A task force ordered by President Donald Trump to fight crime in Memphis, Tennessee, has made thousands of arrests in just weeks, intensifying pressure on an already strained local court system and overcrowded jail in ways that officials warn could reverberate for months or even years.
Since late September, hundreds of federal, state and local officers assigned to the Memphis Safe Task Force have been conducting traffic stops, serving warrants and pursuing fugitives across the city of about 610,000 residents. Data from the task force and Memphis police show more than 2,800 people have been arrested and more than 28,000 traffic citations issued in that span.
The initiative, which also involves National Guard troops, has the backing of Republican Gov. Bill Lee and other state leaders who hope the intensified enforcement will bring down crime in a city that has struggled with violence, including nearly 300 homicides last year and nearly 400 in 2023.
On Monday, Attorney General Pam Bondi traveled to Memphis to meet with officers and highlight the task force’s efforts to remove suspects and illegal guns from the streets. Later, she and other law enforcement leaders served food to officers as a show of appreciation.
Asked about the mounting strain on the local criminal justice system, U.S. Marshals Service Director Gadyaces Serralta said officials are pushing as many cases as possible into federal court and are open to working with state prosecutors to speed up prosecutions.
“If we don’t speed up the process, it’s going to continue to back up,” Serralta said. Still, he added, “because we can’t put them through the criminal justice system does not mean that it’s a free pass to commit crimes. We’re going to keep arresting folks. They keep committing crimes, we’re going to keep arresting them.”
From 2018 to 2024, homicides in Memphis rose 33% and aggravated assaults climbed 41%, according to AH Datalytics, which uses local law enforcement data for its Real-Time Crime Index. The firm reported that both categories were down 20% in the first nine months of this year — even before the task force began its work.
Critics in majority-Black Memphis argue the task force has disproportionately targeted minorities and created fear among law-abiding Latino residents, some of whom have skipped work and altered their routines — avoiding church, restaurants and other public places — out of concern they’ll be harassed or unfairly detained. By the end of October, statistics showed 319 arrests tied to administrative warrants, which are related to immigration enforcement.
The consequences have spread beyond street-level policing to the city’s aging criminal courthouse and troubled jail. Officials worry about long waits in traffic court that could cause people to miss work, as well as crowded criminal dockets that keep inmates locked up longer while they wait for bail hearings.
“The human cost of it is astounding,” said Josh Spickler, executive director of Just City, a Memphis-based organization that advocates for fairness in the criminal justice system.
The mayor of Shelby County, which includes Memphis, has asked for more judges to handle cases that could drag on for months or years. County leaders are debating whether to expand court hours into nights and weekends — a step that could ease the caseload but would also require more funding.
Meanwhile, overcrowding at the Shelby County Jail has forced officials to move inmates to other facilities. New arrivals at the jail are sleeping in chairs, and corrections leaders are asking county commissioners for more money to address problems such as staffing shortages among jail employees.
With 65 deaths at the jail since 2019, according to Just City, activists and officials are increasingly worried about safety. Court backlogs mean both defendants and crime victims may spend an unfair amount of time entangled in the system, said Steve Mulroy, the county’s district attorney.
“The task force deployment probably could have used more planning,” said Mulroy, a Democrat whose office is cooperating with the initiative. “More thought could have been put into the downstream effects of the increased arrest numbers.”
Jails Seek Emergency Relief
County statistics show that in the first several weeks after the task force began operating, the number of jail bookings and bail settings each jumped by about 40% compared with the same period last year.
The jail’s regular capacity is 2,400 inmates, but its average daily population in September — the most recent month with available data — was 3,195. County officials said they expected that number to be even higher in October.
By mid-November, 250 overflow detainees were being housed in other facilities, up from 80 in November 2024. Some of those facilities are outside Shelby County, complicating visits by lawyers and relatives and increasing transportation costs to bring defendants back to Memphis for court hearings.
In a letter to county commissioners, Chief Jailer Kirk Fields requested at least $1.5 million in emergency funding, citing higher costs for food, clothing, bedding and linens as the inmate population grows.
Courts Prepare for a Wave of Cases
Another pressing question is whether there are enough judges to process the influx of cases, particularly after state lawmakers eliminated two judgeships during last year’s legislative session.
On Oct. 31, Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris wrote to state court officials to request additional judges, warning that the county is bracing for at least 3,500 to 5,000 people to be arrested. That kind of surge, he wrote, would drive up jail expenses and potentially require hiring more public defenders, prosecutors and corrections staff.
“This places Shelby County in extreme financial peril,” Harris wrote.
In response, the Tennessee Supreme Court noted that lower court judges currently believe more judges are not yet necessary, but it has designated two senior judges to step in if needed.
“Part of it is, understanding just what the cadence is going to look like over the next few months and then developing a strategy,” the governor said earlier this month, adding that the state is closely monitoring the situation.
Mulroy said local officials have floated ideas such as Saturday court and night court two or three evenings a week, as well as a clinic where people with misdemeanor warrants could voluntarily surrender and clear their cases.
His office is also reassessing whether detention is warranted in hundreds of lower-level cases.
“If there’s no basis to think they’re a danger to the community or a flight risk, and they’re in there just because they can’t afford their bail, we can take a second look,” he wrote.
Task Force Defends Its Record
Ryan Guay, a U.S. Marshals Service official and spokesperson for the task force, told The Associated Press that the high number of arrests is evidence of the operation’s impact.
“We recognize that this success places additional demands on the broader criminal justice system, including courts and detention facilities,” Guay said.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons has offered a satellite prison camp to assist the task force, the agency said. The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office would oversee the facility, but a spokesperson declined to reveal its location, citing operational security concerns.
