Paducah

The FBI lists Paducah with an arrest reporting agency of its own, filed as Paducah Police Department. It reported 2,494 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 McCracken County Sheriff's Office is the county agency. It reported 1,891 arrests for 2025.

The FBI's agency list also places these agencies in McCracken County: McCracken County Public Schools and Paducah Independent Schools (other).

How Many Arrests Paducah 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.

• Paducah: 2,494 for 2025, 2,996 for 2024, 3,602 for 2023, 3,274 for 2022, 2,341 for 2021 and 1,759 for 2020.

Paducah's 2,494 arrests in 2025 were down 17 percent from 2,996 in 2024.

Through August 2026, Paducah reported 1,670 arrests, against 1,649 in the same months of 2025.

Across McCracken County, the two agencies with all twelve months of 2025 on file reported 4,385 arrests between them.

Booking: Where People Arrested in Paducah Are Held

A person kept in custody after an arrest in Paducah 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 420 people on an average day, down from about 520 in 2019. Its rated capacity is 471 beds, and it is running at 90 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 McCracken County Sheriff's Office at mccrackencountyky.gov/mccracken-county-sheriff (page title: McCracken County Sheriff | McCracken County KY), which answered when SearchSystems opened it on September 30, 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 Paducah

Whether someone was arrested in Paducah, and what came of it, shows up in two places: the case index of the McCracken 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/McCracken.aspx, phone 270-575-7280); the Commonwealth's Attorney, which decides whether an arrest becomes a charge (its page is at commonwealthattorney-mccrackencounty.ky.gov/Pages/index.aspx, phone (270) 575-7402).

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 Paducah

An arrest report belongs to the agency whose officer wrote it, and that agency releases it, not the court or the jail. 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 Paducah police: the police department's page SearchSystems verified at paducahky.gov/departments/police/police-department-services (page title: Police Department Services | City of Paducah), phone 270-444-8550, Monday - Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., which answered when SearchSystems opened it on September 26, 2026.
• An arrest by the McCracken County Sheriff's Office: ask its records unit.
• A defendant who has been charged gets the report through the case: the Commonwealth's Attorney, (270) 575-7402, handles discovery for pending cases.
• The court file of a case that was filed: the McCracken Circuit Court, through the court records page at kycourts.gov, phone 270-575-7280.
• Your own statewide record: the same request described above, for your own name.

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

Frequently Asked Questions

How many arrests are made in Paducah each year?

Paducah reported 2,494 arrests to the FBI for 2025, its latest full year.

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

Ask the McCracken County Sheriff's Office; its jail page SearchSystems verified is at mccrackencountyky.gov.

Where are people arrested in Paducah booked?

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

Are arrest records public in Paducah?

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 Paducah?

From the agency that made the arrest: the Paducah police for its own arrests, the McCracken 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 Paducah 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.