Dayton
City in Rhea County, 7,625 people.
Police
Sheriff in its county: Rhea County Sheriff's Office.
A department is the place's own when its name is the place's and its FBI population fits the place's people (decision city-or-town-is-its-police-department). Agencies: FBI NIBRS master file 2025 batch headers; names from the FBI agency list, pulled 2026-09-29.
Where it sits
- County
- Rhea County
- People
- 7,625
- Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates, 2020 to 2024
How a case moves here
Dayton follows Tennessee law on arrests, release, and courts; the full set covers prosecutors, defense, and jails too.
- Who decides release first
A magistrate sets bail first. In many counties that is an appointed judicial commissioner who need not be a lawyer; in others it is a general sessions judge or, when no judge can come within three hours, a court clerk. A defendant can appeal a commissioner's decision to the court.
Tenn. Code Ann. 40-11-106Tenn. Code Ann. 40-1-111Tenn. Code Ann. 40-11-150- Time to see a judge
A person arrested must be taken "without unnecessary delay" before the nearest magistrate of the county. The rule sets no number of hours.
Tenn. R. Crim. P. 5(a)- Money bail
Magistrates and judges may set money bail, and the sheriff or a judicial commissioner accepts bonds from approved commercial bonding companies.
Tenn. Code Ann. 40-11-106
Read from the statutes and court rules cited, 2026-09-30. Some of this is medium confidence and still being checked. trial_selection is "mixed" because Ballotpedia says trial judges run in partisan elections unless a county opts for nonpartisan ones; no statute was read for this. Which counties use judicial commissioners versus judges or clerks, and whether any county uses a misdemeanor bail schedule, was not confirmed.
Crime
Offenses reported by Dayton Police Department, Dayton's own department. The county sheriff and state police may answer calls here too; their offenses are on their own pages.
The crime index
| Offense | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | Per 100k | Tennessee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Violent crime | 22 | 18 | 12 | 24 | 15 | 244 | 610 |
| Murder | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 8.8 | ||||
| Rape | 2 | 1 | 3 | 4 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 41 | |
| Robbery | 2 | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 63 | |||
| Aggravated assault | 18 | 17 | 9 | 18 | 15 | 206 | 498 |
| Property crime | 173 | 166 | 128 | 122 | 61 | 1,740 | 2,131 |
| Burglary | 30 | 29 | 15 | 6 | 2 | 219 | 284 |
| Larceny | 121 | 121 | 102 | 104 | 51 | 1,336 | 1,510 |
| Motor vehicle theft | 22 | 16 | 11 | 12 | 8 | 185 | 337 |
| Arson | 1 | 1 | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 12 |
Outside the crime index
| Offense | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | Per 100k | Tennessee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All offenses outside the crime index | 249 | 220 | 209 | 198 | 155 | 2,760 | 4,023 |
| Simple assault and intimidation | 72 | 47 | 83 | 59 | 47 | 824 | 1,439 |
| Vandalism | 42 | 39 | 31 | 32 | 20 | 439 | 603 |
| Fraud | 13 | 30 | 14 | 17 | 19 | 249 | 390 |
| Drug abuse violations | 103 | 82 | 71 | 76 | 60 | 1,049 | 1,125 |
| Weapons: carrying, possessing, etc. | 5 | 13 | 7 | 4 | 5 | 91 | 218 |
| Stolen property: buying, receiving, possessing | 3 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 32 | ||||
| Forgery and counterfeiting | 6 | 4 | 1 | 3 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 69 | |
| Embezzlement | 1 | 3 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 25 | |||
| Sex offenses (except rape and prostitution) | 2 | 4 | 1 | 5 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 44 | |
| Other Group A offenses | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 71 |
Offenses Dayton Police Department reported to the FBI in incident detail (NIBRS), each year, the second table by the arrest class each offense falls in. Per 100k: offenses per 100,000 people the department polices, 2021 to 2025 added together, beside Tennessee's rate over the same years. – means too few for a rate: the count is under 20.
Source: FBI NIBRS national master files, each agency's offenses and the FBI's population for it. Tennessee: the crime index: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, CrimeDB's chosen value per year (the state page's figures); outside it: FBI NIBRS, agencies that sent incident detail.