Beckley
City in Raleigh County, 16,818 people.
Police
Sheriff in its county: Raleigh County Sheriff's Office.
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
- County
- Raleigh County
- People
- 16,818
- Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates, 2020 to 2024
How a case moves here
Beckley follows West Virginia law on arrests, release, and courts; the full set covers prosecutors, defense, and jails too.
- Who decides release first
A county magistrate sets bail first, with an on-call magistrate for arrests after hours. Magistrates need not be lawyers. Only the circuit court can release a person charged with an offense punishable by life in prison.
W. Va. Code 62-1C-1W. Va. Code 62-1-5- Time to see a judge
An officer must take an arrested person "without unnecessary delay" before a magistrate of the county where the arrest happened. The law sets no number of hours.
W. Va. Code 62-1-5(a)(1)- Money bail
Magistrates and judges may set money bail.
W. Va. Code 62-1C-1
Read from the statutes and court rules cited, 2026-09-30. Some of this is medium confidence and still being checked. The name of the Supreme Court-approved risk instrument was not found. Whether jailers release on a bail schedule without a magistrate was not found.
Crime
Offenses reported by Beckley Police Department, Beckley'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 | West Virginia |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Violent crime | 122 | 129 | 114 | 99 | 118 | 712 | 277 |
| Murder | 2 | 1 | 4 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 5.9 | ||
| Rape | 19 | 14 | 15 | 19 | 21 | 108 | 56 |
| Robbery | 13 | 8 | 8 | 9 | 7 | 55 | 12 |
| Aggravated assault | 88 | 106 | 87 | 71 | 90 | 541 | 203 |
| Property crime | 994 | 1,336 | 1,188 | 1,326 | 1,174 | 7,365 | 1,213 |
| Burglary | 140 | 135 | 110 | 146 | 104 | 777 | 193 |
| Larceny | 811 | 1,152 | 1,029 | 1,150 | 1,036 | 6,337 | 927 |
| Motor vehicle theft | 43 | 49 | 49 | 30 | 34 | 251 | 93 |
| Arson | 1 | 6 | 2 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 12 |
Outside the crime index
| Offense | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | Per 100k | West Virginia |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All offenses outside the crime index | 1,086 | 1,240 | 1,389 | 1,561 | 1,311 | 8,062 | 2,075 |
| Simple assault and intimidation | 342 | 422 | 493 | 462 | 477 | 2,688 | 680 |
| Vandalism | 270 | 274 | 249 | 247 | 233 | 1,558 | 327 |
| Fraud | 123 | 103 | 118 | 121 | 115 | 710 | 162 |
| Drug abuse violations | 242 | 319 | 392 | 567 | 361 | 2,302 | 646 |
| Weapons: carrying, possessing, etc. | 46 | 55 | 48 | 61 | 39 | 305 | 84 |
| Stolen property: buying, receiving, possessing | 7 | 3 | 8 | 10 | 9 | 45 | 39 |
| Forgery and counterfeiting | 27 | 33 | 28 | 37 | 27 | 186 | 41 |
| Embezzlement | 3 | 2 | 6 | 2 | 4 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 8.6 |
| Sex offenses (except rape and prostitution) | 9 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 14 | 49 | 33 |
| Prostitution and commercialized vice | 1 | 6 | 2 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 3.1 | ||
| Other Group A offenses | 17 | 22 | 41 | 43 | 30 | 187 | 51 |
| Manslaughter by negligence (not in the total) | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 1 |
Offenses Beckley 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 West Virginia'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. West Virginia: 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.