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WashingtonPlaces

Fife

City in Pierce County, 10,949 people.

Police

Sheriff in its county: Pierce 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
10,949
Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates, 2020 to 2024

How a case moves here

Fife follows Washington law on arrests, release, and courts; the full set covers prosecutors, defense, and jails too.

Who decides release first

A judge or court commissioner sets release at the preliminary appearance. Before that, a district or municipal court may adopt its own bail schedule that the jail applies; adopting one is optional and court by court.

CrRLJ 3.2CrR 3.2.1RCW 10.99.045RCW 3.42.010
Time to see a judge

A judge must decide probable cause within 48 hours of an arrest, counting weekends and holidays. The person must then appear before the court by the close of business on the next court day.

CrR 3.2.1(a), (c), (d)
Money bail

Court rules presume release on personal recognizance except in capital cases. A court may require a bond only after finding a likely failure to appear or a danger, must use the least restrictive conditions, and must consider the person's financial resources when setting a bond.

CrR 3.2

Read from the statutes and court rules cited, 2026-09-30. The pretrial section rests on a secondary summary. Which counties use commissioners for preliminary appearances was not checked.

Crime

Offenses reported by Fife Police Department, Fife'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 Fife Police Department, 2021 to 2025
Offense20212022202320242025Per 100kWashington
Violent crime1991711681091071,400339
Murder11111Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.4.2
Rape11151271411040
Robbery644954261939473
Aggravated assault1231061017573887222
Property crime1,3081,3531,0196424328,8262,753
Burglary15018111465571,053459
Larceny7627305434172925,0941,799
Motor vehicle theft396442362160832,679495
Arson101011958417

Outside the crime index

Offenses outside the crime index reported by Fife Police Department, 2021 to 2025
Offense20212022202320242025Per 100kWashington
All offenses outside the crime index9118358237237007,4112,513
Simple assault and intimidation1711761451371561,457795
Vandalism5445214172481893,563928
Fraud5751675433486305
Drug abuse violations414512052611,043184
Weapons: carrying, possessing, etc.331946251726084
Stolen property: buying, receiving, possessing374064331935882
Forgery and counterfeiting19911448743
Sex offenses (except rape and prostitution)363453936
Other Group A offenses6919131611749
Human trafficking (not in the total)112Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.1

Offenses Fife 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 Washington'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. Washington: 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.