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. By 2000, all participating agencies were reporting incident based data. As of 2019, we at Department of State Police, procured a new repository system for better quality control and release of crime data throughout the Commonwealth. The results of the new repository system are reflected in the updated layout and reports for this year's Crime In Virginia report.

In the section, "NIBRS Agency Crime Overview," 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 8,535,519 is a 2019 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

2019

Facts At A Glance

• The total number of incidents reported was 375,639. (Page 10)

• The total number of offenses reported was 418,888 and the month of May had the greatest number of offenses reported with 37,150. (Page 9 & 10)

• In the number of reported incidents, there were 434,911 Group A Crimes reported by the contributing agencies. (Page 8)

• Of the 17,993 violent crimes reported, 51% occurred in the residence/home. (Page 53)

• There were 5,854 victims of the 5,510 forcible sex offenses reported by the contributing agencies. (Page 19)

• The total theft of property was $382,523,118 and stolen financial property accounted for a property loss of $137,868,086. (Page 46)

• Firearms represented 32% of all known weapons used in aggravated assaults. Of all victims of aggravated assault, 61.8% had some type of injury. (Page 16)

• There were 128,738 Group A arrests and 145,898 Group B arrests reported by the contributing agencies. (Pages 66 & 67)

• There were 1,939 assaults on officers reported in Virginia. Slightly more than one quarter (27.6%) involved some type of injury to the officer. (Page 76)

• Of the 185 hate crime offenses reported, 62% of these were assault offenses (aggravated assault, simple assault) or vandalism/damage of property offenses. (Page 59)

As of March 19, 2019, the Virginia Department of State Police Uniform Crime Reporting Section updated the crime data repository and added six new crime classifications. Increases or decreases in published information may be because of technical or procedural differences and the additional crime data collections. For example, the addition of 'Animal Cruelty' will yield higher overall crime counts. All data included in this report is as of March 25, 2020.

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. Please contact individual agencies for incident clearance information.