Virginia had fewer homicides, but more vehicle thefts and drug arrests, during 2023, according to the annual statewide report released Aug. 20 by Virginia State Police.
The overall violent-crime rate increased in 2023 to 207.5 crimes (per 100,000 population), compared with 203 in 2022. There were 20,824 violent-crime offenses reported last year versus 20,549 in 2022, a 1.3 percent increase.
Crimes in this category include homicide, forcible sex offenses (rape, sodomy and sexual assault with an object), robbery and aggravated assault.
Homicides (murder and non-negligent manslaughter) dropped by 16.3 percent from 621 in 2022 to 520 last year. The murder/non-negligent manslaughter rate decreased from 7.14 per 100,000 people in 2022 to 5.96 in 2023.
Following the usual pattern, both victims and perpetrators of homicide tended to be younger men. According to state police, 40.6 percent of last year’s homicide victims were men between ages 18 and 34, as were 48.8 percent of the known offenders.
Of the homicide victims, 374 were black, 135 white, four Asian and seven of unknown race. The report did not list a category for Hispanics.
Those figures paralleled the races of the offenders, with 402 being black, 174 white, three Asian and 20 of unknown race.
Almost half of all homicides (48.5 percent) occurred at residences, while 209 happened on roads and in parking areas and camps. Thirty-eight homicides occurred in commercial facilities, 11 in governmental or public buildings and three in educational facilities.
Of all known days and times of last year’s homicides, more occurred during nights than in the daytime every day of the week and Sunday nights were the most common, with 66 cases. (The same patterns held true for aggravated assaults.)
Of known weapons reported used in violent crimes last year, firearms were used in 83.3 percent of homicides, 43.1 percent of robberies and 34.4 percent of aggravated assaults.
There were 5,349 forcible-sex offenses last year involving 5,647 victims.
Motor-vehicle thefts and attempted thefts rose 8 percent in 2023, with 15,320 vehicles – representing a total value of $203,165,572 – reported stolen in 14,859 offenses. Authorities recovered 9,113 vehicles last year, some of which may have been stolen before 2023. Thirty-four percent of stolen vehicles were taken from a residence.
Drug arrests in Virginia increased 18 percent last year and the number of arrestees under age 18 increased by 51 percent compared with 2022. Seizures of narcotics grew by 42 percent, with ones for cocaine jumping 43 percent and those for crack cocaine 39 percent.
The number of burglaries dipped by 3.3 percent in 2023. There were 10,860 burglaries and attempted burglaries in 2022, versus 10,501 last year. Apart from a slight increase in 2022, burglaries have trended downward over the last decade, according to the report.
Fraud offenses grew by 2.7 percent compared to 2022. Most of the victims (75.7 percent) were people and 16.4 percent were businesses. Nearly a quarter of fraud victims (24.1 percent) were more than 65 years old.
There were 271 hate-crime incidents last year (up 48.9 percent) involving 275 offenses and 325 victims.
Two-thirds of hate crimes (66.4 percent) were racially or ethnically motivated, the report read. The most significant rises in hate crimes year-over-year involved bias against religion (up 177.8 percent) and against race/ethnicity (up 72.2 percent). Assault offenses (aggravated and simple) and destruction/damage/vandalism of property accounted for 76.3 percent of all reported bias-motivated crimes.
Of the 179 known hate-crimes offenders last year, 146 (82 percent) were male and 33 (18 percent) female. In cases where offenders’ races were known, 121 were white, 43 black and five Asian.
2023 saw 3,243 assaults on law-enforcement officers in Virginia – a rate of nearly nine per day – and officers were injured in 27.6 percent of those cases.
The Virginia State Police’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division collects crime data from participating Virginia state and local police departments and sheriff’s offices using a secured Internet system, then compiles the data into the annual “Crime in Virginia” report, which serves as the commonwealth’s officials crime statistics.
To view that report, go to https://vsp.virginia.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/CRIME-IN-VIRGINIA-2023.pdf.
State officials will transmit the report to the FBI for inclusion in that agency’s annual report, “Crime in the United States,” which is published at https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/home.
