Onalaska
City in La Crosse County, 19,348 people.
Police
Sheriff in its county: La Crosse 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
- County
- La Crosse County
- People
- 19,348
- Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates, 2020 to 2024
How a case moves here
Onalaska 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 Onalaska Police Department, Onalaska's own department. The county sheriff and state police may answer calls here too; their offenses are on their own pages.
The crime index
| Offense | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | Per 100k | Wisconsin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Violent crime | 17 | 7 | 17 | 8 | 11 | 62 | 297 |
| Murder | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 5 | |||||
| Rape | 8 | 3 | 10 | 5 | 3 | 30 | 40 |
| Robbery | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 41 | |
| Aggravated assault | 8 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 7 | 27 | 212 |
| Property crime | 620 | 403 | 465 | 441 | 412 | 2,431 | 1,285 |
| Burglary | 29 | 18 | 29 | 17 | 16 | 113 | 143 |
| Larceny | 581 | 374 | 434 | 420 | 391 | 2,284 | 937 |
| Motor vehicle theft | 10 | 11 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 33 | 206 |
| Arson | 1 | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 7 |
Outside the crime index
| Offense | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | Per 100k | Wisconsin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All offenses outside the crime index | 480 | 464 | 412 | 350 | 383 | 2,169 | 2,474 |
| Simple assault and intimidation | 60 | 79 | 76 | 63 | 77 | 369 | 571 |
| Vandalism | 122 | 95 | 67 | 71 | 61 | 432 | 422 |
| Fraud | 150 | 108 | 123 | 113 | 95 | 612 | 262 |
| Drug abuse violations | 88 | 103 | 78 | 53 | 82 | 419 | 834 |
| Weapons: carrying, possessing, etc. | 8 | 15 | 9 | 5 | 16 | 55 | 198 |
| Stolen property: buying, receiving, possessing | 13 | 18 | 9 | 2 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 23 | |
| Forgery and counterfeiting | 28 | 21 | 22 | 25 | 24 | 125 | 37 |
| Embezzlement | 5 | 4 | 3 | 7 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 12 | |
| Sex offenses (except rape and prostitution) | 7 | 6 | 14 | 6 | 7 | 42 | 47 |
| Other Group A offenses | 4 | 14 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 53 | 63 |
Offenses Onalaska 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.