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

Who Makes Arrests in Belton

The FBI lists Belton with an arrest reporting agency of its own, filed as Belton Police Department. It reported 907 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 Cass County Sheriff's Office is the county agency. It reported 414 arrests for 2025.

How Many Arrests Belton 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.

• Belton: 907 for 2025, 1,394 for 2024, 1,224 for 2023, 1,079 for 2022, 1,173 for 2021 and 1,064 for 2020.

Belton's 907 arrests in 2025 were down 35 percent from 1,394 in 2024.

Through August 2026, Belton reported 555 arrests, against 602 in the same months of 2025.

Across Cass County, the nine agencies with all twelve months of 2025 on file reported 2,076 arrests between them.

Booking: Where People Arrested in Belton Are Held

A person kept in custody after an arrest in Belton 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 210 people, down from about 450 in 2019. Its rated capacity in 2023 was 252 beds, and it ran at 82 percent of it that year. The figures are from the Vera Institute of Justice's Incarceration Trends data.

SearchSystems opened and checked the custody page of the Cass County Sheriff's Office at cassmosheriff.org/inmates/default.php (page title: In Custody CCSO Inmates), which answered when SearchSystems opened it on September 27, 2026.

That page is the place to look for someone who was booked recently; a person cited and released at the scene, or held only a few hours by a city department, will not be on it.

A sentence of more than a year is served in state prison; the Missouri Department of Corrections lists its inmates at web.mo.gov/doc/offSearchWeb.

How to Find Out About an Arrest in Belton

An arrest in Belton can be traced in three places, depending on where the case stands: the custody page of the Cass County Sheriff's Office described above, for anyone booked into the county jail; the case index of the Cass County Circuit Court, which shows whether charges were filed and the next court date (the court records page SearchSystems verified is at casscounty.com/2207/Circuit-ClerkCourts, phone 816-380-8227); the Prosecuting Attorney, which decides whether an arrest becomes a charge (its page is at casscounty.com/2191/Prosecuting-Attorney, phone 816-380-8250).

Statewide, Case.net is the Missouri courts' free statewide case search.

Missouri is one of the states that lets anyone look up another person's statewide criminal history: the open record search on the MACHS site lets anyone check convictions by name, through the Missouri State Highway Patrol Criminal Justice Information Services Division. 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 Belton

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 Missouri Sunshine Law the agency must answer within 3 business days, and it may charge research time and copying.

• An arrest by the Belton police: the police records page SearchSystems verified at belton.org/Government/Departments/Police-Department/Records (page title: Records | City of Belton), phone 816-331-5522, which answered when SearchSystems opened it on September 25, 2026.
• An arrest by the Cass County Sheriff's Office: ask its records unit.
• A defendant who has been charged gets the report through the case: the Prosecuting Attorney, 816-380-8250, handles discovery for pending cases.
• The court file of a case that was filed: the Cass County Circuit Court, through the court records page at casscounty.com/2207/Circuit-ClerkCourts, phone 816-380-8227.
• Your own statewide record: the same request described above, for your own name.

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

Frequently Asked Questions

How many arrests are made in Belton each year?

Belton reported 907 arrests to the FBI for 2025, its latest full year.

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

Look on the custody page of the Cass County Sheriff's Office at cassmosheriff.org/inmates/default.php. It covers people booked into the county jail.

Where are people arrested in Belton booked?

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

Are arrest records public in Belton?

The court files of criminal cases are public, and so is the statewide criminal history kept by the Missouri State Highway Patrol Criminal Justice Information Services Division: the open record search on the MACHS site lets anyone check convictions by name. The arrest report itself is released by the agency that made the arrest, under the Missouri Sunshine Law.

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

From the agency that made the arrest: the Belton police for its own arrests, the Cass County Sheriff's Office for the sheriff's. Under the Missouri Sunshine Law the answer is due within 3 business days.

Is this the official Belton 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.