Delaware

What Delaware's records show, how much of the state the FBI's data covers, and where the state publishes its own.

How Delaware handles a case

Sets bail first: Justice of the Peace Court magistrate
Who that is: A judge
Release on a schedule: No
Time to see a judge: No hour limit set
Money bail: Allowed (2019)
Risk assessment: Delaware Pretrial Assessment Tool (DELPAT) (statewide)
Prosecutor: Attorney general, statewide, elected
Public defense: Statewide public defender
Jails run by: State

Who decides release first: A Justice of the Peace Court magistrate usually sets bail at the initial appearance. Magistrates need not be lawyers. Only the Superior Court may set bail in a capital case, and for about 39 serious charges the law presumes cash-only bail.
11 Del. C. 2103, 2107, 2116 Delaware Courts, Magistrate Screening Committee
Time to see a judge: The court rules say a person arrested without a warrant must be taken before the nearest available magistrate without unreasonable delay, and set no hour limit. The U.S. Supreme Court's 48-hour rule for a probable cause finding applies as the federal floor.
Del. Super. Ct. Crim. R. 5(a)
Money bail: Money bail is allowed. The Bail Reform Act, in effect since January 1, 2019, favors release without money when that is enough, but presumes cash bail for listed serious charges.
11 Del. C. 2104 and 2107 Del. Supreme Court, In re Implementation of the Bail Reform Act, order of Feb. 28, 2022

Crime and arrests

No figures yet

Reported offenses and arrests per 100,000 people, year by year, and how Delaware compares with the country. They will come from the FBI's state totals.

FBI data coverage

Population covered: 99%; of Delaware's people lived under an agency that reported to the FBI in 2025.
Agencies on NIBRS: 100%; 63 of 63 agencies send incident detail.

Counties and agencies: no data yet

Every agency in Delaware by county, with the year each began sending incident detail to the FBI. They will come from the FBI's agency list and its NIBRS master files.

Source: FBI Crime Data Explorer, pulled 2026-09-26.

State crime reporting

Program: Delaware State Police, State Bureau of Identification (UCR/NIBRS repository); reports written by the Delaware Statistical Analysis Center (Criminal Justice Council)
Incident reporting: Delaware State Police SBI maintains the state's NIBRS implementation; no separate program name confirmed
Annual report: Crime in Delaware (five-year editions, with Executive Brief and Wilmington Supplement)Latest edition: 2025. Editions online 2000 to 2025, missing Editions are rolling five-year windows, not single years; older single-year editions (2002, 2008) and 2000-2005 are on https://sac.delaware.gov/historical-crime/.
Online portal: State of Delaware NIBRS Crime Report Totals by Jurisdiction (Delaware Open Data Portal)
What changed: Report is a five-year window published each year (e.g., 2021-2025 released July 2026). Mapping reports and offense fact sheets were added for some editions (2019, 2020).

Links and years checked 2026-09-26.

Delaware sources

2 sources

Delaware Statistical Analysis Center, Crime PublicationsState · DE
Delaware Statistical Analysis Center · Incidents, Arrests · pdf · irregular
Delaware Statistical Analysis Center crime publications, including Crime in Delaware reports from UCR data. Verified September 2026; the site blocks some automated clients.
Delaware Judiciary annual report statisticsState · DE
Delaware Administrative Office of the Courts · Courts · pdf · annual
Superior and Common Pleas criminal filings and dispositions by county (3). WAF needs a browser user agent and cookies.

Plus 83 national sources, from the FBI, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Census Bureau, the courts, and others.