Texas

Sets bail first

Magistrate (a judge, justice of the peace, municipal judge, or appointed criminal law magistrate)

Who that is

Judges and others

Release on a schedule

Jail or police can release on a schedule

Time to see a judge

48 hours

Money bail

Allowed (2025)

Risk assessment

Public safety report (no risk score) (statewide)

Prosecutor

District attorney, criminal district attorney, or county attorney, organized differently by place, elected

Public defense

Mixed

Jails run by

County sheriff

Who decides release first

A magistrate sets bail first, at the hearing that must follow arrest. Magistrates include judges of every level, justices of the peace, and, in some counties, appointed criminal law magistrates. In misdemeanors, a sheriff, officer, or licensed jailer may take bail, and many counties use bond schedules signed by judges.

Tex. Code Crim. Proc. arts. 17.027, 17.20 to 17.22Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 15.17

Time to see a judge

A person arrested must be taken before a magistrate without unnecessary delay and no later than 48 hours after arrest. The magistrate gives the warnings, sets bail, and can appoint a lawyer. The hearing may be held by video.

Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 15.17(a)

Money bail

Texas allows money bail. Since voters approved Proposition 3 in November 2025, a judge must deny bail for murder, aggravated assault, aggravated robbery, aggravated sexual assault, and several other felonies when the state proves flight risk or danger at a hearing, and must explain in writing any grant of bail on those charges.

Tex. Const. art. I, secs. 11 to 11dTex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 17.15

Population covered

99%

of Texas's people lived under an agency that reported to the FBI in 2025.

Agencies on NIBRS

98%

1,731 of 1,757 agencies send incident detail. The rest send summary counts or nothing.

Source: FBI Crime Data Explorer, pulled 2026-09-26.

Program

Texas Department of Public Safety, Crime Records Service, UCR Bureau

Incident reporting

TIBRS (Texas Incident-Based Reporting System)

Annual report

Crime in TexasLatest edition: 2025. Editions online 2011 to 2025.

Online portal

Crime in Texas (CIT) Online PortalData 1981 to 2025. SRS data 1981 to current year, NIBRS data 1995 to current year.

What changed

After the 2024 report DPS began a two-year move to a shorter annual report; the 2025 edition covers overall trends and the top 25 jurisdictions, with detail moved to supplemental reports. Participation is mandatory since HB 4879 took effect September 1, 2023. Only NIBRS submissions accepted since January 1, 2021. Revised rape definition data added from 2014.

Links and years checked 2026-09-26.

• Crime in Texas (CIT) Online Portal (TIBRS/NIBRS)State · TX

  Texas Department of Public Safety · Incidents, Arrests, Hate crime · dashboard · continuous

  On-demand agency-level TIBRS statistics (Crime in Texas), vendor-hosted and linked from the DPS Crime in Texas page. Verified September 2026.

• Crime in Texas annual reports and Crime by Jurisdiction spreadsheetsState · TX

  Texas Department of Public Safety · Incidents, Arrests, Hate crime · pdf, xlsx · annual

  Annual reports 2011-2025 with hate crime chapter and per-agency Crime by Jurisdiction Excel files; aggregate, no names.

• CRD Annual Report on Texas Border CrimeState · TX

  Texas Department of Public Safety · Arrests · csv, json, api · annual

  County totals for only the top 20 counties by border-crime arrests; last updated 2023.

• Custodial Deaths Report (open data)State · TX

  Office of the Texas Attorney General · Deaths · csv, json, api · irregular

  Agency, county, death date and first/middle/last name of the deceased; last updated Aug 2025.

• DPS Criminal History Conviction Name SearchState · TX

  Texas Department of Public Safety · Courts, Sentencing · html · continuous

  Person lookup by name with personal names and conviction records; fee-based per search with account, not a bulk dataset.

• Monthly Criminal Caseload CY 2023-2026 (open data)State · TX

  Texas Office of Court Administration · Courts · csv, json, api · monthly

  Monthly county x court-level pending/added/disposed criminal cases from CARD; companion dataset bxc4-y9ux covers CY 2018-2022.

• OAG Custodial Death Report searchState · TX

  Office of the Texas Attorney General · Deaths · html, pdf · continuous

  Individual CCP 49.18 death-in-custody reports from all Texas agencies; include the deceased's name.

• Peace Officer Involved Shootings annual reportsState · TX

  Office of the Texas Attorney General · Use of force, Deaths · pdf · annual

  Officer-involved injury and death reports under CCP art. 2A.206 (formerly 2.139), posted within 5 days. The form lists agency, date, location, and demographics; no officer or subject names.

• TCJS County Jail Population ReportsState · TX

  Texas Commission on Jail Standards · Jails · xlsx, pdf · monthly

  Monthly county-by-county jail population, capacity, immigration detainers and related reports; only current month on this page.

• TCJS Historical Jail Population ReportsState · TX

  Texas Commission on Jail Standards · Jails · pdf · irregular

  Archive of monthly PDFs 1992 to mid-2022; PDF tables need parsing.

• TCOLE Public License LookupState · TX

  Texas Commission on Law Enforcement · Other · html · continuous

  Per-officer license and license-action lookup with officer names; no bulk download, larger extracts via open records.

• TCOLE Racial Profiling ReportsState · TX

  Texas Commission on Law Enforcement · Other · xlsx · annual

  Statewide Excel compilations of agency traffic-stop/racial-profiling reports 2011-2025; aggregate by agency.

• TDCJ High Value Dataset (current inmate population)State · TX

  Texas Department of Criminal Justice · Prisons, Sentencing · csv, json, api · monthly

  Contains inmate names, SID and TDCJ numbers, county, offense and parole dates; a new dataset ID is posted each month (URL is the June 2026 edition).

• TDCJ Inmate SearchState · TX

  Texas Department of Criminal Justice · Prisons · html · continuous

  Per-person lookup by name or TDCJ/SID number; contains personal names; no bulk export.

• TDCJ Receives and Releases by fiscal year (open data)State · TX

  Texas Department of Criminal Justice · Prisons, Sentencing · csv, json, api · annual

  Row per admission or release with demographics, county, offense and sentence, no names; separate dataset per FY and direction (URL is FY2024 releases).

• TDCJ Statistical ReportsState · TX

  Texas Department of Criminal Justice · Prisons, Sentencing · pdf · annual

  Fiscal-year PDF reports on on-hand, received and released populations with offense and county of conviction; aggregate.

• Texas Criminal Illegal Noncitizen DataState · TX

  Texas Department of Public Safety · Arrests, Courts · html · monthly

  Arrests and convictions of people booked into Texas jails whom DHS identifies as noncitizens through fingerprint matching (Secure Communities). Only people with prior DHS contact are identified. Verified September 2026.

• Texas Game WardensState · TX

  Texas Parks and Wildlife Department · Other · html · irregular

  Enforces the Parks and Wildlife Code, including hunting out of season. No public citation statistics found; citations go to justice courts, which report to OCA. Verified September 2026.

• Texas Judicial Branch court statistics (Annual Statistical Report and dashboards)State · TX

  Texas Office of Court Administration · Courts · pdf, dashboard, xlsx · monthly

  Aggregate caseload by county/court from CARD monthly reports; also bail and hate-crime case statistics; no names.

• Texas Justice Initiative: shootings by and of Texas law enforcement officersState · TX

  Texas Justice Initiative · Use of force, Deaths · csv, json, dashboard · irregular

  Cleaned from OAG OIS reports; includes officer names; last updated 2024 (officers-shot dataset at /datasets/officers-shot); license terms apply. Terms allow only nonprofit and research use by the recipient; keep out of bulk files without permission.

• Texas Justice Initiative: Texas deaths in custodyState · TX

  Texas Justice Initiative · Deaths · csv, json, dashboard · irregular

  Cleaned from OAG custodial death reports (data on data.world/tji); includes names; attribution and TJI data usage agreement required. Terms allow only nonprofit and research use by the recipient; keep out of bulk files without permission.

• Texas Motor Vehicle Crash StatisticsState · TX

  Texas Department of Transportation · Deaths, Other · pdf, xlsx · annual

  Annual statewide crash statistics from CRIS, including DUI-related crashes. Crash-level CRIS query access is at cris.dot.state.tx.us. Verified September 2026.

• Texas OCA Bail DashboardState · TX

  Texas Office of Court Administration · Bail · dashboard, pdf · continuous

  Daily aggregates from PSRS bail forms by county, offense, bond type and amount; annual reports FY2022-2025 on the statistics page.

• Texas Open Data PortalState · TX

  Texas Department of Information Resources · Courts, Prisons, Deaths, Other · csv, json, api · continuous

  Socrata portal hosting OCA, TDCJ, TJJD, OAG and DPS justice datasets; little incident-level crime data.

• Texas TOPICs bail form searchState · TX

  Texas Office of Court Administration · Bail · html · continuous

  Public search of completed bail forms; forms name the person setting bail (Gov't Code 72.038). OCA says forms are not an official court record. Bulk access untested.

• TJJD Data and Statistics / Research and Legislative ReportsState · TX

  Texas Juvenile Justice Department · Prisons, Other · pdf, html · annual

  Mostly infographics and statutory reports; record-level juvenile data is confidential, aggregate requests via LS-355 form.

• TJJD datasets on Texas Open Data Portal (county referrals, ADP, incident reporting)State · TX

  Texas Juvenile Justice Department · Arrests, Prisons, Use of force · csv, json, api · irregular

  County referral data FY2013-2021 (static); related Incident_Reporting dataset d5x8-xxfd (facility incidents incl. use of force) is updated currently; no names.

• Trial Court Activity DatabaseState · TX

  Texas Office of Court Administration · Courts · html, other · monthly

  Custom reports/queries by county or court for district, county, JP and municipal courts, 1992-present; aggregate counts only.

Plus 83 national sources, from the FBI, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Census Bureau, the courts, and others.