Chester
City in Chester County, 5,218 people.
Police
Sheriff in its county: Chester County Sheriff's Office.
A department or FBI code is the place's own when its name is the place's and its FBI population fits the place's people (decisions city-or-town-is-its-police-department, left-out-code-is-its-place). Agencies: FBI NIBRS master file 2025 batch headers; names from the FBI agency list, pulled 2026-09-29.
Where it sits
- County
- Chester County
- People
- 5,218
- Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates, 2020 to 2024
How a case moves here
Chester follows South Carolina law on arrests, release, and courts; the full set covers prosecutors, defense, and jails too.
- Who decides release first
A magistrate, or a municipal judge for city charges, sets bond at a hearing within 24 hours of arrest. Magistrates need not be lawyers. A magistrate can't set bail on a charge punishable by death or life in prison; a circuit judge does.
S.C. Code 22-5-510S.C. Code 17-15-10 and following- Time to see a judge
A person charged with a bailable offense must have a bond hearing within 24 hours of arrest, and the jail must release the person within four hours after the bond is delivered.
S.C. Code 22-5-510(B)- Money bail
Magistrates and judges may set cash or surety bonds. A person charged with a new violent offense while out on bond for one loses the first bond, and any new bond must be paid in full cash.
S.C. Code 17-15-10, 17-15-15, 17-15-55
Read from the statutes and court rules cited, 2026-09-30. Magistrates are called summary court judges, so setter_is_judge is "yes" though they need not be lawyers. Whether municipal or magistrate courts use a bail schedule for minor offenses was not found. How many counties have moved the jail from the sheriff to the county government was not counted.
Crime
Offenses reported by Chester Police Department, Chester's own department. The county sheriff and state police may answer calls here too; their offenses are on their own pages.
The crime index
| Offense | 2021 | 2022 | 2023* | 2024 | 2025* | Per 100k | South Carolina |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Violent crime | 81 | 134 | 50 | 83 | 15 | 1,889 | 484 |
| Murder | 1 | 2 | 2 | 4 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 9.9 | |
| Rape | 4 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 42 |
| Robbery | 5 | 2 | 7 | 4 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 42 | |
| Aggravated assault | 71 | 125 | 36 | 69 | 14 | 1,680 | 391 |
| Property crime | 205 | 163 | 165 | 174 | 14 | 3,436 | 2,270 |
| Burglary | 24 | 40 | 37 | 31 | 5 | 602 | 346 |
| Larceny | 164 | 113 | 110 | 126 | 7 | 2,555 | 1,672 |
| Motor vehicle theft | 17 | 10 | 18 | 17 | 2 | 279 | 251 |
| Arson | 1 | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 12 |
Outside the crime index
| Offense | 2021 | 2022 | 2023* | 2024 | 2025* | Per 100k | South Carolina |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All offenses outside the crime index | 406 | 332 | 310 | 345 | 30 | 6,865 | 3,771 |
| Simple assault and intimidation | 166 | 117 | 147 | 134 | 8 | 2,643 | 1,339 |
| Vandalism | 117 | 100 | 70 | 90 | 5 | 1,946 | 639 |
| Fraud | 26 | 20 | 32 | 33 | 3 | 501 | 438 |
| Drug abuse violations | 63 | 62 | 23 | 28 | 9 | 970 | 909 |
| Weapons: carrying, possessing, etc. | 15 | 21 | 23 | 52 | 1 | 558 | 182 |
| Stolen property: buying, receiving, possessing | 5 | 6 | 4 | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 74 | |
| Forgery and counterfeiting | 4 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 75 |
| Sex offenses (except rape and prostitution) | 5 | 1 | 4 | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 37 | |
| Other Group A offenses | 5 | 1 | 7 | 2 | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 58 |
Offenses Chester Police Department 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 department polices, 2021, 2022, 2024 added together, full years only, beside South Carolina's rate over the same years. – means too few for a rate: the count is under 20.
* 2023, 2025: reported for part of the year only, so the count is short and the year is left out of the rate.
Source: FBI NIBRS national master files, each agency's offenses and the FBI's population for it. South Carolina: 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.