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

Who Makes Arrests in Ontario County

The Ontario County Sheriff's Office is the county agency that reports arrests to the FBI for Ontario County. It reported 778 arrests for 2024, its latest complete year.

Arrests inside four of the county's cities are reported to the FBI by an agency of the city's own, listed here with the Census population and what each reported:

• Geneva, 12,397 residents: 707 arrests reported for 2025.
• Canandaigua, 10,476 residents: 452 arrests reported for 2025.
• Clifton Springs, 2,168 residents: 6 arrests reported for 2025.
• Phelps, 1,865 residents: 0 arrests reported for 2025.

A city on that list is reported separately whether the officers are the city's own or the sheriff's under contract; the FBI's list does not say which.

How Many Arrests Each Agency Reports in Ontario County

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.

• Geneva: 707 for 2025, 734 for 2024, 543 for 2023, 504 for 2022, 470 for 2020 and 747 for 2019; 2021 is missing months.
• Canandaigua: 452 for 2025, 218 for 2024, 238 for 2023, 292 for 2022 and 405 for 2020; 2021 is missing months.
• Clifton Springs: 6 for 2025 and 0 for 2022; 2023 and 2024 are missing months.
• Phelps: 0 for 2025 and 0 for 2024.
• Ontario County Sheriff's Office: 778 for 2024, 1,054 for 2020 and 1,812 for 2019; 2021, 2022 and 2023 are missing months.

Together, the four agencies with all twelve months of 2025 on file reported 1,165 arrests that year. The three of them with both 2025 and 2024 complete reported 1,159 in 2025 against 952 in 2024, up 22 percent.

Ontario County Sheriff's Office reported only part of 2025 (11 months) and is left out of the totals.

Booking: Where People Arrested in Ontario County Are Held

A person kept in custody after an arrest in Ontario County 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.

So far in 2026 the jail has held about 92 people on an average day, down from about 140 in 2019. Its rated capacity in 2019, the last year with a capacity figure, was 291 beds, and it ran at 49 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 Ontario County Sheriff's Office at ontariocountyny.gov/1910/Incarcerated-Individual-Locator (page title: Incarcerated Individual Locator | Ontario County, NY), which answered when SearchSystems opened it on October 2, 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 New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision lists its inmates at nysdoccslookup.doccs.ny.gov.

How to Find Out About an Arrest in Ontario County

Whether someone was arrested in Ontario County, and what came of it, shows up in three places: the custody page of the Ontario County Sheriff's Office described above, for anyone booked into the county jail; eCourts, the Unified Court System's free online case search (WebCivil, WebCrims and WebFamily), which shows whether charges were filed; the District Attorney, which decides whether an arrest becomes a charge (its page is at ontariocountyny.gov/110/District-Attorney, phone 585-396-4010).

New York is one of the states that lets anyone look up another person's statewide criminal history: the Office of Court Administration sells a statewide search of criminal court records by name and date of birth, for $95 a search, through the New York State Office of Court Administration. 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 Ontario County

An arrest report belongs to the agency whose officer wrote it, and that agency releases it, not the court or the jail. Under the Freedom of Information Law the agency must answer 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.

• An arrest by the Ontario County Sheriff's Office: ask its records unit.
• An arrest in Geneva, Canandaigua, Clifton Springs or Phelps: the records unit of the agency that reports for that city; the city guides linked above name each city's records office.
• A defendant who has been charged gets the report through the case: the District Attorney, 585-396-4010, handles discovery for pending cases.
• Any county record that is not posted: the county records request page SearchSystems verified is at ontariocountyny.nextrequest.com (page title: Ontario County FOIL RequestsNextRequest | Modern FOIA & Public Records Request Software).
• Your own statewide record: a fingerprint-based Record Review through the Division of Criminal Justice Services.

Cities in Ontario County: Who Reports the Arrests

The FBI lists a separate arrest reporting agency for four of the nine cities in Ontario County: Geneva, Canandaigua, Clifton Springs and Phelps. Victor, Manchester, Shortsville, Bloomfield and Naples have no separate reporting agency in the FBI's list.

Wherever in the county the arrest happens, a person kept in custody goes to the county jail and the case goes to the Ontario County Supreme and County Courts.

SearchSystems has a guide to the offices of these cities in Ontario County, with the 2024 Census Bureau population; a city with its own arrest records guide opens there:

• Geneva (12,397)
• Canandaigua (10,476)

Frequently Asked Questions

How many arrests are made in Ontario County each year?

Geneva reported 707 arrests to the FBI for 2025, and the four agencies with every month of 2025 on file reported 1,165 between them.

How do I find out if someone is in jail in Ontario County?

Look on the custody page of the Ontario County Sheriff's Office at ontariocountyny.gov. It covers people booked into the county jail.

Where are people arrested in Ontario County booked?

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

Are arrest records public in Ontario 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.

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

From the agency that made the arrest: the Ontario County Sheriff's Office for its own arrests, or the agency that reports for the city where it happened. Under the Freedom of Information Law the answer is due within 5 business days, at least with an acknowledgment and a date for the full answer; the county records request page SearchSystems verified is at ontariocountyny.nextrequest.com.

Is this the official Ontario 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.