Virginia has released its annual crime statistics, showing a 13% increase in homicides, a seven percent hike in auto thefts but no increase in arrests for drug-related crimes. Sandy Hausman has more on this year’s report.
The analysis of criminal activity in 2015 sheds no light on why there were increases in some areas but not others. It does, however, offer a snapshot of crime in the Commonwealth and reveals some surprising details.
“Drug and narcotic offenses actually showed virtually no increase from 2014,” says Corrine Geller, spokesperson for the state police.
Despite all the talk about a heroin epidemic in Virginia, there were just over 22-hundred arrests related to that drug but nearly 21,000 arrests for marijuana. 152 of those involved people over the age of 60.
Most homicides were committed by people between the ages of 20 and 35, but Geller says that large generation known as the baby boomers was also in evidence.
“Seventeen percent of the homicide victims were 50 years of age or older," Geller says. "About 10% of offenders were 50 years of age and older.”
Thieves made off with more than $275 million in cash and merchandise, but 18% of stolen goods were recovered, and while auto thefts increased by over seven percent in 2015, police got more than half of those stolen vehicles back.