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

Who Makes Arrests in Cambridge

The FBI lists Cambridge with an arrest reporting agency of its own, filed as Cambridge Police Department. It reported 1,872 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.

The FBI's agency list also places these agencies in Middlesex County: Regis College, Brandeis University, Bentley University, Framingham State University and eight more (campus police); the Middlesex County Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (state agency); the Middlesex County State Police (state police).

How Many Arrests Cambridge 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.

• Cambridge: 1,872 for 2025, 1,359 for 2024, 1,126 for 2023, 912 for 2022, 933 for 2021 and 871 for 2020.

Cambridge's 1,872 arrests in 2025 were up 38 percent from 1,359 in 2024.

Through July 2026, Cambridge reported 777 arrests, against 1,098 in the same months of 2025.

Across Middlesex County, the 51 agencies with all twelve months of 2025 on file reported 15,399 arrests between them.

Booking: Where People Arrested in Cambridge Are Held

A person kept in custody after an arrest in Cambridge 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 2025 the jail held about 710 people, down from about 790 in 2019. Its rated capacity in 2023, the last year with a capacity figure, was 1,464 beds, and it ran at 44 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 Middlesex Sheriff's Office, MA | Official Website at middlesexsheriff.org (page title: Middlesex Sheriff's Office, MA), which answered when SearchSystems opened it on September 30, 2026.

A sentence of more than a year is served in state prison; the Massachusetts Department of Correction lists its inmates at mass.gov/how-to/find-someone-housed-in-a-massachusetts-prison.

How to Find Out About an Arrest in Cambridge

For Cambridge the place to look is the case index of the Middlesex County Superior Court, which shows whether charges were filed and the next court date (the court records page SearchSystems verified is at mass.gov/search-court-dockets-calendars-and-case-information).

Statewide, masscourts.org is the Massachusetts Trial Court's free online case search.

Massachusetts is one of the states that lets anyone look up another person's statewide criminal history: open access iCORI lets anyone request limited conviction information by name, for $25 a search, through the Department of Criminal Justice Information Services. 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 Cambridge

An arrest report belongs to the agency whose officer wrote it, and that agency releases it, not the court or the jail. Under the Massachusetts Public Records Law the agency must answer within 10 business days, and it may charge staff time after the first four hours for towns and two for the state, plus copying.

• An arrest by the Cambridge police: the police records page SearchSystems verified at cambridgema.gov/departments/cambridgepolice/policeunits/recordsunit... (page title: Request for Police Reports), 125 Sixth St. Cambridge, MA 02142, which answered when SearchSystems opened it on September 25, 2026.
• An arrest by the Middlesex Sheriff's Office, MA | Official Website: ask its records unit.
• The court file of a case that was filed: the Middlesex County Superior Court, through the court records page at mass.gov.
• Your own statewide record: a personal CORI request, free once a year online.

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

Frequently Asked Questions

How many arrests are made in Cambridge each year?

Cambridge reported 1,872 arrests to the FBI for 2025, its latest full year.

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

Ask the Middlesex Sheriff's Office, MA | Official Website; its jail page SearchSystems verified is at middlesexsheriff.org.

Where are people arrested in Cambridge booked?

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

Are arrest records public in Cambridge?

The court files of criminal cases are public, and so is the statewide criminal history kept by the Department of Criminal Justice Information Services: open access iCORI lets anyone request limited conviction information by name, for $25. The arrest report itself is released by the agency that made the arrest, under the Massachusetts Public Records Law.

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

From the agency that made the arrest: the Cambridge police for its own arrests, the Middlesex Sheriff's Office, MA | Official Website for the sheriff's. Under the Massachusetts Public Records Law the answer is due within 10 business days.

Is this the official Cambridge 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.