Reviewed and updated October 9, 2026 by the SearchSystems.net editorial team. The arrest counts are the ones each agency reported to the FBI, as the FBI held them on October 8, 2026. The jail figures are from the Vera Institute of Justice's Incarceration Trends data.
Morgan County, Tennessee, has about 22,000 residents (2024 Census Bureau estimate), and arrests there are reported to the FBI by the Morgan County Sheriff's Office and one city agency. An arrest 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 Morgan County Circuit and Chancery Courts. This guide says who keeps each one, what it costs and who may see it, with the arrest counts each agency reported.
This guide covers who makes arrests, how many arrests, booking and the jail, finding an arrest, copies, cities and common questions.
Related guides: Morgan County public records, Tennessee arrest records, Tennessee inmate search and Tennessee criminal records.
Who Makes Arrests in Morgan County
The Morgan County Sheriff's Office is the county agency that reports arrests to the FBI for Morgan County. It reported 435 arrests for 2025.
The FBI lists one city in Morgan County with a reporting agency of its own:
- Wartburg, 944 residents: 65 arrests reported for 2022.
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.
The Oliver Springs Police Department is listed by the FBI across three counties including Morgan County, so its arrests are not broken out for Morgan County here.
How Many Arrests Each Agency Reports in Morgan 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.
- Morgan County Sheriff's Office: 435 for 2025, 569 for 2024, 432 for 2023, 383 for 2022, 494 for 2021 and 437 for 2020.
- Wartburg: 65 for 2022, 70 for 2020 and 99 for 2019; 2021 is missing months.
Together, the two agencies with all twelve months of 2022 on file reported 448 arrests that year. The one of them with both 2022 and 2021 complete reported 383 in 2022 against 494 in 2021, down 22 percent.
Booking: Where People Arrested in Morgan County Are Held
A person kept in custody after an arrest in Morgan 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.
On an average day in 2024 the jail held about 75 people, down from about 86 in 2019. Its rated capacity in 2024 was 46 beds, and it ran at 162 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 Morgan County Sheriff's Office at morgancountytn.gov/wayne-potter-sheriff (page title: Sheriff’s Department and Jail | Morgan County TN Official Site), a site that blocks automated checks (HTTP 403), so open it in a browser.
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 Morgan County
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 Morgan 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 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 Morgan County Sheriff's Office: ask its records unit.
- An arrest in Wartburg: the records unit of the agency that reports for that city.
- Your own statewide record: the same request described above, for your own name.
Cities in Morgan County: Who Reports the Arrests
The FBI lists a separate arrest reporting agency for one of the three cities in Morgan County: Wartburg. Sunbright and Oakdale 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 Morgan County Circuit and Chancery Courts.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many arrests are made in Morgan County each year?
The Morgan County Sheriff's Office reported 435 arrests to the FBI for 2025. For 2022, the latest year most of the agencies in Morgan County sent in full, the two with every month on file reported 448 between them.
Where are people arrested in Morgan County booked?
Those kept in custody go to the county jail, run by the Morgan County Sheriff's Office; a person cited and released at the scene is not booked.
Are arrest records public in Morgan County?
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 Morgan County?
From the agency that made the arrest: the Morgan County Sheriff's Office for its own arrests, or the agency that reports for the city where it happened. Under the Tennessee Public Records Act the answer is due within 7 business days.
Is this the official Morgan 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.