Chesapeake, VA has a C safety grade (51/100) with a violent crime rate of 339 per 100,000, 4% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · very large city
Chesapeake, VA Crime Rate & Safety
At 257,248 residents, Chesapeake is a very large city: FBI UCR Table 8 rates (per 100,000) here are read against VA and U.S. averages before the offense-family breakdown.
Chesapeake, VA carries a PlainCrime C safety grade with violent crime 4% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Chesapeake, VA shows violent crime at 339.4 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,744.2 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 4% 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.
C safety grade
339.4/100K violent
1744.2/100K property
-4% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for Chesapeake, VA
Comparable rate records
Chesapeake's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the Virginia cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Chesapeake's 339.4 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Richmond (336.9), Victoria (343.1), Front Royal (335.0), Kilmarnock (346.3). 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
Chesapeake reported a higher violent-crime rate than most comparable Virginia cities
At 339.4 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Chesapeake ranks 30 of 125 — above 95 of the 124 other Virginia cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +79.8% 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
The reported violent-crime rate ended the window lower
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 421.7 per 100,000 in 2020 to 339.4 in 2024 (-19.5%). The highest observed value was 469.5 in 2021 and the lowest 339.4 in 2024. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Offense mix
Violent offenses make up an unusually large share of the reported mix
Violent offenses are 16.3% of the 5,360 Part I offenses reported in Chesapeake for 2024, against a median of 10.4% across comparable Virginia cities — a gap of 5.9 points. Offense mix is shaped by which agencies report and how incidents are classified as well as by the underlying offenses, so it describes the reported record rather than a settled difference in conditions.
Property counts dominate Chesapeake'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.
On a very large city row, these are citywide reported offense totals - not neighbourhood advice. Conditions vary by place and time; reporting rates differ across jurisdictions.
Chesapeake's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 338.5 Census sq mi, Chesapeake logged 13.3 property and 2.6 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Chesapeake's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (69% of 5,360 offenses; mix index 5,097).
Violent offenses are 16% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (338.5 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
Violent rate moved most (2023→2024)
Violent Crime Rate
-19.9%
423.5 → 339.4/100K
Property Crime Rate
-6%
1855.1 → 1744.2/100K
Property offenses lead Chesapeake's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs VA
Property Crime
4,487
1744.2
1590.1
Larceny-Theft
3,721
1446.5
-
Burglary
476
185
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
290
112.7
-
Arson
10
3.9
-
Violent Crime
873
339.4
222.8
Aggravated Assault
686
266.7
-
Robbery
115
44.7
-
Rape
60
23.3
-
Murder
12
4.7
-
Chesapeake Crime Trend (2020-2024)
Chesapeake property crime rate trend
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program · split lines are the U.S. national averages
Chesapeake Police Department
Reporting agency for Chesapeake NIBRS-participating
Chesapeake Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Chesapeake's 5,360 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.
Similar-Size Cities in Virginia
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the Virginia cities closest to Chesapeake in population. Their populations run from 97,027 to 231,805, against 257,248 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
Chesapeake at 339.4/100K violent and 1,744.2/100K property - matched below outside Virginia (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
In 2024, Chesapeake reported 873 violent crimes and 4,487 property crimes, for a total of 5,360 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in Chesapeake?
From 2023 to 2024, Chesapeake's violent crime rate decreased by 19.9%, and the property crime rate decreased by 6%.
What is the most common crime in Chesapeake?
The most common crime type in Chesapeake is larceny-theft, accounting for 69.4% of all reported crimes (3,721 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Chesapeake's rates come from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, CIUS Table 8, vintage 2024.
Incomplete reporters stay out of rate rankings. Cross-check population with Census ACS; state UCR programs for statewide context. Primary verify links: FBI.gov UCR, Census QuickFacts.
Disclaimer (very large city): informational crime rates only - not legal, insurance, or personal-safety advice. Source: FBI UCR. Ask a qualified professional before acting.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Chesapeake, VA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.