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WisconsinPlaces

Middleton

City in Dane County, 22,301 people.

Police

Sheriff in its county: Dane 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
22,301
Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates, 2020 to 2024

How a case moves here

Middleton 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

Offenses reported by Middleton Police Department, Middleton'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 Middleton Police Department, 2021 to 2025
Offense20212022202320242025Per 100kWisconsin
Violent crime3819282625121297
Murder12Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.5
Rape831382040
Robbery4141Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.41
Aggravated assault261522211689212
Property crime2652371922162119971,285
Burglary3314199975143
Larceny204199167196192852937
Motor vehicle theft28246111070206
Arson11Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.7

Outside the crime index

Offenses outside the crime index reported by Middleton Police Department, 2021 to 2025
Offense20212022202320242025Per 100kWisconsin
All offenses outside the crime index4373863113843381,6512,474
Simple assault and intimidation92888010283396571
Vandalism8090737953333422
Fraud8970577891342262
Drug abuse violations10793586269346834
Weapons: carrying, possessing, etc.1355101139198
Stolen property: buying, receiving, possessing7432Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.23
Forgery and counterfeiting1610910104937
Embezzlement1231Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.12
Sex offenses (except rape and prostitution)121091674847
Other Group A offenses21151522137663

Offenses Middleton 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 Wisconsin'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. 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.