York County, Pennsylvania

How a case moves here

York 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 the Ohio Risk Assessment System Pretrial Assessment Tool (ORAS-PAT).
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 York 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 York County, 2021 to 2025
Offense	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025	Per 100k	Pennsylvania
Violent crime	85	91	107	72	90	116	270
Murder	1	6	3		4	Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.	6.8
Rape	21	34	28	21	25	33	31
Robbery	10	7	10	4	4	9.1	61
Aggravated assault	53	44	66	47	57	69	170
Property crime	301	382	359	275	365	437	1,445
Burglary	68	55	54	28	36	63	133
Larceny	207	302	270	228	313	343	1,108
Motor vehicle theft	26	25	35	19	16	31	204
Arson	11	3	6		3	Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.	12

Outside the crime index

Offenses outside the crime index reported by agencies in York County, 2021 to 2025
Offense	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025	Per 100k	Pennsylvania
All offenses outside the crime index	1,955	1,639	1,730	1,505	1,372	2,129	2,703
Simple assault and intimidation	380	387	391	362	385	495	897
Vandalism	143	169	170	120	111	185	580
Fraud	327	205	160	124	101	238	415
Drug abuse violations	853	631	773	660	584	909	475
Weapons: carrying, possessing, etc.	94	63	64	82	47	91	158
Stolen property: buying, receiving, possessing	17	13	20	20	10	21	27
Forgery and counterfeiting	15	44	27	38	21	38	31
Embezzlement	21	19	29	25	38	34	16
Sex offenses (except rape and prostitution)	56	54	46	41	48	64	51
Prostitution and commercialized vice		1	3		3	Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.	4.9
Gambling	4	2	1			Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.	1.8
Other Group A offenses	45	51	46	33	24	52	44
Manslaughter by negligence (not in the total)		1			1	Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.	1.2
Human trafficking (not in the total)	1	1	2			Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.	0.7

Offenses agencies in York 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.