Virginia
What Virginia's records show, how much of the state the FBI's data covers, and where the state publishes its own.
How Virginia handles a case
- Sets bail first
- Magistrate
- Who that is
- Not a judge
- Release on a schedule
- No
- Time to see a judge
- No hour limit set
- Money bail
- Allowed
- Risk assessment
- Virginia Pretrial Risk Assessment Instrument (VPRAI) (statewide)
- Prosecutor
- Commonwealth's attorney, one per county, elected
- Public defense
- Mixed
- Jails run by
- Mixed
- Who decides release first
A magistrate decides bail first. Magistrates are court officers, not judges, and need not be lawyers. The law presumes release unless the magistrate finds the person likely to flee or dangerous.
Va. Code 19.2-119Va. Code 19.2-120Va. Code 19.2-37- Time to see a judge
Police must bring a person arrested without a warrant "forthwith" before a magistrate. The law sets no number of hours.
Va. Code 19.2-82- Money bail
Magistrates and judges may set secured money bonds. Virginia repealed its presumptions against bail for listed offenses in 2021 and now presumes release.
Va. Code 19.2-120
Crime and arrests
No figures yet
FBI data coverage
- Population covered
- 99%
- of Virginia's people lived under an agency that reported to the FBI in 2025.
- Agencies on NIBRS
- 100%
- 412 of 412 agencies send incident detail.
Counties and agencies: no data yet
Source: FBI Crime Data Explorer, pulled 2026-09-26.
State crime reporting
- Program
- Virginia State Police, Data Analysis and Reporting Team (DART), UCR-IBR program
- Incident reporting
- Virginia IBR (Incident Based Reporting), Virginia Crime Repository
- Annual report
- Crime in VirginiaLatest edition: 2025. Editions online 2000 to 2025.
- Online portal
- Virginia Crime Statistics Online (TOPS)Data 2009 to 2025.
Links and years checked 2026-09-26.
Virginia sources
Virginia State Police · Incidents, Arrests, Hate crime · pdf · annual
State IBR (NIBRS) repository since 2000; annual Crime in Virginia report.
Virginia Office of the Executive Secretary, Court Performance and Statistical Services · Courts · pdf, dashboard · monthly
Locality (county or independent city): circuit, general district, J&DR filings and dispositions by month. PDFs hold prior and current year only and are overwritten monthly; snapshots pulled. Power BI 2013 on.
- Virginia Pretrial Data Project datasetsState · VA
Virginia Criminal Sentencing Commission · Bail, Courts · csv, dashboard · annual
Contact-event CSVs for 2018-2023 cohorts: bond type and amount at first contact and at release, release date, VCC offense, locality FIPS. No judge or magistrate field. Site is http only.
Plus 83 national sources, from the FBI, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Census Bureau, the courts, and others.