Police reports are requested from the police departments. These reports are created by the law enforcement officer which made the arrest. Police reports are public records, however, there are many exceptions that can keep the public from obtaining the report. You can see the restrictions listed on the police or sheriff's webpages. In some instances, the police only provide the report to interested parties, can deny the request if there's a case under investigation. Information in police or even incident reports can be redacted, which means part are omitted from the report to protect identities of persons involved, witnesses and so forth.

While arrest reports can be found in criminal case records available to the public from the court, the official report itself is kept at the police department and must be requested directly. Defense attorneys, the arrestee and prosecutors routinely obtain the report from the police department. Arrest reports are also shared with other law enforcement departments. If the person is arrested and wanted in a different county, the arresting department will provide the report to the department taking custody of the arrestee.

Arrest logs are not the same. They do not contain a lot of the information in an official report. Reporters routinely go through arrest logs when reporting on a case or simply publishing local arrests. These bits of information are often called "arrest reports or records", but not the same as arrest reports you get from the police department.

So what can you see in an arrest report? Here's a general idea, you can see the full name, description of the arrestee (including tattoos in additions to eye and hair color, height/weight ), date of birth and occupation. Description of the arrest included shows time and date of the arrest and location of the arrest. Facts and circumstances surrounding the arrest, charges regarding the arrest, the amount of bail set. If the person arrested is taken into custody, the location where they are being held, if released then the time and manner of the release is provided. Police reports can also include warrants from outside jurisdictions, probation or parole holds.