Vernal
City in Uintah County, 10,392 people.
Police
Sheriff in its county: Uintah County Sheriff's Office.
A department is the place's own when its name is the place's and its FBI population fits the place's people (decision city-or-town-is-its-police-department). Agencies: FBI NIBRS master file 2025 batch headers; names from the FBI agency list, pulled 2026-09-29.
Where it sits
- County
- Uintah County
- People
- 10,392
- Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates, 2020 to 2024
How a case moves here
Vernal follows Utah law on arrests, release, and courts; the full set covers prosecutors, defense, and jails too.
- Who decides release first
Before a magistrate acts, a county jail official may release some people on their own recognizance under the sheriff's written policy, or set a capped money bail for most misdemeanors and some third-degree property and fraud felonies. The jail may not do either for violent offenses, domestic violence, or once police submit a probable cause statement. A magistrate then finds probable cause and issues a temporary pretrial status order releasing or holding the person.
Utah Code 77-20-203Utah Code 77-20-204Utah Code 77-20-205- Time to see a judge
After a warrantless arrest, police must give a magistrate a sworn probable cause statement within 24 hours. If the jail has no probable cause finding and pretrial status order 24 hours after booking, it must release the person on recognizance, unless a magistrate grants one 24-hour extension for good cause.
Utah R. Crim. P. 9- Money bail
Utah allows money bail. A magistrate or judge may release on recognizance, set conditions including money bail, or order detention, and jail officials may set money bail only up to fixed caps, such as $5,000 for listed felonies and $1,950 for a class A misdemeanor.
Utah Code 77-20-204Utah Code 77-20-205
Read from the statutes and court rules cited, 2026-09-30. Title 17 was renumbered in the 2025 first special session; county attorney law is now chapter 68 and sheriff law chapter 72. Utah Code 78A-7-106 carries a sunset review flag (63I-1-278) for 2029-07-01; check whether justice courts are restructured. The Salt Lake County district attorney example comes from county practice, not the statute text. Justice court judges seated before May 3, 2023 without a law degree may stay in office.
Crime
Offenses reported by Vernal Police Department, Vernal'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 | Utah |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Violent crime | 23 | 58 | 26 | 31 | 46 | 320 | 230 |
| Murder | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 2.5 | ||||
| Rape | 4 | 12 | 3 | 8 | 15 | 81 | 59 |
| Robbery | 1 | 3 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 26 | |||
| Aggravated assault | 19 | 45 | 23 | 19 | 31 | 227 | 142 |
| Property crime | 260 | 385 | 129 | 345 | 226 | 2,175 | 1,462 |
| Burglary | 33 | 33 | 6 | 20 | 16 | 131 | 151 |
| Larceny | 211 | 341 | 120 | 307 | 201 | 1,951 | 1,189 |
| Motor vehicle theft | 16 | 11 | 3 | 18 | 9 | 93 | 122 |
| Arson | 1 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 2 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 7.9 |
Outside the crime index
| Offense | 2021* | 2022* | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | Per 100k | Utah |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All offenses outside the crime index | 538 | 958 | 372 | 664 | 555 | 4,944 | 3,501 |
| Simple assault and intimidation | 119 | 235 | 75 | 169 | 134 | 1,175 | 877 |
| Vandalism | 89 | 134 | 40 | 129 | 107 | 858 | 596 |
| Fraud | 35 | 47 | 24 | 59 | 39 | 379 | 400 |
| Drug abuse violations | 263 | 436 | 199 | 222 | 176 | 1,855 | 1,224 |
| Weapons: carrying, possessing, etc. | 8 | 36 | 10 | 21 | 22 | 165 | 120 |
| Stolen property: buying, receiving, possessing | 4 | 2 | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 43 | ||
| Forgery and counterfeiting | 9 | 11 | 1 | 11 | 10 | 68 | 41 |
| Sex offenses (except rape and prostitution) | 13 | 43 | 18 | 32 | 27 | 239 | 98 |
| Prostitution and commercialized vice | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 4.4 | ||||
| Other Group A offenses | 2 | 11 | 3 | 21 | 39 | 196 | 96 |
| Manslaughter by negligence (not in the total) | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 0.6 |
Offenses Vernal 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, 2023 to 2025 added together, full years only, beside Utah's rate over the same years. – means too few for a rate: the count is under 20.
* 2021 to 2022: 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. Utah: 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.