Simpson County Arrest Records

Arrest records are official documents that describe the circumstances of an arrest, identify the person taken into custody, and list any property seized. An arrest may occur either:

• under a court-issued warrant, or
• when law-enforcement officers have probable cause to believe a person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime.

It is worth noting that an arrest alone is not proof of guilt; guilt is determined only after conviction in a court of law.

After booking, a person is usually held in the Simpson County Jail until released on bond, the charge is dismissed, or the court reaches a final disposition. The jail also houses individuals serving short sentences. Arrest records are generally created and disseminated by the arresting agency. However, arrest information may also be featured within Simpson County court records as the case progresses into prosecution and/or conviction.

Are Arrest Records Public in Simpson County?

Mississippi's Public Records Act (Miss. Code Ann. § 25-61-1 et seq.) presumes government records are open unless a specific exemption applies. Therefore, most Simpson County arrest records are public.

Common exemptions as outlined in Miss. Code Ann. § 25-61-5 include:

• Juvenile delinquency records
• Medical or mental-health information
• Investigative techniques or the identities of confidential informants
• Records containing charges that were dismissed before trial
• Expunged or sealed records
• Documents revealing grand-jury or other closed judicial proceedings
• Identities of misdemeanor offenders within one year of the offense

If an exemption applies, agencies may withhold the entire record or release a redacted version. Law-enforcement and courts may still access the full records as needed.

What Do Public Arrest Records Contain?

A typical arrest record contains key information about the details of an arrest. Information found on Simpson County arrest records are outlined under three major categories: the identity of the arrestee, the purpose of arrest and law enforcement officer conducting the arrest.

Arrestee information

• Full name (plus known aliases)
• Date of birth or age
• Residential address

Arrest details

• Date and exact time of arrest
• Arrest location (street address or landmark)
• Probable-cause statement or statutory charge(s)
• Description of property, evidence, or contraband seized

Officer and agency information

• Name and badge number of arresting officer(s)
• Supervising agency (e.g., Simpson County Sheriff, Magee Police Department)

Simpson County Arrest Statistics

The most complete public dataset for Simpson County comes from third party sites which aggregate FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) submissions and state data for the ten-year window 2013 – 2023. During that period the Simpson County Sheriff's Office reported 758 custodial arrests:

• Two deputy-involved fatalities were logged in the same decade (rate: 2.4 deaths per 10 k arrests).
• The sheriff's jail averages 100 detainees per day, with 59 % awaiting trial.
• Simpson County's 2023 population was about 20,000, giving a custody rate of 6 inmates per 1,000 residents—middle-of-the-pack for Mississippi sheriffs.

Simpson County does not publish an annual arrest tally. Monthly figures can be queried on the state Mississippi Crime Insight portal, but the interface requires live look-ups and has no downloadable county PDF. For a calendar-year count, interested persons may send a request to the Sheriff's RMS administrator or to the state Criminal Information Center (CIC).

Find Simpson County Arrest Records

The most direct route to an individual arrest file is through the Simpson County Sheriff's Office at:

1496 Simpson Highway 149,
Mendenhall, MS 39114
Phone: (601) 847-2921

Inquirers will be required to clerk the arrestee's full legal name, a birth date, and the approximate arrest date or location; inspection on-site is free, although photocopies or digital scans usually cost about $0.25 page under Miss. Code § 25-61-7.

If the arrest occurred inside city limits, record seekers may shave time by contacting the municipal department that made the stop, e.g:

Magee Police
124 First Street NE
Phone: (601) 849-2366

or

Mendenhall Police
67 West Maud Avenue
Phone: (601) 847-2641

Felony cases move quickly into the Circuit Court docket and appear in the Mississippi Electronic Courts (MEC) system; public access requires a $10 annual account and a viewing fee of twenty cents per PDF page. For a statewide criminal-history print-out—including arrests reported from every Mississippi county—the Criminal Information Center of the Department of Public Safety offers a name- or fingerprint-based background check for $32, with results returned in roughly 30 business days.

Arrest records may also be accessed through third parties aggregator websites. A third-party website may require users to subscribe or pay a premium fee to have access to certain public records. Users would be required to provide the defendant's identity and location to conduct a search. It is necessary to verify information obtained from such websites to ensure it's accurate and consistent with government data.

Free Arrest Record Search in Simpson County

There are four main options for performing a free arrest record search in Simpson county, they include:

• Walk-in inspection – Inquirers may view any non-exempt record at the Sheriff's office reading room without charge; fees apply only to reproduction.
• Circuit Clerk public terminals – The Clerk keeps two PACER-style kiosks with open access to criminal filings. Record seekers may use a flash drive to save PDFs.
• Local newspaper blotter – The Magee Courier / Simpson County News publishes a weekly arrest roundup sourced from the jail roster.
• Victims' copies – Under Mississippi's Crime Victims' Bill of Rights, victims are entitled to one free copy of relevant arrest or incident records.

How Long Do Arrest Stay on Your Record

In Simpson County—just as everywhere else in Mississippi—an arrest remains on an individual's state criminal-history file for life. The entry keeps showing up on most commercial and law-enforcement background checks until a judge signs an order to expunge or seal it; the Department of Public Safety does not scrub old arrests on its own. Mississippi's present statutes rely on a petition-driven process, meaning the person involved (or that person's lawyer) must ask the court for relief. Bills that would shift to an automatic system—most recently House Bill 801, which proposed clearing up to four misdemeanors after seven years and two felonies after ten—have been introduced but have not become law as of June 2025.

Even without an automatic "clean-slate" statute, several pathways already exist. Section 21-23-7 of the Mississippi Code lets a municipal judge clear any arrest that ended in dismissal, no-bill, nolle prosequi, or not-guilty verdict. Section 99-19-71 extends similar relief to justice, county, and circuit courts and also allows one expungement of a first-offense misdemeanor (other than a traffic violation) and, after a five-year waiting period, one expungement of a listed non-violent felony such as shoplifting, false pretense, or simple drug possession.

Expunge Simpson County Arrest Records

When a judge grants an expungement, the public-facing docket entry disappears, court files are sealed, and the Criminal Information Center replaces the arrest with a confidential notation that is visible only to law-enforcement agencies and certain licensing boards. The most common non-conviction grounds are acquittal at trial, dismissal before indictment, grand-jury no-bill, remand to the file, and nolle prosequi. Conviction-based relief covers a first-offense misdemeanor (petition may be filed at any time once the sentence and any restitution are complete) and a single qualifying non-violent felony five years after completion of all terms and conditions of the sentence. A first-offense DUI can also be erased five years after successful completion of the sentence, provided the driver did not hold a commercial licence, did not refuse chemical testing, and, if tested, had a blood-alcohol level below 0.16 percent.

The formal steps are straightforward but technical. The record holder is expected to collect proof of the case outcome from the Clerk of Court, draft a petition and a proposed order, file both with the clerk, and pay the statutory filing fee of $150 set by Section 99-19-72. For felony matters the District Attorney is entitled to ten days' written notice of the hearing, and judges routinely ask for an affidavit describing your post-conviction conduct plus two character affidavits from unrelated members of the community. Processing time in Simpson County usually ranges from 6 to 12 weeks.

Simpson County Arrest Warrants

An arrest warrant is a judicial order that authorises any peace officer to take the named person into custody. Mississippi Rules of Criminal Procedure require the document to recite the defendant's name (or a clear description if the name is unknown), the offence, the date of issuance, the county, the bail amount if one is set, and the signature and title of the issuing judge. Misdemeanour warrants and most bench warrants originate in Simpson County Justice Court; felony warrants come from the Thirteenth Circuit Court. Anyone who believes a warrant has been issued may confirm it by contacting the appropriate clerk, and the Department of Public Safety publishes a statewide "Most Wanted" page for high-priority fugitives.

Do Simpson County Arrest Warrants Expire?

Mississippi law sets no expiration date for an arrest warrant. Once the judge signs it, the order remains valid until the person is taken into custody, the court withdraws it, or the underlying charge is formally disposed of. Ignoring an outstanding warrant is rarely wise; if the original allegation is later dismissed, the warrant becomes moot, but while it is active, the individual can be arrested at any time and may face additional charges for failing to appear. Section 99-3-7 confirms that an officer may lawfully execute an outstanding misdemeanor warrant even if the paper itself is not in the officer's possession at the moment of arrest, provided the officer has verified its existence through official channels.