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South Hill

Town in Mecklenburg County, 4,786 people.

Police

Sheriff in its county: Mecklenburg 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

People
4,786
Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates, 2020 to 2024

How a case moves here

South Hill 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 Virginia repealed its presumptions against bail for listed offenses in 2021 and now presumes release.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 South Hill Police Department, South Hill's own department. The county sheriff and state police may answer calls here too; their offenses are on their own pages.

The crime index

Crime index offenses reported by South Hill Police Department, 2021 to 2025
Offense20212022202320242025Per 100kVirginia
Violent crime1431181524429228
Murder312Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.5.9
Rape22333Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.30
Robbery321Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.35
Aggravated assault1223131019324157
Property crime1761961951771433,7291,558
Burglary814111512252114
Larceny1551701751501213,2411,298
Motor vehicle theft131291210235145
Arson1Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.7

Outside the crime index

Offenses outside the crime index reported by South Hill Police Department, 2021 to 2025
Offense20212022202320242025Per 100kVirginia
All offenses outside the crime index1351762152011503,6872,779
Simple assault and intimidation41456182491,1691,009
Vandalism3652604833963533
Fraud2320261517425462
Drug abuse violations1418272325450386
Weapons: carrying, possessing, etc.9151126181167
Stolen property: buying, receiving, possessing22Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.20
Forgery and counterfeiting5161114220252
Embezzlement14108913520
Sex offenses (except rape and prostitution)347269238
Other Group A offenses32251Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.86

Offenses South Hill 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.