Crime statistics are down in Virginia Beach in 2024, with a 15.3% reduction in violent crime and a 9% reduction in property crime compared to this time last year.
Police Chief Paul Neudigate presented the data to the city council Tuesday, touting the department’s teamwork in solving crimes and the city’s investment in technology.
Property crime includes commercial and residential burglary, vehicle theft, theft from vehicles and all other theft.
Although property crime is down overall, there was a 4% increase in all other theft — mostly thefts from big box stores, Neudigate said, and roughly 10% were thefts from Virginia ABC stores. Vape stores were also prime targets for commercial burglary, contributing to a slight increase from the previous year in that category.
The largest drop in property crime was a 30% reduction in motor vehicle theft, down from 597 incidents this time last year to 418.
“A lot of this, we owe thanks to council, because you have invested heavily in technology,” Neudigate said. “Our Flock cameras are directly playing into these results.”
Flock Safety cameras are automatic license plate readers that can track vehicles across city lines. The cameras log photos of vehicles in a national database that Flock subscribers can access. Several Hampton Roads police agencies installed the cameras in the last two years, with over 450 operational in the region. Virginia Beach has 21 of them and plans to install four more, according to the police department.
Neudigate said the cameras have been crucial to tracking vehicles through multiple jurisdictions.
Violent crimes are also down when you look at the overall numbers. Those include homicides, rapes, robberies and aggravated assault.
Robberies are up 4.5%, but other rates declined significantly in the past year. Aggravated assaults are down 19% and rapes are down 23%.
The number of shootings is almost half of what it was a year ago — going from 55 to 29. The total number of shooting victims also followed that trend, going from 67 to 31. And homicides dropped from 22 to 10.
Neudigate compared Virginia Beach’s homicide rate of 5.5 per 100,000 residents to other similarly sized cities in the U.S.
He said Virginia Beach is safer than Oakland, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Miami, Colorado Springs, Raleigh, Omaha, Long Beach and Mesa.
“That’s not by accident. That’s by a lot of teamwork and a lot of folks putting in a lot of effort,” he said.
Produced with assistance from the Public Media Journalists Association Editor Corps funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.
