Washington County, Wisconsin

How a case moves here

Washington 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

Nothing county-specific yet

Whether Washington County runs a pretrial services office, uses a risk assessment, or has its own bail schedule appears here once a cited source says so.

Cities and towns

Every city, village, town, and township with any of its land in Washington 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 Washington County, 2021 to 2025
Offense	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025	Per 100k	Wisconsin
Violent crime	89	156	143	149	117	99	297
Murder				1	1	Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.	5
Rape	24	30	24	35	25	21	40
Robbery	6	3	7	1	2	Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.	41
Aggravated assault	59	123	112	112	89	75	212
Property crime	998	1,172	881	907	710	709	1,285
Burglary	46	45	39	43	49	34	143
Larceny	919	1,079	800	831	643	649	937
Motor vehicle theft	33	48	42	33	18	26	206
Arson	3	3	3	1	4	Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.	7

Outside the crime index

Offenses outside the crime index reported by agencies in Washington County, 2021 to 2025
Offense	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025	Per 100k	Wisconsin
All offenses outside the crime index	1,786	1,729	2,231	2,594	2,555	1,656	2,474
Simple assault and intimidation	250	223	239	328	336	209	571
Vandalism	269	257	257	346	300	217	422
Fraud	322	273	454	498	391	295	262
Drug abuse violations	673	668	971	995	1,179	682	834
Weapons: carrying, possessing, etc.	90	98	97	135	111	81	198
Stolen property: buying, receiving, possessing	3	6	3	21	8	6.2	23
Forgery and counterfeiting	36	35	38	66	65	36	37
Embezzlement	11	16	17	15	11	11	12
Sex offenses (except rape and prostitution)	91	93	63	84	63	60	47
Prostitution and commercialized vice	2	2	4	1	1	Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.	4.9
Gambling		5		1		Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.	0.1
Other Group A offenses	39	53	88	104	90	57	63
Manslaughter by negligence (not in the total)		2	1	3	1	Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.	1.4
Human trafficking (not in the total)				3	3	Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.	1.8

Offenses agencies in Washington 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.