Reviewed and updated October 9, 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 October 4, 2026.
Grant County, West Virginia, has about 11,000 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 Grant 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, sex offender registry, records requests and common questions.
Related guides: Grant County public records, Grant County arrest records, Grant County warrants, Grant County inmate search, Grant County court records, West Virginia arrest records and West Virginia inmate search.
Criminal Cases in the Grant County Circuit Court
A criminal case from Grant County is filed in the Grant County Circuit Court or the Magistrate Court, which takes misdemeanors, traffic cases and civil cases up to $10,000, and the court file, kept by the Circuit Clerk, is the record of it that the public may see.
The court records page SearchSystems verified for the county is at courtswv.gov/public-resources/court-information-county/grant (page title: Grant County | West Virginia Judiciary), a site that blocks automated checks (HTTP 403), so open it in a browser.
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 Grant County
The Grant County Sheriff's Office and the agency that reports for Petersburg keep the arrest records in Grant 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 these agencies in Grant County: the State Fire Marshal in Grant County and the Department of Natural Resources in Grant County (state agency); Potomac Highlands Drug and Violent Crime Task Force (other agency); each keeps the records of its own arrests.
The Grant County Sheriff's Office reported 59 arrests to the FBI for 2023; how each case ended is in the court file, not in the arresting agency's.
The agencies and their counts, year by year, are in Grant County arrest records.
The Crimes Behind the Records: Grant County in 2023
The one agency in Grant County with all twelve months of 2023 on file reported 2 violent and 5 property crimes to the FBI that year; the same agencies with both 2023 and 2022 complete reported 7 crimes in 2023 against 23 in 2022. 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 Grant County public records guide.
The Sex Offender Registry for Grant County
Registered sex offenders living in Grant 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 Grant 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 Grant County?
The court files of criminal cases in the Grant 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.
How do I get my own West Virginia criminal history?
Through a fingerprint-based request to the State Police Criminal Identification Bureau.
Is this the official Grant 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.