Tennessee
What Tennessee's records show, how much of the state the FBI's data covers, and where the state publishes its own.
How Tennessee handles a case
- Sets bail first
- Judicial commissioner (magistrate), general sessions judge, or court clerk
- Who that is
- Judges and others
- Release on a schedule
- Unknown
- Time to see a judge
- No hour limit set
- Money bail
- Allowed
- Risk assessment
- Some counties
- Prosecutor
- District attorney general, one per judicial district, elected
- Public defense
- Mixed
- Jails run by
- County sheriff
- 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
Crime and arrests
No figures yet
FBI data coverage
- Population covered
- 99%
- of Tennessee's people lived under an agency that reported to the FBI in 2025.
- Agencies on NIBRS
- 99%
- 410 of 412 agencies send incident detail. The rest send summary counts or nothing.
2 agencies not reporting through NIBRS
- Hickory Valley Police DepartmentCity
- Tennessee Board of RegentsOther State Agency
Counties and agencies: no data yet
Source: FBI Crime Data Explorer, pulled 2026-09-26.
State crime reporting
- Program
- Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, CJIS Division (TIBRS)
- Incident reporting
- TIBRS (Tennessee Incident Based Reporting System)
- Annual report
- Crime in TennesseeLatest edition: 2025. Editions online 2002 to 2025, missing Only the latest edition is linked; older PDFs (2002-2024) still resolve on tn.gov at unlinked /content/dam/tn/tbi/documents/ URLs found via the Wayback Machine.
- Online portal
- TN Crime Stats (CrimeInsight TOPS)Data 1991 to 2026.
- What changed
- TBI links only the current edition; prior editions are unlisted.
Links and years checked 2026-09-26.
Tennessee sources
- TBI Crime StatisticsState · TN
Tennessee Bureau of Investigation · Incidents, Arrests, Hate crime, Use of force · pdf, dashboard · annual
TIBRS (NIBRS) repository; Crime in Tennessee reports plus CrimeInsight dashboard at crimeinsight.tbi.tn.gov.
- Tennessee AOC annual statistical reportState · TN
Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts · Courts · pdf · annual
County within district: filings and dispositions by offense, counted as charges. FY2000-01 to FY2024-25. Both hosts behind bot challenges.
Plus 83 national sources, from the FBI, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Census Bureau, the courts, and others.