Lynchburg, VA has a C safety grade (49/100) with a violent crime rate of 357 per 100,000, 1% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
Lynchburg, VA Crime Rate & Safety
At 80,339 residents, Lynchburg 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.
Lynchburg, VA carries a PlainCrime C safety grade with violent crime 1% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Lynchburg, VA shows violent crime at 357.2 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,737.6 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 1% above 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
357.2/100K violent
1737.6/100K property
+1% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for Lynchburg, VA
Comparable rate records
Lynchburg's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the Virginia cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Lynchburg's 357.2 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Charlottesville (359.0), Danville (365.0), Kilmarnock (346.3), Suffolk (371.0). 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
Lynchburg reported a higher violent-crime rate than most comparable Virginia cities
At 357.2 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Lynchburg ranks 27 of 125 — above 98 of the 124 other Virginia cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +89.3% 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 442.9 per 100,000 in 2020 to 357.2 in 2024 (-19.3%). The highest observed value was 442.9 in 2020 and the lowest 340.8 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 17.1% of the 1,683 Part I offenses reported in Lynchburg for 2024, against a median of 10.4% across comparable Virginia cities — a gap of 6.7 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-offense composition
Burglary and vehicle theft carry more of the property total than they do across the cohort
Larceny-theft is 72.9% of reported property offenses in Lynchburg, against a cohort median of 86.7%. The remainder is burglary (168) and motor vehicle theft (210). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Property counts dominate Lynchburg'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.
Lynchburg's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 48.9 Census sq mi, Lynchburg logged 28.5 property and 5.9 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Lynchburg's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (60% of 1,683 offenses; mix index 4,074).
Violent offenses are 17% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (48.9 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
Property rate moved most (2023→2024)
Property Crime Rate
-14.5%
2032.5 → 1737.6/100K
Violent Crime Rate
+4.8%
340.8 → 357.2/100K
Property offenses lead Lynchburg's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs VA
Property Crime
1,396
1737.6
1590.1
Larceny-Theft
1,018
1267.1
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
210
261.4
-
Burglary
168
209.1
-
Arson
4
5
-
Violent Crime
287
357.2
222.8
Aggravated Assault
206
256.4
-
Rape
42
52.3
-
Robbery
30
37.3
-
Murder
9
11.2
-
Lynchburg Crime Trend (2020-2024)
Lynchburg 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
Lynchburg Police Department
Reporting agency for Lynchburg NIBRS-participating
Lynchburg Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Lynchburg's 1,683 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 Lynchburg in population. Their populations run from 43,028 to 103,506, against 80,339 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
Lynchburg at 357.2/100K violent and 1,737.6/100K property - matched below outside Virginia (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
In 2024, Lynchburg reported 287 violent crimes and 1,396 property crimes, for a total of 1,683 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in Lynchburg?
From 2023 to 2024, Lynchburg's violent crime rate increased by 4.8%, and the property crime rate decreased by 14.5%.
What is the most common crime in Lynchburg?
The most common crime type in Lynchburg is larceny-theft, accounting for 60.5% of all reported crimes (1,018 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Lynchburg'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 Lynchburg, VA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.