Bristol
City in Bristol city, 16,849 people.
Police
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
- Bristol city
- People
- 16,849
- Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates, 2020 to 2024
- Also a county
- Its land is all of Bristol city.
How a case moves here
Bristol follows Virginia law on arrests, release, and courts; the full set covers prosecutors, defense, and jails too.
- Who decides release first
A magistrate decides bail first. Magistrates are court officers, not judges, and need not be lawyers. The law presumes release unless the magistrate finds the person likely to flee or dangerous.
Va. Code 19.2-119Va. Code 19.2-120Va. Code 19.2-37- Time to see a judge
Police must bring a person arrested without a warrant "forthwith" before a magistrate. The law sets no number of hours.
Va. Code 19.2-82- Money bail
Magistrates and judges may set secured money bonds. Virginia repealed its presumptions against bail for listed offenses in 2021 and now presumes release.
Va. Code 19.2-120
Read from the statutes and court rules cited, 2026-09-30. Virginia's independent cities stand in for counties: each elects its own Commonwealth's attorney and sheriff. Whether every locality has a pretrial services agency was not confirmed.
Crime
Offenses reported by Bristol Police Department, Bristol'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 | Virginia |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Violent crime | 71 | 64 | 88 | 75 | 80 | 451 | 228 |
| Murder | 1 | 2 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 5.9 | |||
| Rape | 19 | 14 | 8 | 17 | 17 | 89 | 30 |
| Robbery | 6 | 5 | 12 | 6 | 5 | 41 | 35 |
| Aggravated assault | 45 | 43 | 68 | 52 | 58 | 317 | 157 |
| Property crime | 394 | 475 | 678 | 527 | 453 | 3,012 | 1,558 |
| Burglary | 53 | 52 | 51 | 48 | 25 | 273 | 114 |
| Larceny | 284 | 378 | 582 | 450 | 399 | 2,495 | 1,298 |
| Motor vehicle theft | 57 | 45 | 45 | 29 | 29 | 244 | 145 |
| Arson | 6 | 3 | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 7 |
Outside the crime index
| Offense | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | Per 100k | Virginia |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All offenses outside the crime index | 805 | 933 | 1,323 | 1,263 | 1,314 | 6,720 | 2,779 |
| Simple assault and intimidation | 320 | 360 | 531 | 474 | 484 | 2,585 | 1,009 |
| Vandalism | 154 | 164 | 235 | 189 | 175 | 1,093 | 533 |
| Fraud | 73 | 109 | 157 | 116 | 158 | 731 | 462 |
| Drug abuse violations | 156 | 181 | 256 | 326 | 342 | 1,503 | 386 |
| Weapons: carrying, possessing, etc. | 52 | 54 | 69 | 91 | 68 | 398 | 167 |
| Stolen property: buying, receiving, possessing | 3 | 4 | 15 | 8 | 11 | 49 | 20 |
| Forgery and counterfeiting | 8 | 20 | 22 | 18 | 19 | 104 | 52 |
| Embezzlement | 2 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 20 |
| Sex offenses (except rape and prostitution) | 12 | 8 | 13 | 19 | 11 | 75 | 38 |
| Prostitution and commercialized vice | 1 | 1 | 2 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 4.2 | ||
| Gambling | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 0.9 | ||||
| Other Group A offenses | 24 | 28 | 21 | 16 | 40 | 154 | 86 |
Offenses Bristol 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 to 2025 added together, beside Virginia's rate over the same years. – 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. Virginia: 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.