Memphis
City in Shelby County, 618,980 people.
Police
Sheriff in its county: Shelby 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
- Shelby County
- People
- 618,980
- Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates, 2020 to 2024
How a case moves here
Memphis 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 Memphis Police Department, Memphis'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 | 16,132 | 15,354 | 16,506 | 15,764 | 11,455 | 2,418 | 610 |
| Murder | 307 | 253 | 351 | 251 | 189 | 43 | 8.8 |
| Rape | 440 | 431 | 481 | 462 | 338 | 69 | 41 |
| Robbery | 2,058 | 2,323 | 2,797 | 2,161 | 1,482 | 348 | 63 |
| Aggravated assault | 13,327 | 12,347 | 12,877 | 12,890 | 9,446 | 1,958 | 498 |
| Property crime | 34,499 | 45,370 | 53,809 | 42,908 | 30,563 | 6,660 | 2,131 |
| Burglary | 5,087 | 5,821 | 6,756 | 5,449 | 4,264 | 880 | 284 |
| Larceny | 24,432 | 28,540 | 31,227 | 27,621 | 20,753 | 4,262 | 1,510 |
| Motor vehicle theft | 4,980 | 11,009 | 15,826 | 9,838 | 5,546 | 1,518 | 337 |
| Arson | 368 | 330 | 389 | 343 | 345 | 57 | 12 |
Outside the crime index
| Offense | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | Per 100k | Tennessee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All offenses outside the crime index | 48,741 | 54,084 | 53,871 | 51,865 | 47,063 | 8,219 | 4,023 |
| Simple assault and intimidation | 21,892 | 22,095 | 23,368 | 23,482 | 23,178 | 3,666 | 1,439 |
| Vandalism | 12,239 | 15,419 | 17,237 | 13,688 | 9,886 | 2,201 | 603 |
| Fraud | 3,051 | 3,315 | 3,476 | 3,316 | 3,023 | 520 | 390 |
| Drug abuse violations | 5,243 | 5,404 | 3,087 | 3,541 | 3,965 | 683 | 1,125 |
| Weapons: carrying, possessing, etc. | 3,349 | 3,783 | 3,150 | 4,717 | 4,210 | 618 | 218 |
| Stolen property: buying, receiving, possessing | 445 | 691 | 519 | 550 | 605 | 90 | 32 |
| Forgery and counterfeiting | 587 | 1,138 | 902 | 746 | 519 | 125 | 69 |
| Embezzlement | 377 | 526 | 468 | 353 | 291 | 65 | 25 |
| Sex offenses (except rape and prostitution) | 303 | 359 | 294 | 332 | 254 | 50 | 44 |
| Prostitution and commercialized vice | 248 | 359 | 199 | 56 | 34 | 29 | 4.8 |
| Gambling | 8 | 25 | 69 | 63 | 70 | 7.6 | 1.3 |
| Other Group A offenses | 999 | 970 | 1,102 | 1,021 | 1,028 | 165 | 71 |
| Manslaughter by negligence (not in the total) | 38 | 36 | 35 | 48 | 19 | 5.7 | 0.9 |
| Human trafficking (not in the total) | 11 | 18 | 18 | 14 | 6 | 2.2 | 1.4 |
Offenses Memphis 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.