The Virginia State Police publish an annual report on Crime in Virginia. They count the "Type A" offense reports by police unit:
Arson Assault Bribery Burglary Counterfeiting/Forgery Destruction/Damage/Vandalism of Property Drug/Narcotic Offenses Embezzlement Extortion/Blackmail Fraud Offenses Gambling Offenses Homicide Kidnapping/Abduction Larceny/Theft Motor Vehicle Theft Pornography/Obscene Material Prostitution Offenses Robbery Sex Offenses, Forcible & Nonforcible Stolen Property Offenses Weapon Law Violations These data have their peculiarities. The VSP reports the number of offense reports, not offenses reported, so some of the count includes multiple offenses. They also report the numbers by police agency. Thus, there is an entry both for the Farmville Police and the Prince Edward Sheriff, despite their overlap in the Town. They also list incidents reported to the State Police; for example, the Richmond Police Department shows 21,761 incident reports and the State Police show 129 in Richmond. The report also includes data for the colleges, the Capitol Police, and state agencies such as the ABC Board. Finally, the small jurisdictions produce some weird statistics because even a small variation can produce a large change in the crime rate.
I produced the data below by leaving out the State Police and State agency numbers. I also left out the jurisdictions with populations <10,000, both because the small numbers can fluctuate widely and because the State Police contribution can be significant.
Here, then, are the 2010 data (pdf), expressed as Type A offense reports per 100,000 population vs. population.[1]
Richmond is the gold square. The red diamonds, from the left, are the peer jurisdictions of Hampton, Newport News, and Norfolk.
There is no particular reason to expect these data to fit a straight line but Excel is happy to fit one, as you see. The slope suggests that the rate (per hundred thousand population) increases by about 2,400 for a population increase of 1,000,000. The R2, however, tells us that population explains only about 1% of the variance in the crime rate, i.e., I wasted computer power to fit the line.
Here are the data for the "leaders." Among the jurisdictions with populations >10,000, we are eighth in the state.
Agency Pop'n Total Rate /100K ROANOKE CITY POLICE DEPAR 97032 13339 13747 DANVILLE POLICE DEPARTMEN 43055 5381 12498 PORTSMOUTH LAW ENFORCEMEN 95535 11440 11975 HOPEWELL POLICE DEPARTMEN 22591 2625 11620 PETERSBURG BUREAU OF POLI 32420 3526 10876 FREDERICKSBURG POLICE DEP 24286 2636 10854 NORFOLK POLICE DEPARTMENT 242803 25957 10691 RICHMOND POLICE DEPARTMEN 204214 21761 10656 WINCHESTER POLICE DEPARTM 26203 2522 9625 COLONIAL HEIGHTS POLICE D 17411 1663 9551 (Blame the cut off words on the VSP database that appears to truncate at 25 characters)
Here are the data for the largest jurisdictions and the State (The State datum is a grand total of reports, including those to the State Police, colleges, state agencies, and jurisdictions with populations < 10K)
Agency Total Rate /100K FAIRFAX COUNTY POLICE DEP 1,042,747 3380 VIRGINIA BEACH POLICE DEP 437,994 6240 PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY POL 393,845 4283 CHESTERFIELD COUNTY POLIC 316,236 5409 HENRICO PD 306,935 5049 LOUDOUN COUNTY SHERIFF'S 261,295 2758 NORFOLK POLICE DEPARTMENT 242,803 10691 CHESAPEAKE POLICE DEPARTM 222,209 7222 ARLINGTON COUNTY POLICE 207,627 4037 RICHMOND POLICE DEPARTMEN 204,214 10656 NEWPORT NEWS PD 180,719 9428 ALEXANDRIA POLICE DEPARTM 139,966 4621 HAMPTON POLICE DIVISION 137,436 8093 STAFFORD COUNTY SHERIFF'S 128,961 3968 SPOTSYLVANIA COUNTY SO ( 122,397 4754 State 8,001,024 5363 Despite an almost 32% improvement since 2001, the 2010 Richmond rate remains 1.99 times the statewide average:
Viewed another way, Richmond's 2010 rate of 10,656 per 100,000 is equivalent to 10.6 incidents reported per 100 population.
The Type A total is driven by the property crime numbers: Typically, the larceny, vandalism, and motor vehicle theft numbers will account for 2/3 of the Type A total. To see how violent and drug crime is doing, we have to look underneath the totals.
When we do that, we see that the rate of simple assaults and aggravated assaults both remained nearly flat.
Note: This graph and those immediately below report the raw counts of offenses reported in Richmond, not the count per 100K. Throughout this period, the Richmond population has been near 200,000, with very little change, so you can get close to the rates per 100K by dividing these numbers by two.
The drug count continued a recent decline; robbery continued a long downward trend, and weapon law counts reversed a long rise.
The "other" (non forcible) sex crimes, kidnapping, rape, and murder rates all increased slightly, ending recent decreases. Arson dropped a bit. The decreases from the early 2000's are remarkably.
For a list of the hot blocks in Richmond see this page. And see this page for data showing a nice improvement in Forest Hill.
Much of Richmond's plethora of crime is drug-related.
To complement the crime rate, our schools are among the worst in the state and our public housing agency maintains a sanctuary for crime on its property. To support all this dysfunction, we pay some of the highest taxes in the state. Go figure.
[1] Mr. Westerberg of the State Police kindly furnished a copy of the data as an Excel spreadsheet so I didn't have to copy the numbers out of the PDF file on the web.
