Crime Statistics

According to online data, reports, and personal experiences, Portsmouth, VA is considerably high in crimes. Portsmouth 2018 had a crime rate well over 200% higher than the average of Virginia, and well over 100% higher than the national average. Its rated as a 1 in 17 chance of being a victim of a crime. In just one week 147 arrest charges in the city, ranging between illegal trash dumping, child rape, many many larceny's, a few robberies,over half a dozen assaults, illegal gambling, felons with firearms, gang participation. Surprisingly for that week there was only one drug arrest and that was for marijuana, however the person with it also had a gun and was already a convicted felon. On a travel advisory the city of Portsmouth has a safety rating of 2 out of 100 with 100 being the safest. Poverty within the city seems to have slightly dropped for 2019 but is still just over 17% which is still 6% higher than the national poverty rate. As many residence are aware, the LEO response for property crime at times may take a while, some more than 12 hours. Prioritizing calls is necessary, from what I have noticed following court cases many of the higher prioritized calls end up being repeat offenders. I have also noticed, often with repeat offenders the court end result is "nolle prosequi" . For example, this (un-named individual) who was arrested in the fall of 2020 for fleeing after a physical assault has 33 prior arrests in just the city of Portsmouth since 2000. These arrest range from many firearm, and assault arrest, drug manufacturing, robbery, larceny, multiple hit and runs and fleeing law enforcement. Most of these ended in dismissed or nolle prosequi. The convictions compared to arrest records show less than 20% of a short incarceration sentence was served by this individual before being released. This is not uncommon within this cities justice system, its in the thousands. The incarceration capacity for city jail at 288 combined with the expensive 250 obligation to HRRJ ( approx. $5.5 million per year) gives a 538 capacity.

Vehicle Theft

In Virginia according to reported data, there seems to be around 10,000 vehicles stolen every year in the state. Thats about 1 every hour. While as far as stolen car reports nationwide, Virginia isn't even within the top 20. While that may sound like a small relief, today with 12 hours of monitoring activity in Portsmouth, VA I know of 3 stolen vehicles eluding law enforcement. Over an extended period of monitoring activity it seems the most frequent vehicle theft occurs at convenient stores with running vehicles. Vehicle theft from unlocked and running vehicles may be the frequent way of theft for opportunist, there are still many violent carjackings. One vehicle theft that I know of which happened in the city of Portsmouth this year involved an armed home invasion, while another from a few years back involved teens approached in a parking lot by an armed carjacker resulting in a violent abduction. If only there were a way to locate you vehicle if this were to happen increasing the chances of capturing the person committing these acts.