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

Who Makes Arrests in Sturgis

The FBI lists Sturgis with an arrest reporting agency of its own, filed as Sturgis Police Department. It reported 584 arrests for 2024, its latest complete year. 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 Meade County Sheriff's Office is the county agency. It reported 238 arrests for 2024.

How Many Arrests Sturgis 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.

• Sturgis: 584 for 2024, 528 for 2023, 545 for 2022, 594 for 2021, 557 for 2020 and 606 for 2019.

Sturgis's 584 arrests in 2024 were up 11 percent from 528 in 2023.

Across Meade County, the three agencies with all twelve months of 2024 on file reported 875 arrests between them.

Booking: Where People Arrested in Sturgis Are Held

The county jail is where a person arrested in Sturgis 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 37 people. Its rated capacity in 2019 was 57 beds, and it ran at 65 percent of it that year. The figures are from the Vera Institute of Justice's Incarceration Trends data.

SearchSystems opened and checked the jail page of the Meade County Sheriff's Office at meadecounty.org/sheriffs-office (page title: Sheriff | County of Meade), phone 605.347.2681, 1400 Main Street, Sturgis, SD 57785, which answered when SearchSystems opened it on October 4, 2026.

A sentence of more than a year is served in state prison; the South Dakota Department of Corrections lists its inmates at doc.sd.gov/adult-corrections/offender-locator.

How to Find Out About an Arrest in Sturgis

An arrest in Sturgis can be traced in two places, depending on where the case stands: the case index of the Circuit Court for Meade County, which shows whether charges were filed and the next court date (the court records page SearchSystems verified is at dakotaathome.sd.gov/search/794ef29f-9e31-544e-adc9-d7313c36c767, phone 605-347-4411); the State's Attorney, which decides whether an arrest becomes a charge (its page is at meadecounty.org/states-attorney, phone 605.347.4491).

Statewide, UJS Public Access Record Search is the South Dakota courts' statewide search, with a fee per name.

South Dakota does not let the public search another person's statewide criminal history. The record kept by the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation goes to the person it belongs to and to employers and agencies the law authorizes; for everyone else the court's own case index is the public record of an arrest that led to a charge.

Getting a Copy of an Arrest Record in Sturgis

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 South Dakota Open Records Law the agency must answer within 10 business days, and it may charge copying and staff time.

• An arrest by the Sturgis police: the police records page SearchSystems verified at sturgis-sd.gov/police-records (page title: Official Website of the City of Sturgis, SD | Police Records), phone 605-347-5070, Monday-Friday 8:00 am until 4:00 pm., which answered when SearchSystems opened it on September 26, 2026.
• An arrest by the Meade County Sheriff's Office: ask its records unit, reached through the office at 605.347.2681.
• A defendant who has been charged gets the report through the case: the State's Attorney, 605.347.4491, handles discovery for pending cases.
• The court file of a case that was filed: the Circuit Court for Meade County, through the court records page at dakotaathome.sd.gov, phone 605-347-4411.
• Your own statewide record: a fingerprint-based request to the Division of Criminal Investigation.

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

Frequently Asked Questions

How many arrests are made in Sturgis each year?

Sturgis reported 584 arrests to the FBI for 2024, its latest full year.

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

Ask the Meade County Sheriff's Office at 605.347.2681; its jail page SearchSystems verified is at meadecounty.org/sheriffs-office.

Where are people arrested in Sturgis booked?

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

Are arrest records public in Sturgis?

The court files of criminal cases in the Circuit Court for Meade County are public and can be looked up through the court. The statewide criminal history kept by the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation is not public; you can get your own. The arrest report itself is released by the agency that made the arrest, under the South Dakota Open Records Law.

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

From the agency that made the arrest: the Sturgis police for its own arrests, the Meade County Sheriff's Office for the sheriff's. Under the South Dakota Open Records Law the answer is due within 10 business days.

Is this the official Sturgis 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.