Reviewed and updated October 9, 2026 by the SearchSystems.net editorial team. The arrest and crime counts are the ones each agency reported to the FBI, as the FBI held them on October 8, 2026. Every office link was opened and checked against the office's own site between September 24, 2026 and October 9, 2026.
Phillips County, Montana, has about 4,200 residents (2024 Census Bureau estimate). In Montana the public criminal record is the court file, kept by the Clerk of District Court; the statewide criminal history kept by the Montana Department of Justice is open to anyone who asks. This guide says where each record of a criminal case from Phillips County is kept and how it is seen.
This guide covers the court file, the statewide record, local arrest records, the crimes behind the records, sex offender registry, records requests and common questions.
Related guides: Phillips County public records, Phillips County arrest records, Phillips County warrants, Phillips County court records, Phillips County police reports, Montana arrest records and Montana inmate search.
Criminal Cases in the Phillips County District Court
A criminal case from Phillips County is filed in the Phillips County District Court or the Justice Court, which takes misdemeanors, traffic cases and small claims, and the court file, kept by the Clerk of District Court, is the record of it that the public may see.
For Phillips County, SearchSystems opened and checked the court records page for the county at courts.mt.gov, which answered when SearchSystems opened it on September 24, 2026.
Montana has no single public index of every trial court case; each court's records are looked up through that court.
The Montana Criminal History and Your Own Copy
Montana is one of the states that lets anyone look up another person's statewide criminal history: the CHOPRS service lets anyone search public criminal history online by name, through the Montana Department of Justice. The result is the repository record, what agencies reported to the state, which is wider than one county's court index but can lag it.
Arrest Records Kept Locally in Phillips County
The Phillips County Sheriff's Office keeps the arrest records in Phillips County: the report and the booking record of each arrest stay with the agency that made it, separate from the court file and from the state repository.
The Phillips County Sheriff's Office reported 91 arrests to the FBI for 2023; how each case ended is in the court file, not in the arresting agency's.
The agencies and their counts, year by year, are in Phillips County arrest records.
The Crimes Behind the Records: Phillips County in 2025
The one agency in Phillips County with all twelve months of 2025 on file reported 13 violent and 23 property crimes to the FBI that year; the same agencies with both 2025 and 2024 complete reported 36 crimes in 2025 against 50 in 2024. Each reported crime is a report on file with the agency that took it, and each arrest that follows is the start of a criminal record.
The full crime section, agency by agency, is on the Phillips County public records guide.
The Sex Offender Registry for Phillips County
Registered sex offenders living in Phillips County are listed on the Montana Sexual or Violent Offender Registry, run by the Montana Department of Justice at dojmt.gov/sexual-or-violent-offender-registry. Sexual and violent offenders are both listed.
Registration itself is done in person with the local agency where the registrant lives: the sheriff's office, or the city police in a city with its own department.
Asking an Agency in Phillips County for a Record
An arrest report, a booking record or a local criminal history letter comes from the agency that holds it, not from the court.
Under the Montana Public Records Act a county office must answer a request in a timely manner; the statute sets no number of days, and it may charge the actual cost of fulfilling the request. The county records request page SearchSystems verified is at sosmt.gov/public-records-request (page title: Public Records Request | Official Montana Secretary of State Website | Christi Jacobsen).
Frequently Asked Questions
Are criminal records public in Phillips County?
The court files of criminal cases are public, and so is the statewide criminal history kept by the Montana Department of Justice: the CHOPRS service lets anyone search public criminal history online by name. The arrest report itself is released by the agency that made the arrest, under the Montana Public Records Act.
Can I search Phillips County criminal cases online?
The court records page SearchSystems verified for the county is at courts.mt.gov (page title: ).
How do I get my own Montana criminal history?
Through the same name-based search, run on yourself.
Is this the official Phillips County website?
No. SearchSystems.net is an independent public records guide, online since 1997. It links to the official county, court and state offices described above and does not hold records, charge for them or take requests.