Violent crime is down nationwide, and a recent mid-year report confirms as much. But it’s up in one Virginia city, while the state’s capital is seeing record lows.
The Council on Criminal Justice started their regular crime reporting in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially as crime data was delayed. Now, the report continues to survey cities at regular intervals.
The good news, according to CCJ researcher Ernesto Lopez, is that homicide is down. It was already low, but now it's 18% down over last year. But that’s not the case for every Virginia city.
“We do see that Norfolk is about 36% higher, which is different from what we see in our sample, about 31% lower," Lopez told Radio IQ. "And Richmond is about 33% below, so that’s about in line with what we’re seeing nationwide.”
Ramin Fatehi is the Commonwealth’s Attorney in Norfolk. He said crime comes and goes.
“The police aren’t doing anything differently from last yea. We’re not doing anything different from last year," Fatehi said in a phone interview. "There’s natural variation in these numbers. We cannot control who decides to pull the trigger, who lives or dies after being shot.”
And in Richmond, Michael Hollomon is a Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney. He thinks criminal justice reform started in his office years ago could be linked to Richmond’s drop in crime, but it could also be the proliferation of security cameras in homes, businesses and high crime areas.
“Other people knowing the cameras are in our neighborhoods so, ‘We can’t do this. I’d like to fight this person right now, but I can’t because there’s probably a camera that’s going to capture it,'” Hollomon said of how some would-be criminals could be acting.
Notably, these were just theories from both prosecutors, and Lopez didn’t have concrete evidence to credit one change for the drop in crime either.
