Suffolk, VA has a C safety grade (49/100) with a violent crime rate of 371 per 100,000, 5% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
Suffolk, VA Crime Rate & Safety
At 103,506 residents, Suffolk 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.
Suffolk, VA is higher-crime than most U.S. cities, and earns a C PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 5% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Suffolk, VA shows violent crime at 371 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,570.9 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 5% 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
371/100K violent
1570.9/100K property
+5% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for Suffolk, VA
Comparable rate records
Suffolk's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the Virginia cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Suffolk's 371.0 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Danville (365.0), Hopewell (380.9), Charlottesville (359.0), Lynchburg (357.2). 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
Suffolk reported a higher violent-crime rate than most comparable Virginia cities
At 371.0 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Suffolk ranks 24 of 125 — above 101 of the 124 other Virginia cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +96.6% 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.
Offense mix
Violent offenses make up an unusually large share of the reported mix
Violent offenses are 19.1% of the 2,010 Part I offenses reported in Suffolk for 2024, against a median of 10.4% across comparable Virginia cities — a gap of 8.7 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.
2020–2024 direction
The reported violent-crime rate ended the window lower
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 398.4 per 100,000 in 2020 to 371.0 in 2024 (-6.9%). The highest observed value was 550.7 in 2023 and the lowest 371.0 in 2024. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Suffolk'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.
Suffolk's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 399.2 Census sq mi, Suffolk logged 4.1 property and 1 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Suffolk's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (70% of 2,010 offenses; mix index 5,203).
Violent offenses are 19% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (399.2 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
-32.6%
550.7 → 371/100K
Property Crime Rate
-5.3%
1659.1 → 1570.9/100K
Property offenses lead Suffolk's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs US avg
Property Crime
1,626
1570.9
1711
Larceny-Theft
1,409
1361.3
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
127
122.7
-
Burglary
90
87
-
Arson
11
10.6
-
Violent Crime
384
371
352
Aggravated Assault
299
288.9
-
Robbery
42
40.6
-
Rape
32
30.9
-
Murder
11
10.6
-
Suffolk Crime Trend (2020-2024)
Suffolk 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
Suffolk Police Department
Reporting agency for Suffolk NIBRS-participating
Suffolk Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Suffolk's 2,010 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 Suffolk in population. Their populations run from 45,734 to 155,153, against 103,506 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
In 2024, Suffolk reported 384 violent crimes and 1,626 property crimes, for a total of 2,010 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in Suffolk?
From 2023 to 2024, Suffolk's violent crime rate decreased by 32.6%, and the property crime rate decreased by 5.3%.
What is the most common crime in Suffolk?
The most common crime type in Suffolk is larceny-theft, accounting for 70.1% of all reported crimes (1,409 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Suffolk'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 Suffolk, VA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.