After a spike during the pandemic, crime is down significantly across the country and in Virginia.
According to the latest FBI data, violent crime nationwide is down 15% compared to last year. Murder is down 26%, and property crime is down 15%.
"Crimes reported to the police have returned to pre-pandemic levels. So, there was an increase during the pandemic, and that has dropped to the levels that occurred beforehand," says Jay Albanese, a professor of criminal justice at the Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University. "So, it is good news. These are crimes reported to police. Of course, there are some crimes that are not reported to police. But when you talk about things like murder and serious assault, these tend to come to the attention of police."
Here in Virginia, crime spiked in the early 1990s and has been steadily going down ever since. Violent crime, for example, is about one third of what it was at that time. Shawn Weneta at the Humanization Project attributes that decline to criminal justice reform efforts of the last few years.
"The United States and Virginia more specifically is safer than it has ever been, especially when you go back about 30 years or a little over 30 years to the early 1990s when things were exponentially worse," explains Weneta. "We are actually living in a really safe time now.”
He says part of the reason for the historic decline of crime in Virginia is a new criminal justice approach that has fewer sticks and more carrots.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
