Buena Vista, VA has a A+ safety grade (93/100) with a violent crime rate of 46 per 100,000, 87% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · small city
Buena Vista is a small municipal reporter (6,598 on the UCR row). Per-100,000 violent and property rates are shown with VA and U.S. context.
Data updated 2026-09-05
Buena Vista, VA is among the safest cities in the country, and earns an A+ PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 87% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Buena Vista, VA shows violent crime at 45.5 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 333.4 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 87% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade A+ from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
Small-count caution
Buena Vista reported 3 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 6,598. 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 Buena Vista's 45.5 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Broadway (45.8), Stephens City (46.6), Luray (41.4), Berryville (41.2). 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 45.5 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Buena Vista ranks 107 of 125 — above 18 of the 124 other Virginia cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -76.1% against the cohort median of 189.9. 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 61.9 per 100,000 in 2020 to 45.5 in 2024 (-26.6%). The highest observed value was 172.6 in 2021 and the lowest 45.5 in 2024. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Buena Vista'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 3 reported violent incidents in a population of 6,598. 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 6.4 Census sq mi, Buena Vista logged 3.4 property and 0.5 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Buena Vista's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (80% of 25 offenses; mix index 6,608).
Violent offenses are only 12% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Buena Vista offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (6.4 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 | 22 | 333.4 |
| Larceny-Theft | 20 | 303.1 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 2 | 30.3 |
| Burglary | 0 | 0 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 3 | 45.5 |
| Aggravated Assault | 3 | 45.5 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Rape | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 0 | 0 |
Lead series · rose across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 6,459 | 61.9 | 247.7 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 6,374 | 172.6 | 658.9 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 6,605 | 151.4 | 772.1 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 6,581 | 121.6 | 334.3 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 6,598 | 45.5 | 333.4 |
Buena Vista Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Buena Vista's 25 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 Buena Vista in population. Their populations run from 5,576 to 7,477, against 6,598 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Buena Vista sits at 45.5/100K violent (grade A+); the Virginia cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
In 2024, Buena Vista reported 3 violent crimes and 22 property crimes, for a total of 25 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Buena Vista's violent crime rate decreased by 62.6%, and the property crime rate decreased by 0.3%.
The most common crime type in Buena Vista is larceny-theft, accounting for 80.0% of all reported crimes (20 incidents in 2024).
Small-city read: Buena Vista 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 Buena Vista's small city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Buena Vista, VA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Buena Vista, 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. Buena Vista is scored as a small-city UCR reporter (6,598 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.