Martinsburg
City in Berkeley County, 18,904 people.
Police
Sheriff in its county: Berkeley 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
- Berkeley County
- People
- 18,904
- Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates, 2020 to 2024
How a case moves here
Martinsburg 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 Martinsburg Police Department, Martinsburg'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 | Per 100k | West Virginia |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Violent crime | 52 | 42 | 44 | 42 | 242 | 285 |
| Murder | 1 | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 6.3 | ||
| Rape | 7 | 7 | 8 | 12 | 46 | 56 |
| Robbery | 2 | 4 | 3 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 12 | |
| Aggravated assault | 44 | 33 | 32 | 26 | 181 | 210 |
| Property crime | 326 | 155 | 193 | 329 | 1,347 | 1,262 |
| Burglary | 10 | 26 | 27 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 205 | |
| Larceny | 326 | 144 | 166 | 299 | 1,255 | 957 |
| Motor vehicle theft | 1 | 1 | 3 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 100 | |
| Arson | 3 | 3 | 5 | 3 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 14 |
Outside the crime index
| Offense | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | Per 100k | West Virginia |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All offenses outside the crime index | 703 | 367 | 454 | 453 | 2,654 | 2,112 |
| Simple assault and intimidation | 194 | 112 | 176 | 178 | 886 | 678 |
| Vandalism | 55 | 22 | 43 | 29 | 200 | 342 |
| Fraud | 11 | 19 | 23 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 164 | |
| Drug abuse violations | 418 | 183 | 158 | 171 | 1,249 | 664 |
| Weapons: carrying, possessing, etc. | 10 | 18 | 26 | 14 | 91 | 85 |
| Stolen property: buying, receiving, possessing | 5 | 4 | 7 | 10 | 35 | 40 |
| Forgery and counterfeiting | 12 | 3 | 4 | 9 | 38 | 43 |
| Embezzlement | 1 | 1 | 4 | 5 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 8.7 |
| Sex offenses (except rape and prostitution) | 4 | 8 | 6 | 6 | 32 | 33 |
| Prostitution and commercialized vice | 1 | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 3 | ||
| Other Group A offenses | 3 | 5 | 11 | 7 | 35 | 52 |
Offenses Martinsburg 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 2024 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.