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 on September 23, 2026.
Cortland County, New York, has about 46,000 residents (2024 Census Bureau estimate). In New York the public criminal record is the court file, kept by the County Clerk; the statewide criminal history kept by the New York State Office of Court Administration is open to anyone who asks. This guide says where each record of a criminal case from Cortland 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, the prosecutor, sex offender registry, records requests and common questions.
Related guides: Cortland County public records, Cortland County arrest records, Cortland County warrants, Cortland County inmate search, Cortland County court records, New York arrest records and New York inmate search.
Criminal Cases in the Cortland County Supreme and County Courts
In New York the public criminal record is the court file. Criminal cases from Cortland County are heard by the Cortland County Supreme and County Courts, which hear divorces and major civil cases in the Supreme Court, felonies in the County Court; the city, town and village courts take misdemeanors, traffic cases and small claims, and the file of each case is kept by the County Clerk.
For Cortland County, SearchSystems opened and checked the court records page for the county at cortlandcountyny.gov/173/Courts-Supreme-County (page title: Supreme & County Courts | Cortland County, NY), phone 607-753-5021, 46 Greenbush Street, #B5 Cortland, NY 13045, Monday-Friday 8:30am-4:30pm, which answered when SearchSystems opened it on September 23, 2026. That page belongs to a lower court, the city, town and village courts, not to the Cortland County Supreme and County Courts.
Statewide, eCourts is the Unified Court System's free online case search (WebCivil, WebCrims and WebFamily).
The New York Criminal History and Your Own Copy
In New York the public route to a statewide criminal record is the court system's own search: the Office of Court Administration sells a statewide search of criminal court records by name and date of birth, at $95 a search. It covers cases that reached a court, not arrests that never did. The search is on the New York State Office of Court Administration site.
To see your own record, the route is a fingerprint-based Record Review through the Division of Criminal Justice Services. The state page SearchSystems verified for it is at criminaljustice.ny.gov/ojis/recordreview.htm.
Arrest Records Kept Locally in Cortland County
The Cortland County Sheriff's Office and the agency that reports for Cortland keep the arrest records in Cortland 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 FBI's agency list also places one more agency in Cortland County: the Cortland State University of New York Police (campus police); it keeps the records of its own arrests.
Together, the three agencies in Cortland County with all twelve months of 2025 on file reported 1,121 arrests to the FBI that year; 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 Cortland County arrest records.
The Crimes Behind the Records: Cortland County in 2025
The three agencies in Cortland County with all twelve months of 2025 on file reported 58 violent and 664 property crimes to the FBI that year; the same agencies with both 2025 and 2024 complete reported 722 crimes in 2025 against 884 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 Cortland County public records guide.
The District Attorney for Cortland County
The District Attorney decides which arrests in Cortland County become charges and files them in the Cortland County Supreme and County Courts or the city, town and village courts; the office answers questions about pending prosecutions, and the case files themselves are court records.
The office's page SearchSystems verified is at cortlandcountyny.gov/239/District-Attorneys-Office (page title: District Attorney's Office | Cortland County, NY), phone 607-753-5008, 37 Church Street Cortland, NY 13045, which answered when SearchSystems opened it on September 23, 2026.
The Sex Offender Registry for Cortland County
Registered sex offenders living in Cortland County are listed on the New York Sex Offender Registry, run by the Division of Criminal Justice Services at criminaljustice.ny.gov/nsor. Level 2 and Level 3 offenders are listed online; Level 1 offenders are not.
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 Cortland 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 Freedom of Information Law a county office must answer a request within 5 business days, at least with an acknowledgment and a date for the full answer, and it may charge copying at 25 cents a page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are criminal records public in Cortland County?
The court files of criminal cases are public, and so is the statewide criminal history kept by the New York State Office of Court Administration: the Office of Court Administration sells a statewide search of criminal court records by name and date of birth, for $95. The arrest report itself is released by the agency that made the arrest, under the Freedom of Information Law.
Can I search Cortland County criminal cases online?
The court records page SearchSystems verified for the county is at cortlandcountyny.gov (page title: Supreme & County Courts | Cortland County, NY); it belongs to a lower court, not to the Cortland County Supreme and County Courts. Statewide, eCourts is the Unified Court System's free online case search (WebCivil, WebCrims and WebFamily).
How do I get my own New York criminal history?
A fingerprint-based Record Review through the Division of Criminal Justice Services.
Who prosecutes crimes in Cortland County?
The District Attorney, reached at 607-753-5008, which files its cases in the Cortland County Supreme and County Courts or the city, town and village courts.
Is this the official Cortland 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.