Reviewed and updated October 9, 2026 by the SearchSystems.net editorial team. The arrest counts are the ones the agency reported to the FBI, through 2025. The jail figures are from the Vera Institute of Justice's Incarceration Trends data. Every office link was opened and checked against the office's own site between September 26, 2026 and October 2, 2026.
Walterboro, South Carolina, in Colleton County, has about 5,500 residents (2024 Census Bureau estimate), and its arrests are reported to the FBI by an agency of its own. An arrest in the city leaves the same records whoever makes it: the arresting agency's report, the record of anyone held at the county jail, and, if the Solicitor files charges, a case in the Colleton County Circuit Court. This guide says who keeps each one, what it costs and who may see it, with the arrest counts the agency reported.
This guide covers who makes arrests, how many arrests, booking and the jail, finding an arrest, copies and common questions.
Related guides: Walterboro public records, Colleton County arrest records, South Carolina arrest records and South Carolina inmate search.
Who Makes Arrests in Walterboro
The FBI lists Walterboro with an arrest reporting agency of its own, filed as Walterboro Police Department. It reported 348 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 Colleton County Sheriff's Office is the county agency. It reported 595 arrests for 2025.
The FBI's agency list also places these agencies in Colleton County: the Highway Patrol in Colleton County (state police); the Department of Natural Resources in Colleton County, the Colleton County Forestry Commission, the Department of Health and Environmental Control Drug Control in Colleton County and the Colleton County State Transport Police (state agency).
How Many Arrests Walterboro 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.
- Walterboro: 348 for 2025, 382 for 2024, 549 for 2023, 439 for 2022, 344 for 2021 and 370 for 2019; 2020 is missing months.
Walterboro's 348 arrests in 2025 were down 8.9 percent from 382 in 2024.
Through July 2026, Walterboro reported 179 arrests, against 175 in the same months of 2025.
Across Colleton County, the three agencies with all twelve months of 2025 on file reported 2,095 arrests between them.
Booking: Where People Arrested in Walterboro Are Held
The county jail is where a person arrested in Walterboro and kept in custody ends up, whichever agency made the arrest, though a city department may hold someone in its own cells first and a person cited and released at the scene is never booked. The jail's record of each person held, with the charges, is a public record of the arrest, and once the person is released or sentenced the record continues in the court file.
On an average day in 2019 the jail held about 80 people. Its rated capacity in 2019 was 110 beds, and it ran at 73 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 Colleton County Sheriff's Office at colletoncountysheriff.com (page title: Colleton County Jail Roster Lookup, SC, Inmate Search), a site that blocks automated checks (HTTP 403), so open it in a browser.
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 person sentenced to prison serves the sentence in a facility of the South Carolina Department of Corrections, whose inmate locator is at doc.sc.gov/inmate-search-disclaimer.
How to Find Out About an Arrest in Walterboro
For Walterboro the place to look is the custody page of the Colleton County Sheriff's Office described above, for anyone booked into the county jail.
South Carolina is one of the states that lets anyone look up another person's statewide criminal history: the CATCH service lets anyone run a name-based criminal record search online, for $25 a search, through the South Carolina Law Enforcement 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 Walterboro
An arrest report belongs to the agency whose officer wrote it, and that agency releases it, not the court or the jail. Under the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act the agency must answer within 10 business days, or 20 for records more than two years old, and it may charge search, retrieval and copying at the agency's actual cost.
- An arrest by the Walterboro police: the police records page SearchSystems verified at walterborosc.org/police-records (page title: Police Records | Walterboro, SC), phone (843) 782-1032, which answered when SearchSystems opened it on September 26, 2026.
- An arrest by the Colleton County Sheriff's Office: ask its records unit.
- Your own statewide record: the same request described above, for your own name.
The Colleton County guide covers every agency in the county: Colleton County arrest records.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many arrests are made in Walterboro each year?
Walterboro reported 348 arrests to the FBI for 2025, its latest full year.
Where are people arrested in Walterboro booked?
Those kept in custody go to the county jail, run by the Colleton County Sheriff's Office; a person cited and released at the scene is not booked.
Are arrest records public in Walterboro?
The court files of criminal cases are public, and so is the statewide criminal history kept by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division: the CATCH service lets anyone run a name-based criminal record search online, for $25. The arrest report itself is released by the agency that made the arrest, under the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act.
How do I get a copy of an arrest report in Walterboro?
From the agency that made the arrest: the Walterboro police for its own arrests, the Colleton County Sheriff's Office for the sheriff's. Under the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act the answer is due within 10 business days, or 20 for records more than two years old.
Is this the official Walterboro 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.