How to Get a Police Report in Mississippi (2026 Guide)

Mississippi crash reports are purchased through a third-party electronic reporting system, reportbeam.com, or looked up through the Department of Public Safety's own crash-reports page by selecting the filing agency, while a general incident report is a public record by statute in Mississippi, a notably reader-friendly rule compared with most states. Mississippi is also one of a small number of states confirmed, after an extensive check, to have no general statewide body camera access statute at all. This page covers all three, including why that bodycam conclusion is a confident one rather than a hedge.

Information last verified on 2026-08-11. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

Getting a Crash Report in Mississippi

Mississippi crash reports are available through two channels. The first is reportbeam.com, a third-party electronic crash-reporting system; select Public Access, then Purchase a Report, and pay the listed per-report fee. The second is the Mississippi Department of Public Safety's own crash-reports page, dps.ms.gov/crash-reports, where you first select the agency that filed the report, such as the Jackson Police Department or a county sheriff's office, and then search using the state or local case number or a vehicle identification number.

Eligibility to obtain a copy runs through Miss. Code Section 63-3-417(1), which keeps required accident and supplemental reports confidential for the department's use, then allows the department, on written request, to disclose them to a person involved in the accident, that person's spouse or next of kin, any person against whom a claim is made as a result of the accident, or the representative of an involved person's estate. Disclosure runs to that requester, their legal counsel, or a representative of their insurer. One limit is easy to miss: the statute releases any information contained in the report except the parties' version of the accident as set out in the written report those parties filed, so the narrative statements the drivers themselves gave are carved out of what you receive.

If you purchase a report through reportbeam.com, confirm the current fee and any time limit on the download link at checkout; those specific figures were not independently reconfirmed on a primary reportbeam.com page this cycle, so treat any number you see elsewhere as something to verify before relying on it. For more on fault rules and deadlines after a Mississippi crash, see our Mississippi car accident laws page.

Getting an Incident Report in Mississippi

Mississippi is unusually direct about incident-report access compared with most states. Miss. Code Section 25-61-12(2)(a) exempts an investigative report from disclosure whenever it is in the possession of a law enforcement agency, but subsection (c) states plainly that an incident report is a public record. That distinction, between an investigative report and an incident report, is the operative line in Mississippi: the initial record documenting that an incident occurred is public, while the investigative file built around it is exempt for as long as an agency holds it. The exemption turns on that possession rather than on whether the investigation is still open, and the same subsection lets a law enforcement agency choose, in its discretion, to make public all or any part of an investigative report.

Requests go to the local agency that responded. City of Jackson, for example, runs a NextRequest portal at cityofjacksonms.nextrequest.com for requests under the Mississippi Public Records Act, and no account is required to submit a request there. Disclosable categories commonly described by Mississippi agencies for accident and supplemental reports include the parties involved, a spouse or next of kin, a person against whom a claim is made, an estate representative, an insurer's representative, and legal counsel, consistent with the framework in Section 63-3-417 above. For the state's broader open-records framework, see our Mississippi public records laws page.

Body Camera Footage in Mississippi: No Statewide Access Law

Mississippi does not have a general, statewide statute governing access to body camera footage, and this conclusion holds up after checking it from several independent angles rather than being a gap in available research. Miss. Code Section 45-1-20, enacted in 2023 as part of House Bill 1020, directs the Department of Public Safety, subject to the availability of funds specifically appropriated for that purpose, to provide body-worn cameras to each patrol law enforcement officer within the Office of Capitol Police. The provision is narrow in two ways: it reaches only Capitol Police, and it contains no access or disclosure provision at all.

Two separate bills that would have created a genuine statewide bodycam law both failed. House Bill 61 in the 2024 Regular Session, which would have required municipalities and counties to equip patrol officers and deputies with body cameras, died in committee on March 5, 2024, according to the Legislature's own official bill-status record. House Bill 707, a similar bill in the 2025 Regular Session, also died in committee, on February 4, 2025, per the same official source. A third bill from 2020, Senate Bill 2175, the Community Policing and Transparency Act, which would have created a comprehensive access and retention statute, never advanced past introduction.

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press's own guide to Mississippi's open-government law independently reaches the same conclusion: Mississippi has no dedicated bodycam-access statute, and footage would likely fall under the general investigative-report exemption in Section 25-61-12 rather than the narrower, public incident-report category. In practice, that means whether and how you can get bodycam footage from a Mississippi agency depends on that agency's own policy and on whether it exercises the discretionary release power Section 25-61-12(2)(a) gives it while the recording is in its possession. For more on how Mississippi's absence of a dedicated law plays out, see our Mississippi body camera laws page and the cluster guide on how to request body camera footage.

Other Practical Notes

No statewide statutory procedure for correcting a completed Mississippi crash or incident report was independently verified this cycle. Mississippi's general framework, investigative reports exempt while an agency holds them and releasable at that agency's discretion, incident reports public, is the operative redaction mechanism beyond the crash-specific confidentiality rule in Section 63-3-417; no separate juvenile or victim carve-out was found beyond that framework.

For general guidance on filing a new report or reading a completed one, see how to file a police report and how to read a police report. If a case tied to the incident proceeds through the courts, related filings are available through Mississippi court records.

Disclaimer

This article provides general legal information about public-records access in the state named above. It is not legal advice, does not create an attorney-client relationship, and should not be relied on as a substitute for advice from a licensed attorney about a specific situation. Fees, forms, and processing times change; confirm current figures with the listed agency before relying on them.

Last updated: 2026-08-11. Fees and portals reflect their published status as of August 2026.