Harrisonburg, VA has a C safety grade (59/100) with a violent crime rate of 267 per 100,000, 24% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
Harrisonburg, VA Crime Rate & Safety
At 51,270 residents, Harrisonburg is a large city: FBI UCR Table 8 rates (per 100,000) here are read against VA and U.S. averages before the offense-family breakdown.
Harrisonburg, VA is higher-crime than most U.S. cities, and earns a C PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 24% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Harrisonburg, VA shows violent crime at 267.2 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,693 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 24% 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
267.2/100K violent
1693/100K property
-24% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for Harrisonburg, VA
Comparable rate records
Harrisonburg's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the Virginia cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Harrisonburg's 267.2 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Pembroke (266.9), Kenbridge (268.6), Grottoes (264.1), Altavista (271.4). 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
Harrisonburg sits mid-pack among comparable Virginia cities
At 267.2 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Harrisonburg ranks 40 of 125 — above 85 of the 124 other Virginia cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +41.6% 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 higher
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 226.4 per 100,000 in 2020 to 267.2 in 2024 (+18.0%). The highest observed value was 267.2 in 2024 and the lowest 223.8 in 2023. 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 13.6% of the 1,005 Part I offenses reported in Harrisonburg for 2024, against a median of 10.4% across comparable Virginia cities — a gap of 3.3 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 Harrisonburg'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 large city row, these are citywide reported offense totals - not neighbourhood advice. Conditions vary by place and time; reporting rates differ across jurisdictions.
Harrisonburg's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 17.3 Census sq mi, Harrisonburg logged 50.1 property and 7.9 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Harrisonburg's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (75% of 1,005 offenses; mix index 5,813).
Violent offenses are only 14% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (17.3 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
Both rates shifted (2023→2024)
Violent Crime Rate
+19.4%
223.8 → 267.2/100K
Property Crime Rate
-18.2%
2069.6 → 1693/100K
Property offenses lead Harrisonburg's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs VA
Property Crime
868
1693
1590.1
Larceny-Theft
755
1472.6
-
Burglary
69
134.6
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
44
85.8
-
Arson
3
5.9
-
Violent Crime
137
267.2
222.8
Aggravated Assault
97
189.2
-
Rape
29
56.6
-
Robbery
11
21.5
-
Murder
0
0
-
Harrisonburg Crime Trend (2020-2024)
Harrisonburg property crime rate trend
Lead series · rose across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program · split lines are the U.S. national averages
Harrisonburg Police Department
Reporting agency for Harrisonburg NIBRS-participating
Harrisonburg Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Harrisonburg's 1,005 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 Harrisonburg in population. Their populations run from 27,700 to 49,626, against 51,270 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
Harrisonburg at 267.2/100K violent and 1,693/100K property - matched below outside Virginia (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
In 2024, Harrisonburg reported 137 violent crimes and 868 property crimes, for a total of 1,005 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in Harrisonburg?
From 2023 to 2024, Harrisonburg's violent crime rate increased by 19.4%, and the property crime rate decreased by 18.2%.
What is the most common crime in Harrisonburg?
The most common crime type in Harrisonburg is larceny-theft, accounting for 75.1% of all reported crimes (755 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Harrisonburg'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 (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 Harrisonburg, VA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.