Launching in the next days

West VirginiaPlaces

St. Albans

City in Kanawha County, 10,522 people.

Police

Sheriff in its county: Kanawha 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

People
10,522
Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates, 2020 to 2024

How a case moves here

St. Albans 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 St. Albans Police Department, St. Albans's own department. The county sheriff and state police may answer calls here too; their offenses are on their own pages.

The crime index

Crime index offenses reported by St. Albans Police Department, 2021 to 2025
Offense20212022202320242025Per 100kWest Virginia
Violent crime3327342312254277
MurderToo few for a rate: the count is under 20.5.9
Rape41431Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.56
Robbery12241Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.12
Aggravated assault2824281610209203
Property crime2892742492272442,5251,213
Burglary5740342836384193
Larceny2092191951821971,972927
Motor vehicle theft231520171116993
Arson11Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.12

Outside the crime index

Offenses outside the crime index reported by St. Albans Police Department, 2021 to 2025
Offense20212022202320242025Per 100kWest Virginia
All offenses outside the crime index4284924162892983,7852,075
Simple assault and intimidation7765594046565680
Vandalism9193826063766327
Fraud1918272113193162
Drug abuse violations1942662011201361,805646
Weapons: carrying, possessing, etc.141516171014284
Stolen property: buying, receiving, possessing13138121311639
Forgery and counterfeiting1813119611241
Embezzlement1112Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.8.6
Sex offenses (except rape and prostitution)14231Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.33
Prostitution and commercialized vice2726Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.3.1
Other Group A offenses2252Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.51
Human trafficking (not in the total)1Too few for a rate: the count is under 20.1.8

Offenses St. Albans 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.