Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis presented the Fairfax County Police Department Crime and Recruiting Data Update during the Board of Supervisors Safety and Security Committee Meeting on Monday, May 20. Davis first compared  2024 vs. 2023 Year-End Crime Data, followed by 2025 vs. 2024 Q-1 (first quarter) Crime Data, and closed with Recruitment and Retention.

Davis said that the Major Cities Chiefs Association tracked the key crime categories, homicides, sex offenses (forcible), aggravated assaults, and robberies, which Davis used in his presentation. According to Davis, the association has been "measuring crime data in large cities and counties across America for decades.” The 2024 crime data suggests that most offenses experienced reductions compared to the 2023 levels; however, there are still areas of concern.

Homicides dropped from 17 in 2023 to 14 in 2024. "The only acceptable number is zero," Davis said. He highlighted the 100 percent closure rate for homicide investigations in 2024. However, 41 percent of homicides were domestic-related or involved perpetrators and victims who knew each other. 

Forcible sex offenses decreased by 16 percent in 2024, to 313 compared to 373 in 2023. Aggravated assaults saw a modest reduction of 4.2 percent in 2024, 616 compared to 643. An area of concern in 2024 that became evident to Davis is that the department saw a slight increase in robberies, up 1.1 percent.

Commercial burglaries decreased by 10.6 percent, to 152 in 2024 from 170 in 2023. Davis said the number of residential burglaries fell by 22.2 percent in 2024. The number of motor vehicle thefts decreased by 19.7 percent in 2024, to 977, compared to 1216 in 2023. Davis noted that vehicle fatalities decreased from 14 to 7 in 2024.

“Jurisdictions across the country would dream of having the statistics that we're looking at here. And I think that's why it's clear we're the safest of our size. And we can't say that enough times," Jeff McKay, (D) chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, said.

Shoplifting increased 17.7 percent in 2024 to 9,615 incidents, compared to 8,169 in 2023. This occurred across all patrol districts except McLean/Tysons.  

Davis said that shoplifting decreased in the McLean district by nearly 20 percent due to several factors: the work by the Tysons Urban Team (TUT); an authentic partnership with Macerich Company, the landlord of Tysons; a ring of flex safety cameras surrounding the ingress and egress at Tysons, and a hyper-focus on organized retail crime.

Davis noted that they have had some successes in identifying and making arrests related to organized retail crime in the Tysons area. The urban team model puts police officers in the area, creating a community policing approach with permanent officers assigned to the district who become familiar with the area and its businesses.

First Quarter 2025 trends indicate a continued reduction in homicides, sex offenses, aggravated assaults, and robberies; shoplifting remained flat after three years of increases. Davis said, "Our year-to-date pedestrian fatalities currently stand at three, which is the same as last year's total of three."

Davis emphasized that these statistics reinforce Fairfax County's status as the "largest, safest jurisdiction in America," highlighting the department's proactive approach to crime prevention and law enforcement.

Discussing police officer recruitment, Davis said police officer applications increased significantly in 2024, with 2,496 total applications, leading to 140 new police officers hired, a net gain of 18 officers. 

2024 saw key improvements in the hiring process, making it more efficient. The hiring time was reduced from 11.1 months to 5.7 months. Davis noted that since 2022, 375 hiring incentive bonuses have been distributed. Davis said that the recruiting data update for 2024 reflected the department’s focus on becoming more efficient in the hiring process. 

Diversity matters in the department. Metrics reveal that women make up 20 percent of the police department, up from 16 percent in 2021; several recruits are multilingual, and a high percentage of recruits have college degrees, according to Davis. Future staffing projections foresee reaching 95 percent by 2028 and 100 percent by 2030. This is partly due to increasing police academy classes from three to four yearly.

Davis said the recruitment challenge is that out of 2,496 applications, only 140 became police officers. Supervisor Lusk sought clarification on the large gap between police applications and hires. 

Davis emphasized that disqualification factors included issues with applicant truthfulness during background checks. He noted that the background, check detectives try to encourage applicants to be honest, telling them, "It's okay to answer truthfully because normally we can work through that." Davis said the department does not want to unnecessarily penalize someone for something that happened when they were young. Still, honesty is crucial in the hiring process.

Police officers charge people with crimes and can use deadly force. “So we don't want anyone with a truthfulness issue, but we also don't want people unnecessarily trying to mitigate something that happened when they were 15 years old," Davis said.