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Kanawha County Sheriff's Office

County agency in Kanawha, West Virginia, United States. Reports crime data to the FBI, and has done since 1998.

ORI
WV0200000
Type
County
County
Kanawha
State
West Virginia (WV)
FBI reporting
Reporting since 1998-01-01
Location
38.3524, -81.6398

Workforce

As reported to the FBI for 2025, covering a population of 83,074.

95Sworn officers
33Civilian staff
1.54Employees per 1,000 people
83,074Population served
YearOfficersCiviliansPopulation servedPer 1,000
2025953383,0741.54
20241012883,7061.54
20231042683,4451.56
20221042684,0771.55
20211023087,3211.51
20201033187,5051.53
20191042987,8141.51
20181042889,5161.47
2017973189,4701.43
20161003590,4471.49
2015992891,7431.38
20131042092,8381.34

Officer and civilian counts are full-time employees as filed by the agency in its annual return. A dash means the agency did not report that figure for that year — it does not mean zero.

Crime and clearances

Offences and clearances filed by Kanawha County Sheriff's Office in its monthly returns to the FBI, added up by calendar year, 2019–2026. Violent crime and property crime are the FBI’s two categories. These are the counts as filed: Police Census does not turn them into a rate.

Violent crime
YearMonths filedOffencesClearedCleared as % of offences
20267 of 122144219.6%
20251233410832.3%
2024122836523.0%
2023123989122.9%
20221241711427.3%
2021124009624.0%
2020124638017.3%
20191238912532.1%
Property crime
YearMonths filedOffencesClearedCleared as % of offences
20267 of 12613294.7%
2025121,008505.0%
2024121,029575.5%
2023121,064535.0%
2022121,158605.2%
2021121,264796.3%
2020121,273604.7%
2019121,4151178.3%

Reading the table. “Not reported” means the agency filed nothing for that year; it does not mean zero. A 0 is a figure the agency filed. For 2026 the FBI is still collecting: that year is not complete in the file we read, so where this agency has no 2026 figures the table says “Not yet in the FBI’s file” rather than “Not reported”. We can see that the agency is absent from the file so far; we cannot tell whether it has not filed or has not yet been published, and we do not guess. A year marked “7 of 12” adds up only the months the agency filed, so it is not a full-year total. A dash in the last column means the percentage cannot be worked out: it needs both figures, and at least one offence.

“Cleared” is the FBI file’s clearance count for the year. Clearances in a year can relate to offences from earlier years, so the percentage is not the share of that year’s offences that were solved, and it can exceed 100%. Figures are not adjusted: a year far below the agency’s neighbouring years, or a 0 beside many offences, may reflect what was submitted rather than what happened. The file does not say which, and Police Census does not guess.

Source: FBI Crime Data Explorer, summarized data for agency record WV0200000.

Arrests

Arrests made by Kanawha County Sheriff's Office, all offences combined, as filed with the FBI and added up by calendar year, 2019–2026.

YearMonths filedArrests
20267 of 12766
2025121,143
2024121,010
2023121,354
2022121,417
2021121,674
202012903
201912884

“Not reported” means the agency filed nothing for that year; it does not mean zero. A year marked “7 of 12” adds up only the months filed. For 2026 the FBI is still collecting, so an absent agency reads “Not yet in the FBI’s file”: absent from the file so far, which is not the same claim as having filed nothing. Source: FBI Crime Data Explorer, arrest data for agency record WV0200000.

Bias-motivated incidents in the FBI’s file

1 incident appears in the FBI’s hate crime file for Kanawha County Sheriff's Office for 2024, as at 14 August 2026. The table lists every year from 1991 to 2025 for which the file has at least one.

Incidents appearing in the FBI’s file, as at 14 August 2026
YearIncidents appearing in the file
20241
20231
20201
20191
20163
20152
20143
20123
20105
20091
20084
20071
20063
20052
20042
20032
20025
20013
20006
19981
19971
Bias motivation recorded, in the FBI’s words, 1997–2024
Bias motivationIncidents
Anti-Black or African American18
Anti-White12
Anti-Gay (Male)4
Anti-Bisexual3
Anti-Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Transgender (Mixed Group)3
Anti-Islamic (Muslim)2
Anti-Lesbian (Female)2
Anti-American Indian or Alaska Native1
Anti-Heterosexual1
Anti-Mental Disability1
Anti-Multiple Races, Group1
Anti-Other Race/Ethnicity/Ancestry1
Anti-Physical Disability1
Anti-Transgender1

Absence from this file is not a zero. The file lists incidents that were reported to the FBI. An agency can be missing from it because it recorded none, because it did not report, or because it does not take part in the FBI’s hate crime program, and nothing Police Census holds can tell these apart. In any one year the file lists incidents for only a minority of the agencies the FBI counts as reporting.

The figures are counts of incidents as they appear in the file, as at 14 August 2026; Police Census does not turn them into a rate and does not compare them with other agencies. Offence and bias wording is the FBI’s own, unaltered. Source: FBI Crime Data Explorer, additional datasets, hate crime bulk file, agency record WV0200000.

Deaths during encounters with this agency

13 people have died during an encounter with Kanawha County Sheriff's Office between 2011 and 2026, according to the two datasets named below.

13Deaths recorded
15.65Per 100,000 people policed
2011–2026Period covered
Recorded causeDeaths
Gunshot12
Vehicle1

What this figure is and is not. It counts deaths recorded as occurring during an encounter with this agency. It is not a finding of wrongdoing, and a death being recorded here says nothing about whether it was lawful. Many involve armed confrontations; some involve none. Police Census publishes counts only and does not name the people who died.

Source: these records come from Mapping Police Violence (9) and Fatal Encounters (4). Where both recorded the same death it is counted once. They are not official statistics, and no federal database records this comprehensively. See Deaths for how the two are combined. Mapping Police Violence data is displayed with attribution to its compiler; the written scope of this site’s right to display it is being confirmed (note dated 11 October 2026).

Also policing Kanawha

Jurisdictions overlap. These agencies are also recorded against the same county, so a single address may be covered by more than one of them.

Source

Agency identity, type, jurisdiction, coordinates and reporting status are as published by the FBI Crime Data Explorer, agency record WV0200000. Police Census reproduces these values without adjustment. Where the FBI publishes nothing, this page says so rather than estimating.

Believe something on this page is wrong? Tell us at corrections@policecensus.com — every correction is published on Corrections.