RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — There are nearly 1,800 registered sex offenders who live, work or go to school in the City of Richmond — but it still isn’t the community with the most registered sex offenders per capita in Central Virginia, according to new data from Virginia State Police.
Following a recent report stating that the City of Richmond has the highest rate of registered sex offenders per capita among over 430 total major cities surveyed, 8News investigated more local cities and counties to learn how many registered sex offenders are in the Richmond region and some surrounding localities.
As the 8News team looked into this topic, multiple issues were discovered in how Virginia’s sex offender registry returns information to users. Because of this, all of the data used below was directly acquired from Virginia State Police’s Sex Offender Unit to ensure accuracy.
Data on registered sex offenders from state police
By using State Police data and the most recent U.S. Census data on estimated population, 8News calculated the total number of registered sex offenders per capita in several localities in Virginia.
The data provided by Virginia State Police represents where registered sex offenders live, work and go to school and because of this, individuals could be counted more than once.
According to that data, the City of Petersburg has the most registered sex offenders per capita. In Petersburg, one out of every 126 people who live, work or go to school in the city is reportedly a registered sex offender.
The City of Richmond is not far behind, with one out of 130 of Richmond’s residents, workers or students registered as a sex offender.
Registered Sex Offenders Per Capita in Virginia Localities
| Locality | Registered Sex Offenders * | Estimated Population, 2022 | Registered Sex Offenders Per Person |
| Petersburg | 265 | 33,394 | 1 in 126 |
| Richmond | 1,771 | 229,395 | 1 in 130 |
| Roanoke | 707 | 97,847 | 1 in 138 |
| Hopewell | 141 | 22,962 | 1 in 163 |
| Charlottesville | 213 | 45,373 | 1 in 213 |
| Norfolk | 970 | 232,995 | 1 in 240 |
| Newport News | 751 | 184,306 | 1 in 245 |
| Colonial Heights | 68 | 18,294 | 1 in 269 |
| Alexandria | 324 | 155,525 | 1 in 480 |
| Virginia Beach | 834 | 455,618 | 1 in 546 |
| Henrico County | 611 | 334,553 | 1 in 548 |
| Hanover County | 184 | 112,860 | 1 in 613 |
| Chesterfield County | 522 | 378,290 | 1 in 725 |
Data: Virginia State Police (April 17 and 18, 2024), U.S. Census Bureau.
More on per capita rates and how Virginia stacks up
While the City of Richmond has the highest total number of registered sex offenders within the localities investigated by 8News, Petersburg has the highest rate of registered sex offenders due to its substantially smaller total population.
Three Central Virginia cities — Petersburg, Richmond and Hopewell — have higher totals per capita than Norfolk and Newport News.
In addition, the locality 8News examined with both the lowest population and the lowest total number of registered sex offenders — the city of Colonial Heights — still has a significantly higher rate of sex offenders per capita than two larger metropolitan areas, Alexandria and Virginia Beach.
In looking into these Virginia localities, 8News also considered two nearby Maryland cities to see how Virginia compared.
According to data provided by Maryland’s sex offender registry, and using the same 2022 population estimates, the city of Baltimore has just under 100 fewer registered sex offenders than Richmond does. However, with more than double Richmond’s total population, its registered sex offenders per capita is 1 in 338.
The Maryland city of Annapolis has a similar population to Petersburg, but reportedly has about half as many registered sex offenders — meaning its registered sex offenders per capita comes out at 1 in 402.
8News also reached out to Washington, D.C. to get its total number of registered sex offenders. According to a spokesperson, there are 1,228 registered sex offenders who live, work or go to school in the District.
With its large population of nearly 675,000, this means 1 in 546 of the District’s per capita residents, workers and students are a registered sex offender — a much larger margin than any of the cities mentioned above.
What 8News learned about Virginia’s sex offender registry
While researching this topic, the 8News team uncovered multiple errors within the Virginia State Police’s sex offender registry and how it displays data.
According to a spokesperson for State Police, the department transitioned to a new system on Nov. 1, 2023. This system had an issue with how it populated sex offender results — reportedly automatically including incarcerated offenders within its totals.
At the time of 8News’ initial inquiry, the database indicated that Richmond had over 7,000 registered sex offenders. However, the vast majority of them — roughly 6,000 — were incarcerated.
This issue of adding incarcerated offenders into totals affected more than just Richmond’s results, according to the spokesperson.
“We were unaware of this issue until it was brought to light yesterday by [8News],” the spokesperson said in an April 11 email. “The logic would have affected other areas, specifically, anyone in the state that searched for a total number would have also included the incarcerated offenders if there was a prison in that area.”
This issue was immediately corrected, according to the spokesperson, who said a checkbox can now be ticked to filter out incarcerated offenders.
Further issues were found as 8News’ investigation continued.
Within Virginia’s sex offender registry, there are “County” and “City” fields for each offender indicating related addresses, such as homes or workplaces. 8News found that, depending on which field a query was entered into, the total number of sex offenders returned to any user could vary significantly.
For example, an 8News producer entered “Chesterfield” into the “City” field and was told the area had 92 total registered sex offenders. The same search with “Chesterfield” in the “County” field returned 122.
In some instances, the “City” and “County” fields are completed, and in others, they are not. When searching the database, neither field on its own returned reliable results.
Some registered sex offenders will appear in multiple searches because Virginia State Police account for where individuals live, work and go to school. While this is by design, it does mean totals contain duplicated results.
However, 8News did identify some unintended duplications. Chesterfield and Henrico counties introduce an issue to the integrity of the data because some addresses in those counties show up through the U.S. Postal Service as being located in Richmond.
For instance, a registered sex offender could have a Richmond mailing address but live in Chesterfield or Henrico neighborhoods that border the city. This creates inaccurate results for those areas, and at the time of this report, there is no way to determine the number of people whose addresses are affected.
These concerns led 8News to have the state’s Sex Offender Unit provide all data used in this investigation directly, rather than using numbers from the database itself.
On April 17, the spokesperson for Virginia State Police provided 8News with an email they received from the Sex Offender Unit. In this email, the Sex Offender Unit acknowledged the above issues.
“Lexis Nexis (VSP’s vendor) is aware of both issues raised by Channel 8,” the Unit said in the email. “They have developed a solution and are in the process of implementing those changes to the VSOMS [Virginia Sex Offender Management System] system.”
The Unit said these changes could take time, as they need to be both put into place and tested.
