Lehigh County, Pennsylvania

How a case moves here

Lehigh County follows Pennsylvania law on arrests, release, and courts. These rules are the same in every county in the state; the full set covers prosecutors, defense, and jails too.

Who decides release first: Outside Philadelphia, a magisterial district judge sets bail at the preliminary arraignment. In Philadelphia, an arraignment court magistrate appointed by the Municipal Court sets it; magistrates need not be lawyers if they complete a training program. Neither may set bail for murder or voluntary manslaughter; a Common Pleas judge does.
Pa.R.Crim.P. 519 42 Pa.C.S. 1515(a)(4)42 Pa.C.S. 1123(a)(5)
Time to see a judge: A person arrested without a warrant must have a preliminary arraignment without unnecessary delay. The rule sets no hour limit. The U.S. Supreme Court's 48-hour rule for a probable cause finding applies as the federal floor.
Pa.R.Crim.P. 516(A)
Money bail: Money bail is allowed. The rules list five kinds of release, from release on recognizance to a money condition no larger than needed to ensure the person appears.
Pa.R.Crim.P. 524(C)
Courts: The Court of Common Pleas, organized in 60 judicial districts, tries felonies and misdemeanors. Magisterial district judges hear summary offenses, the lowest grade, and hold first arraignments and preliminary hearings. In Philadelphia, the Municipal Court tries crimes punishable by up to five years without a jury.
Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania, Courts of Common Pleas 42 Pa.C.S. 1515 42 Pa.C.S. 1123
Judges and magistrates: Common Pleas judges win a contested election for a 10-year term, then run in yes-or-no retention elections without party labels. Magisterial district judges are elected in contested elections to six-year terms and need not be lawyers. All other judges must be members of the bar.
Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania, How Judges Are Elected

Read from the statutes and court rules cited, 2026-09-30. The prison board statute covers counties of the third to fifth class and those that opt in; Philadelphia and Allegheny run jails under other arrangements not read here.

What this county does differently

Pretrial practice: Mapping Pretrial Injustice listed its risk tool in 2021 as a county-specific tool (not named in the list).
MediaJustice and Movement Alliance Project, Mapping Pretrial Injustice county map (data as of fall 2021)
From Mapping Pretrial Injustice, a map compiled by MediaJustice and the Movement Alliance Project, advocacy groups that campaign against pretrial risk assessment tools. Its data is from fall 2021; CrimeDB uses it only where no court, government, or research list covers the county.

Cities and towns

Every city, village, town, and township with any of its land in Lehigh County, largest first. Population, the whole place's: Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates, 2020 to 2024.

Police agencies

Agencies: FBI NIBRS master file 2025 batch headers; names from the FBI agency list, pulled 2026-09-29. An agency that serves several counties appears on each. Population served is the FBI's figure.

Crime

The crime index

Crime index offenses reported by agencies in Lehigh County, 2021 to 2025
Offense	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025	Per 100k	Pennsylvania
Violent crime	62	80	125	395	517	131	270
Murder			1	8	5	Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.	6.8
Rape	17	24	31	69	91	26	31
Robbery	9	6	26	64	106	23	61
Aggravated assault	36	50	67	254	315	80	170
Property crime	491	1,001	1,608	2,949	3,481	1,056	1,445
Burglary	55	70	120	221	249	79	133
Larceny	411	883	1,415	2,508	2,969	907	1,108
Motor vehicle theft	25	48	73	220	263	70	204
Arson	2	3	5	15	10	3.9	12

Outside the crime index

Offenses outside the crime index reported by agencies in Lehigh County, 2021 to 2025
Offense	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025	Per 100k	Pennsylvania
All offenses outside the crime index	1,970	1,983	2,523	6,153	7,737	2,257	2,703
Simple assault and intimidation	428	531	644	1,717	2,467	641	897
Vandalism	200	237	346	976	1,198	328	580
Fraud	736	446	490	866	1,107	404	415
Drug abuse violations	433	414	500	1,689	2,011	559	475
Weapons: carrying, possessing, etc.	74	91	131	210	217	80	158
Stolen property: buying, receiving, possessing	21	111	209	219	206	85	27
Forgery and counterfeiting	23	41	60	186	146	51	31
Embezzlement	16	24	34	44	29	16	16
Sex offenses (except rape and prostitution)	20	34	33	139	200	47	51
Prostitution and commercialized vice		8		2	5	Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.	4.9
Other Group A offenses	19	46	76	105	151	44	44
Manslaughter by negligence (not in the total)				2		Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.	1.2
Human trafficking (not in the total)				2		Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.	0.7

Offenses agencies in Lehigh County reported to the FBI in incident detail (NIBRS), each year, the second table by the arrest class each offense falls in. Per 100k: offenses per 100,000 people the reporting agencies police, 2021 to 2025 added together, beside Pennsylvania's rate over the same years. Agencies that reported part of a year are counted with their people, as the state's rates count them. – means too few for a rate: the count is under 20.

Source: FBI NIBRS national master files, each agency's offenses and the FBI's population for it. Pennsylvania: the crime index: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, CrimeDB's chosen value per year (the state page's figures); outside it: FBI NIBRS, agencies that sent incident detail.