Belle
Town in Kanawha County, 1,611 people.
Police
Sheriff in its county: Kanawha 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
- Kanawha County
- People
- 1,611
- Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates, 2020 to 2024
How a case moves here
Belle 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 Belle Police Department, Belle'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 | 2022* | 2024* | Per 100k | West Virginia |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Violent crime | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | ||
| Murder | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | ||
| Rape | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | ||
| Robbery | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | ||
| Aggravated assault | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | ||
| Property crime | 5 | 4 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. |
| Burglary | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | ||
| Larceny | 4 | 4 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. |
| Motor vehicle theft | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | |
| Arson | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. |
Outside the crime index
| Offense | 2022* | 2024* | Per 100k | West Virginia |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All offenses outside the crime index | 4 | 3 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. |
| Simple assault and intimidation | 2 | 3 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. |
| Vandalism | 2 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. |
Offenses Belle Police Department reported to the FBI in incident detail (NIBRS), each year, the second table by the arrest class each offense falls in. It reported no full year, so there is no rate. – means too few for a rate: the count is under 20.
* 2022, 2024: reported for part of the year only, so the count is short and the year is left out of the rate.
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.