Reviewed and updated October 7, 2026 by the SearchSystems.net editorial team. The arrest and crime counts are the ones each agency reported to the FBI, as the FBI held them on October 8, 2026. Every office link was opened and checked against the office's own site between September 24, 2026 and September 30, 2026.
Kanawha County, West Virginia, has about 174,000 residents (2024 Census Bureau estimate). In West Virginia the public criminal record is the court file, kept by the Circuit Clerk; the statewide criminal history kept by the West Virginia State Police is released only to its subject and to the employers and agencies the law allows. This guide says where each record of a criminal case from Kanawha County is kept and how it is seen.
This guide covers the court file, the statewide record, local arrest records, the crimes behind the records, the prosecutor, sex offender registry, records requests and common questions.
Related guides: Kanawha County public records, Kanawha County warrants, Kanawha County inmate search, Kanawha County court records, Kanawha County police reports, West Virginia arrest records and West Virginia inmate search.
Criminal Cases in the Kanawha County Circuit Court
In West Virginia the public criminal record is the court file. Criminal cases from Kanawha County are heard by the Kanawha County Circuit Court, which hears felonies, the larger civil cases and juvenile matters; the Magistrate Court takes misdemeanors, traffic cases and civil cases up to $10,000, and the file of each case is kept by the Circuit Clerk.
For Kanawha County, SearchSystems opened and checked the court records page for the county at kanawhacounty.westvirginiacourt.us/court-records.html (page title: Kanawha County Court Records | Case Lookup), phone 304-357-0440, 111 Court Street Charleston, WV 25301, Monday-Friday, 8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., which answered when SearchSystems opened it on September 24, 2026. That page belongs to a lower court, the Magistrate Court, not to the Kanawha County Circuit Court.
West Virginia has no single public index of every trial court case; each court's records are looked up through that court.
The West Virginia Criminal History and Your Own Copy
The statewide criminal history kept by the West Virginia State Police is closed to the public in West Virginia: it is released to its subject and to authorized employers and licensing agencies, and a member of the public uses the court's own case index instead.
To see your own record, the route is a fingerprint-based request to the State Police Criminal Identification Bureau.
Arrest Records Kept Locally in Kanawha County
The Kanawha County Sheriff's Office and the agencies that report for Charleston, South Charleston, St. Albans, Dunbar, Nitro, Marmet and eight more cities keep the arrest records in Kanawha County: the report and the booking record of each arrest stay with the agency that made it, separate from the court file and from the state repository.
The FBI's agency list also places two campus police departments, four state agencies, two other agencies and four state police units in Kanawha County; each keeps the records of its own arrests.
The Montgomery Police Department is listed by the FBI across two counties including Kanawha County, so its arrests are not broken out for Kanawha County here.
The Crimes Behind the Records: Kanawha County in 2025
The five agencies in Kanawha County with all twelve months of 2025 on file reported 440 violent and 2,344 property crimes to the FBI that year; the three of them with both 2025 and 2024 complete reported 1,192 crimes in 2025 against 1,212 in 2024. Each reported crime is a report on file with the agency that took it, and each arrest that follows is the start of a criminal record.
The full crime section, agency by agency, is on the Kanawha County public records guide.
The Prosecuting Attorney for Kanawha County
The Prosecuting Attorney decides which arrests in Kanawha County become charges and files them in the Kanawha County Circuit Court or the Magistrate Court; the office answers questions about pending prosecutions, and the case files themselves are court records.
The office's page SearchSystems verified is at kanawha.us/prosecuting-attorney (page title: Prosecuting Attorney | Kanawha County, West Virginia), phone (304) 357-0300, 301 Virginia Street East Charleston, WV 25301, Monday-Friday 8:00 am - 5:00 pm, which answered when SearchSystems opened it on September 30, 2026.
The Sex Offender Registry for Kanawha County
Registered sex offenders living in Kanawha County are listed on the West Virginia Sex Offender Registry, run by the West Virginia State Police at apps.wv.gov. The registry is public and can be searched online.
Registration itself is done in person with the local agency where the registrant lives: the sheriff's office, or the city police in a city with its own department.
Asking an Agency in Kanawha County for a Record
An arrest report, a booking record or a local criminal history letter comes from the agency that holds it, not from the court.
Under the West Virginia Freedom of Information Act a county office must answer a request within 5 business days, and it may charge the actual cost of copying.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are criminal records public in Kanawha County?
The court files of criminal cases in the Kanawha County Circuit Court are public and can be looked up through the court. The statewide criminal history kept by the West Virginia State Police is not public; you can get your own. The arrest report itself is released by the agency that made the arrest, under the West Virginia Freedom of Information Act.
Can I search Kanawha County criminal cases online?
The court records page SearchSystems verified for the county is at kanawhacounty.westvirginiacourt.us (page title: Kanawha County Court Records | Case Lookup); it belongs to a lower court, not to the Kanawha County Circuit Court.
How do I get my own West Virginia criminal history?
Through a fingerprint-based request to the State Police Criminal Identification Bureau.
Who prosecutes crimes in Kanawha County?
The Prosecuting Attorney, reached at (304) 357-0300, which files its cases in the Kanawha County Circuit Court or the Magistrate Court.
Is this the official Kanawha County website?
No. SearchSystems.net is an independent public records guide, online since 1997. It links to the official county, court and state offices described above and does not hold records, charge for them or take requests.