Altavista, VA has a C safety grade (47/100) with a violent crime rate of 271 per 100,000, 23% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · small city
Altavista is a small municipal reporter (3,316 on the UCR row). Per-100,000 violent and property rates are shown with VA and U.S. context.
Data updated 2026-09-05
Altavista, VA is higher-crime than most U.S. cities, and earns a C PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 23% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Altavista, VA shows violent crime at 271.4 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,955.4 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 23% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade C from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
Small-count caution
Altavista reported 9 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 3,316. At this volume one additional or one fewer report moves the per-100,000 rate noticeably, so the figure is better read as a data point than as a precise measurement, and year-to-year swings here are expected.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Altavista's 271.4 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Manassas (274.2), Kenbridge (268.6), Harrisonburg (267.2), Pembroke (266.9). These are same-year agency submissions that pass the same completeness screen, not a claim that the cities have identical conditions. They make the cohort position above checkable against named records instead of a generic state average.
Position in the state cohort
At 271.4 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Altavista ranks 38 of 125 — above 87 of the 124 other Virginia cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +43.8% against the cohort median of 188.7. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 323.4 per 100,000 in 2020 to 271.4 in 2024 (-16.1%). The highest observed value was 323.4 in 2020 and the lowest 175.5 in 2021. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Altavista's FBI UCR Table 8 municipal row. Per-100,000 rates use the reporting-year population on that row; cities that fail the completeness test stay out of rate rankings. A citywide figure rarely describes any single neighbourhood inside the municipal boundary.
Based on 9 reported violent incidents in a population of 3,316. At this volume, one additional or one fewer report can shift the rate and letter grade noticeably; small-city crime counts are inherently more volatile year to year than large-city counts, so treat this grade as a data point, not a precise ranking.
Small-city offense counts above are voluntary UCR submissions, not neighbourhood advice. Year-to-year swings can look large when the population base is modest.
Across 5.4 Census sq mi, Altavista logged 18.3 property and 1.7 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Altavista's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (86% of 107 offenses; mix index 7,473).
Violent offenses are only 8% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Altavista offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (5.4 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
| Offense | Count | Rate /100K |
|---|---|---|
| Property Crime | 98 | 2955.4 |
| Larceny-Theft | 92 | 2774.4 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 5 | 150.8 |
| Burglary | 1 | 30.2 |
| Arson | 1 | 30.2 |
| Violent Crime | 9 | 271.4 |
| Aggravated Assault | 8 | 241.3 |
| Rape | 1 | 30.2 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 0 | 0 |
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 3,401 | 323.4 | 5174.9 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 3,419 | 175.5 | 1842.6 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 3,348 | 298.7 | 2299.9 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 3,307 | 241.9 | 3386.8 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 3,316 | 271.4 | 2955.4 |
Altavista Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Altavista's 107 reported offenses (5-year span 2020-2024).
This agency reports via NIBRS, the incident-based system that captures more detail per offense (multiple crimes per incident, victim/offender data) than the older summary counts.
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the Virginia cities closest to Altavista in population. Their populations run from 3,029 to 3,574, against 3,316 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Altavista sits at 271.4/100K violent (grade C); the Virginia cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
In 2024, Altavista reported 9 violent crimes and 98 property crimes, for a total of 107 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Altavista's violent crime rate increased by 12.2%, and the property crime rate decreased by 12.7%.
The most common crime type in Altavista is larceny-theft, accounting for 86.0% of all reported crimes (92 incidents in 2024).
Small-city read: Altavista is sourced from FBI UCR Table 8 for 2024; rates use that row's population.
Small-city rows use the same per-100,000 formula; a few unreported years can leave gaps in the trend table. Verify the agency's submission on FBI.gov UCR.
Disclaimer (small city): UCR counts here are informational only. They are not a victimization probability. Source: FBI UCR Program.
Small-city rate methodology for how Altavista's small city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Altavista, VA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Altavista, VA FBI UCR record to work: compare peers, open the state atlas, or look up another city.
A citywide UCR rate is a starting point, not a neighbourhood verdict: read the full profile and the year coverage notes before drawing conclusions.
Every figure on PlainCrime is rendered directly from FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) source data, no number is typed in by an editor. Altavista is scored as a small-city UCR reporter (3,316 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.