Crime is of great concern to all citizens of Virginia. By use of crime statistics, criminal justice agencies can make an informed decision concerning the most efficient and effective manner in which to dedicate their limited resources toward the reduction of crime in their communities. The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program is a system of collecting and analyzing crime statistics gathered on selected crimes by participating law enforcement agencies throughout the Commonwealth. We acknowledge the efforts made by these agencies in making this report accurate and concise.

All information in this report uses an incident based reporting format. The Incident Based Reporting (IBR) central repository went into production in January 1994. At that time all contributing agencies were given five years to convert their summary system into an incident based system. In the section, "Group A Offenses By Contributing Agencies," if the agency did not submit an entire year of data, the footnote beside the agency's name represents the number of months of submission. The statewide population for this publication (8,470,020) is a 2017 provisional estimate provided by the Weldon Cooper Center For Public Service, University of Virginia.

In accordance with the Code of Virginia, the Department of State Police, as the central repository, collects crime information from participating agencies. The most accurate information available in Virginia is used to generate the statistics contained in this annual report. IBR statistics were originally for police agencies only, but community concern has generated a use by both public and private sources. This use increases yearly. The IBR information has become the primary vehicle used to evaluate levels of criminal activity in jurisdictions throughout Virginia.

The participation and cooperation of all agencies making this publication possible is sincerely appreciated. The quality of the program continues to be maintained through their cooperative efforts.

Colonel Gary T. Settle
Superintendent

2017 Facts At A Glance

• There were 437,369 Group A Offenses reported by the contributing agencies. (Page 8)

• The total number of incidents of crime was 394,187 and the month of August had the greatest number reported. (Page 7)

• Of the 18,645 violent crimes reported, 50% occurred in the residence/home. (Page 46)

• There were 5,736 victims of the 5,442 forcible sex offenses reported by the contributing agencies; where gender was recorded, 86.4% of the victims were female. (Pages 14 & 15)

• The theft of money accounted for a property loss of $76,770,476. (Page 60)

• Firearms represented 27.3% of all known weapons used in aggravated assaults. Of all victims of aggravated assault, 63.7% had some type of injury. (Page 47)

• There was a total value loss of $86,025,726 related to 9,801 completed motor vehicle offenses. (Page 61)

• There were 135,409 Group A arrests reported by the contributing agencies and 147,578 Group B arrests reported. (Pages 74 & 75)

• There were 1,654 assaults on officers reported in Virginia. Just over one-quarter (28.1%) involved some type of injury to the officer. (Page 56)

• Of the 202 hate crime offenses reported, 40.6% of these were assault offenses and 46.0% were vandalism/damage of property offenses. (Page 52)

Clearance Rates:

This report no longer contains clearance rates. The IBR system does not accurately reflect the volume of clearances each department produces in a given year. Additionally, the number of arrests in a jurisdiction does not provide precise offense clearance information in that one person arrested could clear multiple offenses.