Crime in Portsmouth, Virginia
Major crime in Portsmouth is 2.5 times the U.S. rate per resident: 2.2 times for persons crimes and 2.6 times for property crimes. Expected major crimes are up 4.9% from a year earlier.
Modeled estimates per resident, not counts of incidents. How we calculated this
Index: crimes per resident compared with the U.S., where 100 is the U.S. rate and 200 is twice it.
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Murder stands out most, at 4.8 times the U.S. rate
Expected crimes per year in Portsmouth for each type, and the index against the U.S. rate per resident.
Citywide indexWhere the middle half of residents live
Property crimes
Social disorder
How crime varies across Portsmouth
The middle half of Portsmouth residents live in neighborhoods with a major-crime index between 125 and 276; the typical (median) resident's is 188. The citywide figure (250) is higher than that because crime concentrates in a smaller set of areas.
- 0–502.4%
- 50–10017.1%
- 100–20032.5%
- 200–40037.5%
- 400+10.5%
Share of residents by the index of their census block group, a neighborhood of roughly 600 to 3,000 people.
Highest on weeknights
Major-crime index by time of week, against the U.S. rate for the same hours.
Major crime rose 4.9% in a year; across Virginia it fell 8.5%
Change in expected crimes, with Virginia as a whole in gray. The past year uses the reporting agencies' year-to-date FBI data; 2031 is the model's projection.
Portsmouth against U.S. places with 50,000 to 100,000 residents
10 of the 540 other places of this size have a higher major-crime index than Portsmouth; the middle of the group is 92. The 9 nearest in population:
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; residents in gray.
Portsmouth has a higher major-crime index than all of its 8 nearest neighbors
The 8 nearest cities and towns we cover, by major-crime index. The closest, Norfolk (7 mi), is 6% below Portsmouth's rate.
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; distances between where residents live, in miles.
Questions about crime in Portsmouth
What are the most common crimes in Portsmouth?
By expected count, the most common persons and property crimes are theft from vehicle (about 1,040 a year), other larceny (about 859 a year) and burglary (about 563 a year). Compared with the U.S., murder stands out most: 4.8 times the U.S. rate per resident.
How we calculated this
Each police agency's crimes, as reported to the FBI, are spread across the census block groups it serves using population, jobs, points of interest and, where available, local incident records. Portsmouth's figures add up its 83 block groups. The index compares crimes per resident with the U.S. rate.
- Portsmouth's published incident records inform the estimate for every neighborhood.
- 82.8% of residents live in block groups whose estimate has high confidence (80% interval within about 5x).
- Rates are per resident, so places where many people work or visit but few live, such as downtowns, airports and stadiums, can read high.
- Disorderly conduct and trespassing are modeled, because the FBI records them only through arrests.
- Residents: 96,631. Model updated Oct 20, 2026. Release 2026-2026-10-20-2
Full method and validation·Data sources
CrimeMetric. "Crime in Portsmouth, Virginia." Vorp Labs, model updated Oct 20, 2026. https://crimemetric.com/va/portsmouth
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Major-crime index, U.S. = 100
- Norfolk7 mi234
- Chesapeake7 mi107
- Suffolk12 mi94
- Carrollton13 mi27
- Virginia Beach14 mi85
- Hampton15 mi158
- Smithfield17 mi56
- Bethel Manor19 mi22