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

Who Makes Arrests in Crookston

The FBI lists Crookston with an arrest reporting agency of its own, filed as Crookston Police Department. It reported 235 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 Polk County Sheriff's Office is the county agency. It reported 116 arrests for 2025.

The FBI's agency list also places one more agency in Polk County: Pine To Prairie Drug Task Force (other).

How Many Arrests Crookston 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.

• Crookston: 235 for 2025, 360 for 2024, 370 for 2023, 331 for 2022, 370 for 2021 and 421 for 2020.

Crookston's 235 arrests in 2025 were down 35 percent from 360 in 2024.

Through August 2026, Crookston reported 173 arrests, against 166 in the same months of 2025.

Across Polk County, the four agencies with all twelve months of 2025 on file reported 504 arrests between them.

Booking: Where People Arrested in Crookston Are Held

A person kept in custody after an arrest in Crookston 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 130 people, up from about 120 in 2019. Its rated capacity in 2023 was 151 beds, and it ran at 89 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 Polk County Sheriff's Office at polkcountymn.gov/221/Sheriffs-Office (page title: Sheriff's Office | Polk County, MN), phone 218-281-0431, 600 Bruce Street Crookston, MN 56716, which answered when SearchSystems opened it on October 9, 2026.

How to Find Out About an Arrest in Crookston

Whether someone was arrested in Crookston, and what came of it, shows up in two places: Minnesota Court Records Online, the Minnesota Judicial Branch's free statewide case search, which shows whether charges were filed; the County Attorney, which decides whether an arrest becomes a charge (its page is at polkcountymn.gov/m/directory/department?did=14, phone 800-437-7051).

Minnesota is one of the states that lets anyone look up another person's statewide criminal history: the public criminal history search online is free and shows 15 years of convictions, through the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. 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 Crookston

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 Minnesota Government Data Practices Act the agency must answer promptly, within a reasonable time, and it may charge copying, and staff time for requests over 100 pages.

• An arrest by the Crookston police: the police records page SearchSystems verified at crookston.mn.us/DocumentCenter/View/737/Records-Request-Form (page title: 00WON Police Department), phone 218-281-3111, 321 W Robert Street Crookston, MN 56716, which answered when SearchSystems opened it on September 26, 2026.
• An arrest by the Polk County Sheriff's Office: ask its records unit, reached through the office at 218-281-0431.
• A defendant who has been charged gets the report through the case: the County Attorney, 800-437-7051, handles discovery for pending cases.
• Any county record that is not posted: the county records request page SearchSystems verified is at polkcountytx.nextrequest.com (page title: Open Public RecordsNextRequest | Modern FOIA & Public Records Request Software).
• Your own statewide record: a request to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

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

Frequently Asked Questions

How many arrests are made in Crookston each year?

Crookston reported 235 arrests to the FBI for 2025, its latest full year.

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

Ask the Polk County Sheriff's Office at 218-281-0431; its jail page SearchSystems verified is at polkcountymn.gov/221/Sheriffs-Office.

Where are people arrested in Crookston booked?

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

Are arrest records public in Crookston?

The court files of criminal cases are public, and so is the statewide criminal history kept by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension: the public criminal history search online is free and shows 15 years of convictions. The arrest report itself is released by the agency that made the arrest, under the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act.

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

From the agency that made the arrest: the Crookston police for its own arrests, the Polk County Sheriff's Office for the sheriff's. Under the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act the answer is due promptly, within a reasonable time; the county records request page SearchSystems verified is at polkcountytx.nextrequest.com.

Is this the official Crookston 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.