Dane County, Wisconsin

How a case moves here

Dane County follows Wisconsin 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: For most misdemeanors, a police officer or the jail can take cash bail under the statewide misdemeanor bail schedule. For felonies, a circuit court commissioner or circuit judge sets bail at the initial appearance. Wisconsin bars paid bail bondsmen, so sureties must be unpaid people.
Wis. Stat. 969.07 Wis. Stat. 969.065 Wis. Stat. 969.12 Wis. Stat. 757.69(1)(b)Wis. Stat. 968.075(2m), (5)
Time to see a judge: A person who is arrested must be taken before a judge within a reasonable time in the county where the offense is charged. Wisconsin law sets no number of hours.
Wis. Stat. 970.01(1)
Money bail: Wisconsin courts may set cash bail. A surety must be a state resident and an unpaid natural person, so commercial bail bonds are not allowed.
Wis. Stat. 969.12
Courts: The circuit court in each county hears every felony and misdemeanor. Many cities, towns, and villages have a municipal court, but it hears only local ordinance violations punished by fines, not crimes.
Wis. Const. art. VII, secs. 6-7 Wis. Stat. 755.045
Judges and magistrates: Voters elect circuit judges to six-year terms on a ballot with no party label. The chief judge of each judicial district appoints circuit court commissioners, who can hold initial appearances and set bail and must have been licensed lawyers for three years. Municipal judges are elected to terms of up to four years.
Wis. Const. art. VII, sec. 7 Wis. Stat. 5.60(1)Wis. Stat. 757.68 Wis. Stat. 757.69 SCR ch. 75 Wis. Stat. 755.01-.02

Read from the statutes and court rules cited, 2026-09-30. Municipal courts are left out of limited_courts because they hear only ordinance forfeiture cases. wispd.org returned errors, so the defense section rests on statute. Whether municipal judges must be lawyers was not checked; it doesn't affect criminal cases.

What this county does differently

Pretrial practice: Advancing Pretrial lists it as a Public Safety Assessment site since 2017.
Advancing Pretrial Policy and Research, PSA sites list (page modified 2026-06-03)

Cities and towns

Every city, village, town, and township with any of its land in Dane 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 Dane County, 2021 to 2025
Offense	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025	Per 100k	Wisconsin
Violent crime	1,336	1,313	1,239	1,141	897	207	297
Murder	16	12	14	12	13	2.3	5
Rape	223	177	118	143	118	27	40
Robbery	184	153	146	109	114	25	41
Aggravated assault	913	971	961	877	652	153	212
Property crime	10,691	9,934	9,326	8,204	7,829	1,607	1,285
Burglary	1,426	1,226	1,006	689	591	173	143
Larceny	8,101	7,698	7,550	7,047	6,815	1,301	937
Motor vehicle theft	1,164	1,010	770	468	423	134	206
Arson	27	31	18	12	12	3.5	7

Outside the crime index

Offenses outside the crime index reported by agencies in Dane County, 2021 to 2025
Offense	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025	Per 100k	Wisconsin
All offenses outside the crime index	11,605	13,064	12,148	11,906	11,091	2,091	2,474
Simple assault and intimidation	2,541	3,288	3,096	3,122	3,035	527	571
Vandalism	2,529	3,091	2,606	2,405	2,146	447	422
Fraud	2,747	2,532	2,225	2,262	1,929	409	262
Drug abuse violations	2,469	2,655	2,717	2,728	2,748	466	834
Weapons: carrying, possessing, etc.	416	499	437	449	400	77	198
Stolen property: buying, receiving, possessing	107	106	81	68	66	15	23
Forgery and counterfeiting	194	268	313	194	177	40	37
Embezzlement	56	83	55	59	39	10	12
Sex offenses (except rape and prostitution)	230	207	173	184	167	34	47
Prostitution and commercialized vice	6	6	3	5	8	1	4.9
Gambling					1	Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.	0.1
Other Group A offenses	310	329	442	430	375	66	63
Manslaughter by negligence (not in the total)	15	10	9	13	8	1.9	1.4
Human trafficking (not in the total)	9	3	3	4	2	0.7	1.8

Offenses agencies in Dane 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 Wisconsin'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. Wisconsin: 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.