El Paso County, Texas

How a case moves here

El Paso County follows Texas 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: A magistrate sets bail first, at the hearing that must follow arrest. Magistrates include judges of every level, justices of the peace, and, in some counties, appointed criminal law magistrates. In misdemeanors, a sheriff, officer, or licensed jailer may take bail, and many counties use bond schedules signed by judges.
Tex. Code Crim. Proc. arts. 17.027, 17.20 to 17.22 Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 15.17
Time to see a judge: A person arrested must be taken before a magistrate without unnecessary delay and no later than 48 hours after arrest. The magistrate gives the warnings, sets bail, and can appoint a lawyer. The hearing may be held by video.
Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 15.17(a)
Money bail: Texas allows money bail. Since voters approved Proposition 3 in November 2025, a judge must deny bail for murder, aggravated assault, aggravated robbery, aggravated sexual assault, and several other felonies when the state proves flight risk or danger at a hearing, and must explain in writing any grant of bail on those charges.
Tex. Const. art. I, secs. 11 to 11d Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 17.15
Courts: District courts try felonies. Each county has a constitutional county court, and larger counties add county courts at law; these hear Class A and B misdemeanors. Justice courts and city municipal courts hear Class C misdemeanors, which carry only a fine.
Texas Office of Court Administration, The Texas Judicial System (2025)
Judges and magistrates: Voters choose district judges in partisan elections for four-year terms, and the governor fills vacancies until the next election. County judges, county court at law judges, and justices of the peace also win partisan elections for four-year terms. Justices of the peace and most constitutional county judges need not be lawyers; most municipal judges are appointed by the city council.
Texas Office of Court Administration, The Texas Judicial System (2025), "Selection and terms"

Read from the statutes and court rules cited, 2026-09-30. Prop 3 (2025) changed when bail must be denied, not whether money bail exists. Appointed criminal law magistrates exist only in counties with an enabling section in Gov't Code ch. 54, such as Harris, Dallas, Bexar, and Travis. Counts of public defender offices change often; check TIDC before quoting a number.

What this county does differently

Pretrial practice: Mapping Pretrial Injustice listed its risk tool in 2021 as the Virginia Pretrial Risk Assessment Instrument (VPRAI).
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 El Paso 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 El Paso County, 2021 to 2025
Offense	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025	Per 100k	Texas
Violent crime	2,243	2,660	2,652	2,641	2,455	292	411
Murder	39	35	46	29	36	4.3	6.1
Rape	459	340	188	320	338	38	53
Robbery	281	318	358	287	261	35	67
Aggravated assault	1,464	1,967	2,060	2,005	1,820	215	285
Property crime	10,307	11,313	12,870	11,987	10,692	1,321	2,123
Burglary	1,388	1,199	1,319	1,159	962	139	303
Larceny	7,738	8,405	8,922	8,640	7,679	956	1,493
Motor vehicle theft	1,181	1,709	2,629	2,188	2,051	225	327
Arson	52	78	103	76	94	9.3	9.2

Outside the crime index

Offenses outside the crime index reported by agencies in El Paso County, 2021 to 2025
Offense	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025	Per 100k	Texas
All offenses outside the crime index	23,012	25,568	26,637	25,412	25,439	2,913	2,904
Simple assault and intimidation	8,995	10,585	11,084	11,105	10,680	1,212	1,172
Vandalism	4,781	5,558	5,712	4,959	4,428	588	534
Fraud	2,709	2,376	2,380	2,619	2,671	295	312
Drug abuse violations	4,750	5,227	5,893	5,167	5,782	620	602
Weapons: carrying, possessing, etc.	567	620	635	581	542	68	109
Stolen property: buying, receiving, possessing	5	2	20	63	62	3.5	17
Forgery and counterfeiting	272	316	239	228	223	30	64
Embezzlement	133	175	134	46	71	13	8.6
Sex offenses (except rape and prostitution)	243	246	93	69	258	21	27
Prostitution and commercialized vice	35	13	13	51	27	3.2	10
Gambling				1		Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.	1.9
Other Group A offenses	522	450	434	523	695	61	48
Manslaughter by negligence (not in the total)	11	8	4	6	6	0.8	0.8
Human trafficking (not in the total)		1	2		1	Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.	1.8

Offenses agencies in El Paso 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 Texas'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. Texas: 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.