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WisconsinPlaces

Howard

Village in Brown County, 21,087 people.

Police

Police
Brown County Sheriff's Office polices Howard and sends its reports to the FBI.
FBI code
WI0050400
22,483 people, the FBI's figure for 2025.

A department or FBI code is the place's own when its name is the place's and its FBI population fits the place's people (decisions city-or-town-is-its-police-department, left-out-code-is-its-place). Agencies: FBI NIBRS master file 2025 batch headers; names from the FBI agency list, pulled 2026-09-29.

Where it sits

People
21,087
Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates, 2020 to 2024

How a case moves here

Howard follows Wisconsin law on arrests, release, and courts; 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. 969.07Wis. Stat. 969.065Wis. Stat. 969.12Wis. 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

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.

Crime

No figures

Brown County Sheriff's Office counts Howard's offenses with the rest of the area it polices, so Howard has no figures of its own.