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 23, 2026 and October 2, 2026.
Memphis, Tennessee, in Shelby County, has about 611,000 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 District Attorney General files charges, a case in the Shelby County Circuit and Chancery Courts. 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: Memphis public records, Shelby County arrest records, Tennessee arrest records and Tennessee inmate search.
Who Makes Arrests in Memphis
The FBI lists Memphis with an arrest reporting agency of its own, filed as Memphis Police Department. It reported 16,348 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 Shelby County Sheriff's Office is the county agency. It reported 1,603 arrests for 2025.
The FBI's agency list also places these agencies in Shelby County: the Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority and West Tennessee Violent Crime Task Force (other); Southwest Tennessee Community College, Christian Brothers University, the University of Memphis and the University of Tennessee at Health Science Center (campus police).
How Many Arrests Memphis 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.
- Memphis: 16,348 for 2025, 16,408 for 2024, 14,819 for 2023, 22,562 for 2022, 19,949 for 2021 and 23,094 for 2020.
Memphis's 16,348 arrests in 2025 were down 0.4 percent from 16,408 in 2024.
Through August 2026, Memphis reported 12,769 arrests, against 10,505 in the same months of 2025.
Across Shelby County, the six agencies with all twelve months of 2025 on file reported 26,802 arrests between them.
Booking: Where People Arrested in Memphis Are Held
The county jail is where a person arrested in Memphis 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 2024 the jail held about 4,000 people, down from about 4,760 in 2019. Its rated capacity in 2024 was 5,136 beds, and it ran at 78 percent of it that year. The figures are from the Vera Institute of Justice's Incarceration Trends data.
A person sentenced to prison serves the sentence in a facility of the Tennessee Department of Correction, whose inmate locator is at foil.app.tn.gov/foil/search.jsp.
How to Find Out About an Arrest in Memphis
For Memphis the place to look is the District Attorney General, which decides whether an arrest becomes a charge (its page is at shelbycountytn.gov/m/directory/department?did=508, phone (901) 222-1300).
Tennessee is one of the states that lets anyone look up another person's statewide criminal history: TORIS lets anyone run a name-based criminal history search online, for $29 a search, through the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. 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 Memphis
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 Tennessee Public Records Act the agency must answer within 7 business days, and it may charge copying, and labor after the first hour.
- An arrest by the Memphis police: the police records page SearchSystems verified at memphispolice.org/divisions/administrative/central-records (page title: Central Records | Memphis Police Department), phone 901-636-3650, 170 North Main St. 7th Floor, Suite 7-11 Memphis, TN 38103, Monday - Friday (except holidays) 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., which answered when SearchSystems opened it on September 25, 2026.
- An arrest by the Shelby County Sheriff's Office: ask its records unit.
- A defendant who has been charged gets the report through the case: the District Attorney General, (901) 222-1300, handles discovery for pending cases.
- Your own statewide record: the same request described above, for your own name.
The Shelby County guide covers every agency in the county: Shelby County arrest records.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many arrests are made in Memphis each year?
Memphis reported 16,348 arrests to the FBI for 2025, its latest full year.
Where are people arrested in Memphis booked?
Those kept in custody go to the county jail, run by the Shelby County Sheriff's Office; a person cited and released at the scene is not booked.
Are arrest records public in Memphis?
The court files of criminal cases are public, and so is the statewide criminal history kept by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation: TORIS lets anyone run a name-based criminal history search online, for $29. The arrest report itself is released by the agency that made the arrest, under the Tennessee Public Records Act.
How do I get a copy of an arrest report in Memphis?
From the agency that made the arrest: the Memphis police for its own arrests, the Shelby County Sheriff's Office for the sheriff's. Under the Tennessee Public Records Act the answer is due within 7 business days.
Is this the official Memphis 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.